When Do They Stop? Modeling the Termination of War

Michaela Mattes and T. Clifton Morgan
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Michaela Mattes: Rice University Department of Political Science Houston, Texas, USA michaela@rice.edu
T. Clifton Morgan: Rice University Department of Political Science Houston, Texas, USA

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2004, vol. 21, issue 3, 179-193

Abstract: This paper deals with war termination. We develop a formal model based on the logic of domestic political accountability. We assume that leaders seek to maximize the likelihood that they will stay in office and that their decisions regarding war termination are responsive to their winning coalition's expectations and sensitivity to costs and to the costs of war. Our model generates predictions about when state leaders will prefer to terminate an ongoing war, given specific terms of settlement. By applying these results to both sides in a war, we can use the model to develop propositions regarding the terms of settlement and the duration of war given varying expectations, costs, and sensitivity to costs.

Keywords: war termination; domestic politics; principal/agent models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:compsc:v:21:y:2004:i:3:p:179-193

DOI: 10.1080/07388940490487261

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