Why have states throughout history regularly underestimated dangers to their survival? Why have some states been able to mobilize their material resources effectively to balance against threats, while others have not been able to do so? The phenomenon of “under balancing” is a common but woefully under examined behavior in international politics. Under balancing occurs when states fail to recognize dangerous threats, choose not to react to them, or respond in paltry and imprudent ways. It is a response that directly contradicts the core prediction of structural realism’s balance-of-power theory–that states motivated to survive as autonomous entities are coherent actors that, when confronted by dangerous threats, act to restore the disrupted balance by creating alliances or increasing their military capabilities, or, in some cases, a combination of both.

Consistent with the new wave of neoclassical realist research, Unanswered Threats offers a theory of under balancing based on four domestic-level variables–elite consensus, elite cohesion, social cohesion, and regime/government vulnerability–that channel, mediate, and redirect policy responses to external pressures and incentives. The theory yields five causal schemes for under balancing behavior, which are tested against the cases of interwar Britain and France, France from 1877 to 1913, and the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) that pitted tiny Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

Randall Schweller concludes that those most likely to under balance are incoherent, fragmented states whose elites are constrained by political considerations.
ISBN: 0691124256
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Making War and Building Peace examines how well United Nations peacekeeping missions work after civil war. Statistically analyzing all civil wars since 1945, the book compares peace processes that had UN involvement to those that didn’t. Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis argue that each mission must be designed to fit the conflict, with the right authority and adequate resources.

UN missions can be effective by supporting new actors committed to the peace, building governing institutions, and monitoring and policing implementation of peace settlements. But the UN is not good at intervening in ongoing wars. If the conflict is controlled by spoilers or if the parties are not ready to make peace, the UN cannot play an effective enforcement role. It can, however, offer its technical expertise in multidimensional peacekeeping operations that follow enforcement missions undertaken by states or regional organizations such as NATO. Finding that UN missions are most effective in the first few years after the end of war, and that economic development is the best way to decrease the risk of new fighting in the long run, the authors also argue that the UN’s role in launching development projects after civil war should be expanded.
ISBN: 069112275X
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Over the past several decades, civil and ethnic wahave undermined prospects for economic and political development, destabilized entire regions of the globe, and left millions dead. States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World argues that demographic and environmental stress–the interactions among rapid population growth, environmental degradation, inequality, and emerging scarcities of vital natural resources–represents one important source of turmoil in today’s world.

Kahl contends that this type of stress places enormous strains on both societies and governments in poor countries, increasing their vulnerability to armed conflict. He identifies two pathways whereby this process unfolds: state failure and state exploitation. State exploitation conflicts, in contrast, occur when political leadethemselves capitalize on the opportunities arising from population pressures, natural resource scarcities, and related social grievances to instigate violence that serves their parochial interests.

Drawing on a wide array of social science theory, this book argues that demographically and environmentally induced conflicts are most likely to occur in countries that are deeply split along ethnic, religious, regional, or class lines, and which have highly exclusive and discriminatory political systems. The empirical portion of the book evaluates the theoretical argument through in-depth case studies of civil strife in the Philippines, Kenya, and numerous other countries. The book concludes with an analysis of the challenges demographic and environmental change will pose to international security in the decades ahead.
ISBN: 069112406X
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Can the welfare state survive in an economically integrated world? Many have argued that globalization has undermined national policies to raise the living standards and enhance the economic opportunities of the poor. This book, by sixteen of the world’s leading authorities in international economics and the welfare state, suggests a surprisingly different set of consequences.

Globalization does not preclude social insurance and egalitarian redistribution—but it does change the mix of policies that can accomplish these ends.

Globalization and Egalitarian Redistribution demonstrates that the free flow of goods, capital, and labor has increased the inequality or volatility of labor earnings in advanced industrial societies—while constraining governments’ ability to tax the winners from globalization to compensate workers for their loss, This flow has meanwhile created opportunities for enhancing the welfare of the less well off in poor and middle- income countries. Comprising eleven essays framed by the editors’ introduction and conclusion, this book represents the first systematic look at how globalization affects policies aimed at reducing inequalities.

The contributors are Keith Banting, Pranab Barcihan, Caries Boix, Samuel Bowles, Minsik Choi, Richard Johnston, Covadonga Meseguer Yebra, Karl Ove Moene, Layna Mosley, Claus Offe, Ugo Pagano, Adam Przeworski, Kenneth Scheve, Matthew J. Slaughter, Stuart Soroka, and Michael Wallerstein.
ISBN: 0691125198
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

The intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq dramatically illustrate the necessity of developing standards for evaluating expert opinion. This book fills that need. Philip Tetlock explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events, and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.

Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting.

“It is the somewhat gratifying lesson of Philip Tetlock’s new book. . . that people who make prediction their business . . . are no better than the rest of us. When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it, either…. But the best lesson of Tetlock’s book may be the one that he seems most reluctant to draw: Think for yourself.”
ISBN: 0691128715
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS