Session 22: War and peace

Jack Levy starts off his work by stating that numerous scholars from various disciplines are interested in the study of war; how to stop it, to reduce its occurrence or how to control its devastating effects. According to Clausewitz’s war is something which is inherently political; thus political science is a key discipline utilized to understand war. Political science offers a variety of theoretical lens through which sense can be made of war. The sub branch of political science, international relations; has also incorporated other disciplines such as sociology and economics in order to gain insight in to wars. Increasingly, however, there has been a trend to study peace conditions as well as the causes of war. These studies have led to the popularity of the notion that the study of war and peace go hand in hand.

The author then gives a breakdown of the manner in which his essay his structured. Firstly, the talks about some general trends of war. He then talks about three things: ‘the constant recurrence of war, variations in war and peace, and the origins of particular wars.’ He says that these three inquires of war have led to separate theoretical methods through which war is understood. He next moves on to explain prominent realist and liberal theories which talk about war and peace. He ends his piece by advocating the ‘multi-method’ research programs.

Some general trends of war which he highlights include the fact that wars have declined. Moreover, Europe does not have hegemony over war anymore as minor regions now partake in it as well. In addition, he talks about how the severity of war as increased even if there has been a decline in its frequency. Analyzing these general trends is important because these changes have also brought about a change in the way in which scholars look at war. For example, international relations theorists have increasingly started looking at strategic stability.

Moving on, the author then talks about realists theories of war. Realist tradition has been long influenced by the study of war. Realists mainly believe that the differences in ‘distribution of power, and polarity in particular,’ contributes towards understanding the variations in occurrence of war. The author then talks about different realists paths to war. One path is when two states have a direct conflict of interests and at least one of them believes that the effective resolution of this conflict lies in war as opposed to peace. On the other hand, in the second path there are two or more security seeking states who are not interested in expanding their influence, rather they want to maintain the status quo. However, because in this state of anarchy, nations are unaware of the intentions of other states thus they take certain actions to protect themselves against possible threats. These defensive driven strategies, however, are seen as offensive by other states and this ‘action-reaction’ cycle often results in states warring against one another.

Jack Levy then explores liberalisms views on war in the same manner as realism. Their focus lies on economic interdependence and democratic institutions which promote peace. Levy then puts forward the multi-method approach in which he amalgamates realists and liberal views to come up with a more holistic approach to war and peace.
 

I liked this piece for several reasons, one of them being that it served as a good summary of the realists and liberal notions which we have looked at so far.