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Chapter Sixteen: The Causes of War: Structural Accounts
This chapter explores a set of necessary conditions for war in general, and then proceeds to examine two theories about the particular circumstances under which war should occur. Neorealism's hypotheses about the balance of power and essential states are, in general, soundly rejected even by its own standards of testing. Power transition theory, which argues that system-transforming war is most likely when a challenger from the dissatisfied coalition approaches power parity with the hegemon, appears somewhat stronger when compared to the historical record. It too, though, suffers from several weaknesses in the links between its assumptions and its hypotheses and in its ability to account for the entire empirical record.
- What are the two structural theories of war? How do they differ? More precisely, what is the difference in their predictions about the expected power (or capabilities) of the two antagonists when war breaks out?
- What is the critical assumption in Waltz's argument that bipolar systems are more stable than multipolar systems?
- The (neo)realist-based approach to explaining war often relies on perceptions of power or capabilities in its explanations of balance. If this is to be a structural theory of interstate war, how do structural theorists justify using perceptions, which are an individual-level factor, in the explanation? Is “dissatisfaction,” in the (neo)liberal variant, a structural factor? (Review the relevant parts of Chapter 4 if needed.)
- Can structural theories of war be used to explain all wars? Or do they explain only a limited class of wars? Does either theory do a good job of explaining the 2003 United States-Iraq war?
- How has the first principle of wing-walking been applied to this line of study?
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