Information, Power, and War
William Reed
American Political Science Review, 2003, vol. 97, issue 4, 633-641
Abstract:
Ultimatum bargaining models of international interactions suggest that when conflict is costly and the actors are fully informed, the probability of conflict goes to zero. However, conflict occurs with some positive probability when the challenger is uncertain about the defender's reservation value. I employ a simple ultimatum game of bargaining to evaluate two traditional power-centric theories of world politics, balance of power, and power transition theory. The formal and empirical analyses demonstrate that as states approach power parity, information asymmetries are greatest, thus enhancing the probability of militarized conflict. Uncertainty is a central cause of conflict emergence and is correlated with the distribution of observable capabilities. Recognizing the relationship between the distribution of power and the uncertainty offers a more sophisticated interpretation of power-centric explanations of world politics.
Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (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:cup:apsrev:v:97:y:2003:i:04:p:633-641_00
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().