What Causes war? C h. 1 : T e r m i n o l o g y & Methodology Notes by Denis Bašić
What is called wisdom is concerned with primary causes. Aristotle
The Scientific Method: Theory Theories in the social sciences are essentially explanations concerning the causes of human behavior. Theories of war consist of explanations about what causes war and why this cause-and-effect relationship exists. Types of theories: Normative theory deals with how things ought to be. They deal with ethics and morals and value judgments. They are concerned with questions about what is right and wrong, what behaviors are morally acceptable or unacceptable. Can wars be just? Empirical theories - also known as causal theories - deal not with how things ought to be but why things are the way they are. They are concerned with what causes certain behaviors and outcomes. The goal of empirical theory is the explanation of behavior - in this case, war.
Developing Theories Theories may be constructed in three different ways: through induction, deduction, or a combination of the two. In induction the analyst constructs the theory on the basis of observation of the facts (or data), working from the specific to the general. As the investigator learn s more about specific wars. and as hypotheses are tested, theories are constructed and refined. In deduction the theory is constructed on the basis of logical reasoning, usually prior to the investigation of the relevant facts. This probably involves deducing the theory of war from a more comprehensive, general theory about international relations or politics.
Theory vs. Hypothesis A theory is a well-established principle that has been developed to explain some aspect of the natural world. A theory arises from repeated observation and testing and incorporates facts, laws, predictions, and tested hypotheses that are widely accepted. A hypothesis is a specific, testable prediction about what we expect to happen in a study. Hence, hypotheses are unproved propositions. While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in everyday use, the difference between a theory and a hypothesis is important in a scholarly interaction. Some important distinctions to note include: A theory predicts events in general terms, while a hypothesis makes a specific prediction about a specified set of circumstances. A theory has been extensively tested and is generally accepted, while a hypothesis is a speculative guess that has yet to be tested.
Forms of Hypotheses Hypotheses may take several forms. They may, for instance, be universal (absolute), probabilistic, or variational. Let's look at some examples. Drawing either inductively from our knowledge of the past or deductively from our understanding of democratic theory (or both), we may wish to hypothesize that there is a causal link between democratic states and peace and conversely between non-democratic states and war. Thus, the hypothesis all democratic nations are peaceful is in universal form. The hypothesis democracies tend to be peaceful is in probabilistic form. The hypothesis the more democratic the state, the less war it should experience in variational form.
Defining Concepts Each theory of war identifies concepts or factors that are deemed important to the understanding of the cause of war. Concepts are terms or words that identify general classes of things or ideas. War itself is a concept; so are tanks, decision-makers, diplomats, perceptions, arms races, mobilizations, and alliances. Specific persons or things are not concepts: though presidents and wars are concepts, President Bush and World War II are not. These terms refer to particular and specific persons and things rather than to a general class of phenomena. For purposes of research, concepts must be given operational definitions; they must be defined in terms of something that is directly observable and measurable. For concepts that are directly observable, such as tanks, diplomats, mobilizations, and wars, this poses few problems. Other concepts, however, are more abstract and are not directly observable. For instance, the concepts of power, status, deterrence, hegemony, democracy, and liberalism are not directly visible and observable. The construction of operational definitions for these concepts is a little trickier.
The Concept of National Power / Capability Some concepts, like national capability are best defined through the use of more than one indicator: 1. Geographic size - as measured in square miles 2. Population size - as measured by numbers of citizens 3. Technological development - as measured by yearly iron and steel production and/or energy consumption. 4. Military strength - as measured by number of men in armed forces and/or annual defense spending 5. Political stability - as measured by the number of months since the last unconstitutional change of regime
The Concept of Democracy Likewise, the concept of democracy might be operationalized by constructing a scale of the degree of democracy present in a country based on such indicators as: 1. The degree of press freedom; 2. The degree of freedom of opposition; 3. The degree of electoral freedom; 4. The degree of individual freedom; 5. The absence of a role for the military in the political process.
The Concept of Interstate War How is interstate war different from border skirmishes, independence wars, or conflicts, for instance? In collecting data on international wars between 1816 and 1980 for the Correlates of War (COW) project, David Singer and Melvin Small operationally define interstate war in the following way interstate war is a conflict involving at least one member of the interstate system on each side and in which the battleconnected deaths of all combatants together surpass 1,000. This has become the standard operational definition of interstate war.
Severity, Magnitude, & Intensity of War According to Singer and Small definitions: severity of a war is measured by the total number of battle-connected deaths suffered by all participants in the war combined; magnitude of a war is measured by the combined number of months each nation spent at war; and intensity of a war is indicated by the number of battle deaths per nation-month.
Scientific Law = Confirmed Hypothesis If a hypothesis is confirmed repeatedly by different observers using different tests, then it achieves the status of a law or generalization. Laws are confirmed hypotheses that state a relationship between two variables. Laws may be universal (all democracy are peaceful) or probabilistic (democracies tend to be peaceful), like the hypotheses on which they are based. However, laws only state that there is an association between two (or more) variables. They do not explain why that association exists. Theories are needed to provide this explanation.
Theories, Variables, & How to Test Theories In the social sciences it is likely that no theory can ever be conclusively proven true. But, social theories can be proven false, which usually happens due to a great many variables (abstract concepts) that have to be taken into consideration. Variables are things that vary = concepts that can take different values. The major goal of theory is to explain variation. For instance, why do some states experience more wars (or wars of greater severity) than other states? Without variation there is nothing to explain. If, for instance, all states were equally warlike and if the incidence of war was constant over time, there would be little need for scientific inquiry. Theories are tested by testing hypotheses that are derived deductively from them. If the hypotheses are proven to be incorrect, then either the deduction is wrong or the theory is flawed. For instance, if we have a theory that war is in the human blood and then we find a society that is peaceful, then either they are not humans or our theory is not well-founded.
A Quick Guide to the use of the Scientific Method 1. The Formulation of Empirical Definitions for Concepts 2. Construction of Hypotheses 3. Gathering Data 4. Testing Hypotheses
What Makes A Good Theory Good? Good theories must be logically consistent. Good theories must be testable and verifiable. Good theories are usually able to explain "anomalies" in other theories. Good theories explain more than previous theories; they have greater range and wider applicability. Good theories frequently build bridges to other theories. The more general the theory, the better. The best theories are usually those which have the greatest empirical evidence to support them.
Mid-Range Theories International relations theories have been for the most part middle range theories rather than grand theories of a more comprehensive nature that attempt to explain a wide range of phenomena. Most theories of war address a limited range of behaviors at a single level of analysis with as few variables as possible, like the relationships between alliances and war, deterrence and war, the perceptions of decision-makers and war, economic modernization and war, and so on. Though the connections between these middle-range theories are at present only faintly sketched in, the assumption made by most theorists is that eventually the accumulation of midrange theories at different levels of analysis will lead to the construction of theories of greater and greater sophistication and complexity.
Predictions One of the goals of theorizing about war is to attain the ability to predict with some degree of certainty when and where wars will occur. Unique events cannot be predicted--only regular, patterned events. Is each war unique or do all/most wars have some quintessential common denominators? One of the chief assumptions made by political scientists is that events are not unique and political phenomena do not occur randomly; instead, recurring patterns and trends can be identified. Definite similarities can be discovered in the behavior of nations. If these assumptions are false, it would be possible only to explain the causes of each individual war, and the cause of each war would be essentially different, according to Cashman. Would it? Do you agree?
Levels of Analysis the individual level (nature of mankind or the specific nature of certain individual bellicose leaders) the substate / small group level (the argument is that individuals are rarely responsible for decisions to go to war, and that these decisions are instead made by relatively small groups of officials within national governments) the state level (the basic premise is that there is something about the nature of particular states that causes them to be more warlike or aggressive than those that lack these attributes) the dyadic (two-state) level (The focus is primarily on patterns of interaction between two states that escalate in intensity and hostility and lead to war.) the international system (war is deemed to be a product of some aspect of the structure of the international system itself - the balance of power within the system, the hierarchical structure of status and prestige in the system, or cycles of economic growth and decline imbedded in the structure of the international system.)