Clash of Brothers in a Contagious World: Wars to Avoid Diffusion

Akos Lada ()
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Akos Lada: Political Economy and Government Program - Harvard University

No 1333, CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS from Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies

Abstract: Does sharing the same religion, civilization or racial proximity lead to more peaceful relations between countries? This paper argues that cultural similarity can actually cause wars, which occur to combat di_usion. This new theory of war combines the models of Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) and Fearon (1995), and shows that cultural similarity can lead to more warfare when old elites are afraid of losing their position to a newly inspired citizenry, as these elites try to destroy the external source of inspiration. The microfoundation for inspiration is derived from revealed information about the income level under given institutions, which are assumed to have positive correlation with cultural proximity. On the empirical side, I present case studies on the 1848 Revolutions, the 2013 Korean Crisis (using content analysis of official North Korean articles) and on the First World War, as well as statistical analysis on all the wars of the last two centuries.

Keywords: international conflict; culture; democratization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F51 F52 N40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 86 pages
Date: 2013-09
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