IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v48y2004i2p131-153.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Power Cycles, Risk Propensity, and Great-Power Deterrence

Author

Listed:
  • Brock F. Tessman

    (Department of Political Science, University of Colorado)

  • Steve Chan

    (Department of Political Science, University of Colorado)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Brock F. Tessman & Steve Chan, 2004. "Power Cycles, Risk Propensity, and Great-Power Deterrence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(2), pages 131-153, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:48:y:2004:i:2:p:131-153
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002703262857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002703262857
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002703262857?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    2. Siverson, Randolph M. & Ward, Michael D., 2002. "The Long Peace: A Reconsideration," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(3), pages 679-691, July.
    3. Cetinyan, Rupen, 2002. "Ethnic Bargaining in the Shadow of Third-Party Intervention," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(3), pages 645-677, July.
    4. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Quattrone, George A. & Tversky, Amos, 1988. "Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(3), pages 719-736, September.
    6. Huth, Paul & Gelpi, Christopher & Bennett, D. Scott, 1993. "The Escalation of Great Power Militarized Disputes: Testing Rational Deterrence Theory and Structural Realism," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 609-623, September.
    7. James Fearon, 2002. "Selection Effects and Deterrence," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 5-29, January.
    8. Huth, Paul & Russett, Bruce, 1993. "General Deterrence between Enduring Rivals: Testing Three Competing Models," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 61-73, March.
    9. Fearon, James D., 1994. "Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 577-592, September.
    10. Doran, Charles F. & Parsons, Wes, 1980. "War and the Cycle of Relative Power," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(4), pages 947-965, December.
    11. James D. Fearon, 1997. "Signaling Foreign Policy Interests," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(1), pages 68-90, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlson Lisa J & Dacey Raymond, 2008. "The Sensitivity of Critical Risk Values to Small Changes in the Value of the Status Quo," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1-24, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Todd S. Sechser, 2011. "Militarized Compellent Threats, 1918–2001," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(4), pages 377-401, September.
    2. Paul Huth & D. Scott Bennett & Christopher Gelpi, 1992. "System Uncertainty, Risk Propensity, and International Conflict among the Great Powers," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(3), pages 478-517, September.
    3. Clayton L. Thyne, 2006. "Cheap Signals with Costly Consequences," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(6), pages 937-961, December.
    4. Yuleng Zeng, 2020. "Bluff to peace: How economic dependence promotes peace despite increasing deception and uncertainty," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(6), pages 633-654, November.
    5. Thomas Jensen & Andreas Madum, 2017. "Partisan optimism and political bargaining," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 191-213, April.
    6. Scott Wolford, 2020. "War and diplomacy on the world stage: Crisis bargaining before third parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(2), pages 235-261, April.
    7. Matthew Hauenstein, 2020. "The conditional effect of audiences on credibility," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(3), pages 422-436, May.
    8. HEIFETZ, Aviad & SEGEV, Ella, 2003. "Escalation and delay in protracted international conflicts," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003048, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    9. Paul A. Papayoanou, 1997. "Intra-Alliance Bargaining and U.S. Bosnia Policy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(1), pages 91-116, February.
    10. Alexandra Guisinger & Alastair Smith, 2002. "Honest Threats," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(2), pages 175-200, April.
    11. Heifetz, Aviad & Segev, Ella, 2005. "Escalation and delay in protracted international conflicts," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 17-37, January.
    12. Kyungwon Suh, 2023. "Nuclear balance and the initiation of nuclear crises: Does superiority matter?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 60(2), pages 337-351, March.
    13. Michael C. Horowitz & Philip Potter & Todd S. Sechser & Allan Stam, 2018. "Sizing Up the Adversary," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(10), pages 2180-2204, November.
    14. Hee Min Kim & Jun Choi, 2002. "Uncertainty in foreign policy making: A Bayesian game analysis of Korea," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 25-40.
    15. Colin Krainin & John Slinkman, 2017. "Bargaining with a biased autocrat," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 273-298, April.
    16. Scott Helfstein, 2012. "Liabilities of Globalization: Sovereign Debt, International Investors and Interstate Conflict with Other People's Money," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 277-288, December.
    17. Muhammet A Bas & Curtis S Signorino & Taehee Whang, 2014. "Knowing one’s future preferences: A correlated agent model with Bayesian updating," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(1), pages 3-34, January.
    18. Andrew H. Kydd & Roseanne W. McManus, 2017. "Threats and Assurances in Crisis Bargaining," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(2), pages 325-348, February.
    19. Olga Chyzh, 2014. "Can you trust a dictator: A strategic model of authoritarian regimes’ signing and compliance with international treaties," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(1), pages 3-27, February.
    20. Sam R. Bell, 2013. "What you don’t know can hurt you: Information, external transparency, and interstate conflict, 1982–1999," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(5), pages 452-468, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:48:y:2004:i:2:p:131-153. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.