More dangerous than dyads : how a third party enables rationalist explanations for war

Gallop, Max (2017) More dangerous than dyads : how a third party enables rationalist explanations for war. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 29 (3). pp. 353-381. ISSN 0951-6298 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629816682884)

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Abstract

For the bargaining model of war, in the absence of incomplete information and commitment problems, war is irrational. But this finding rests on a simple and rarely dis- cussed assumption – that bargaining is between exactly two participants. When we relax this assumption, in a three-player bargaining game, war is an equilibrium. Thus, a key finding of the bargaining model – that there is always an agreement that all states prefer to war – is an artifact of dyadic analysis. By removing this limitation, we can find new factors that affect the risk of war: the number of actors, divergence in state preferences, alliance dynamics, and the issue being bargained over.

ORCID iDs

Gallop, Max ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6352-4301;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)