Power Cycles, Risk Propensity, and Great-Power Deterrence

Brock F. Tessman and Steve Chan
Additional contact information
Brock F. Tessman: Department of Political Science, University of Colorado
Steve Chan: Department of Political Science, University of Colorado

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2004, vol. 48, issue 2, 131-153

Abstract: The theory of power cycles contends that the growth and decline of national power holds the key to understanding the occurrence of extensive wars. Certain critical points in a state’s power trajectory are especially dangerous occasions for such armed clashes. The power cycles of nine major states during the period from 1816 to 1995 are examined, and prospect theory is used to derive expectations about the risk propensity of states during different periods in their power cycle. These expectations are in turn applied to an analysis of deterrence encounters among the major states. Results show that critical points tend to incline states to initiate deterrence confrontations and escalate them to war. Democratic states, however, are less susceptible to these tendencies than authoritarian ones. Results also show that changes in power trajectories do affect the occurrence and outcome of deterrence encounters among the great powers.

Keywords: power cycles; national power; war; risk propensity; deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002703262857 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:48:y:2004:i:2:p:131-153

DOI: 10.1177/0022002703262857

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().