PSC 116 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Natural Selection
Document Summary
Territorial rivalries are the most war-prone dyads in the int"l system (example: india-pakistan: territorial disputes were the primary cause 54% of all interstate wars since 1816. Territorial conflicts are more severe than other forms of conflict (rise in battle deaths and duration) Human aggression: war is a form of aggression (hard-wired, natural selection favored aggression, cannot explain variation in conflict. Individual leaders: personalities (i. e. aggressive, ambitious, irrational calculations, psychologically driven misperception. Primary cause of war: distribution of power, territory, rivalry. Factors for peace: democracy, economic interdependence, international organizations. Wars within states (civil conflicts: often have significant international consequences, outside intervention by governments, outflow of refugees, int"l trade of natural resources and weapons, cross-border insurgency groups. The number of internal wars has increased dramatically since. Wwi: from 1946-99, 127 internal wars, over 16 million deaths, examples: former yugoslavia, rwanda, sudan (darfur, more common than interstate conflicts.
