scholarly journals International conflict and strategic games

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-102
Author(s):  
Enzo Lenine Lima
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Model Testing ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Strategic Games ◽  
Interaction Game

The pervasiveness of international conflict makes of it one of the main topics of discussionamong IR scholars. The discipline has extensively attempted to model the conditions andsettings under which armed conflict emerges, at sometimes resorting to formal models as toolsto generate hypotheses and predictions. In this paper, I analyse two distinct approaches toformal modelling in IR: one that fits data into mathematical models and another that derivesstatistical equations directly from a model’s assumption. In doing so, I raise the followingquestion: how should maths and stats be linked in order to consistently test the validity offormal models in IR? To answer this question, I scrutinise James Fearon’s audience costsmodel and Curtis Signorino’s strategic interaction game, highlighting their mathematicalassumptions and implications to testing formal models. I argue that Signorino’s approachoffer a more consistent set of epistemological and methodological tools to model testing,for it derives statistical equations that respect a model’s assumptions, whereas the data-fitapproach tends to ignore such considerations.

Strategic Interaction and the Statistical Analysis of International Conflict

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis S. Signorino
Keyword(s):  
International Conflict ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Interaction Model ◽  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Monte Carlo Analysis ◽  
Discrete Choice Models ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
International Interaction ◽  
True Values

Although strategic interaction is at the heart of most international relations theory, it has largely been missing from much empirical analysis in the field. Typical applications of logit and probit to theories of international conflict generally do not capture the structure of the strategic interdependence implied by those theories. I demonstrate how to derive statistical discrete choice models of international conflict that directly incorporate the theorized strategic interaction. I show this for a simple crisis interaction model and then use Monte Carlo analysis to show that logit provides estimates with incorrect substantive interpretations as well as fitted values that can be far from the true values. Finally, I reanalyze a well-known game-theoretic model of war, Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman's (1992) international interaction game. My results indicate that there is at best modest empirical support for their model.

The Catholic Church and the Kivu Conflict

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gérard Prunier
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
North And South ◽  
The Catholic Church

AbstractThis paper examines the role of the Catholic Church in the armed conflict that has engulfed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 1993. The conflict itself has two dimensions. Since 1996 the DRC has been at the centre of a major war that has spilled well beyond its borders, embroiling neighbouring states and others further afield. Less well known is the local struggle, in the eastern part of the country in the two provinces of North and South Kivu, which began three years earlier. While having a dynamic of its own, Kivu's fate has become entwined in the wider international conflict. Given its large constituency and immense wealth and infrastructure, the Catholic Church has come to wield enormous influence in the DRC, particularly in the context of a declining state. It was a key player in the movement for democratisation in the early 1990s and more recently it has sought to offer moral guidance on the conflict. But its attempts to adopt a superior moral outlook have been severely tested by the fact that its clergy are now thoroughly zairianised, and have come to embody the ethnic and political prejudices of their respective communities.

Progressions in mathematical models of international conflict

Synthese ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
John V. Gillespie ◽  
Dina A. Zinnes
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Models ◽  
International Conflict

Formal Models in Narrative Analysis

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Herman
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Permutation Groups ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Structural Linguistics ◽  
Modeling Practices ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Models And Modeling

This chapter considers formal models of narrative and the nature of the theory of narrative. After discussing the diachronic and synchronic approaches to investigating the role of formal models in narrative analysis, the chapter looks at those ideas about models and modeling as a kind of bridge between humanistic and technoscientific discourse. It then evaluates descriptive and functional classifications of models, along with a range of perspectives on mathematical models and modeling. It also presents a case study in metanarratology, with a particular focus on modeling practices that have been brought to bear on focalization. It also analyzes some instances of the confluence of the formal study of narrative and mathematics, including the use of permutation groups, as well as the synergy between mathematically based theories of structural linguistics and early work on story grammars.

Vernon Smith Meets Messi in the Laboratory

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Palacios-Huerta
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Soccer Players ◽  
Strategic Games ◽  
Laboratory Findings ◽  
Professional Soccer ◽  
Experimental Games ◽  
Entire Universe ◽  
Competitive Games ◽  
Zero Sum

This chapter focuses on zero-sum experimental games where players are predicted to choose probability mixtures. Whereas perfectively competitive games do not represent the entire universe of strategic games involving mixed strategies, they are considered a “vital cornerstone”and can be regarded as the branch of game theory with the most solid theoretical foundation. Soccer has three unique features that make it especially suitable for this purpose: (1) professional soccer players face a simple strategic interaction that is governed by very detailed rules: a penalty kick; (2) the formal structure of this interaction can be reproduced in the laboratory; and (3) when professional soccer players from European leagues play this game in the field, their behavior is consistent with the equilibrium predictions of the theory. These three distinct characteristics allow us to study whether the skills and heuristics that players may have developed in the field can be transferred to the laboratory, and hence whether laboratory findings are reliable for predicting field behavior in these strategic situations.

Model Testing of Flow Phenomena in the Squeeze Chamber of a Cold-Chamber Diecasting Machine

2011 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 151-158
Author(s):  
Jerzy Stojek ◽  
Rafał Dańko
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Metal ◽  
Phase I ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Model Testing ◽  
Flow Phenomena ◽  
Cold Chamber

A review of the studies carried out on this subject so far was made, and the available mathematical models applicable at Phase I of the diecasing process were presented. Own model testing of the examined process phase was described. The tests were conducted on a laboratory station designed and constructed to serve this purpose. Basing on the obtained results, the fundamental Garber's model was modified and extended further to include the coefficient of liquid metal viscosity.

scholarly journals The Perils of Power-Sharing: Africa and Beyond

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 11-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandra Lekha Sriram ◽  
Marie-Joëlle Zahar
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Short Term ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
Peace Agreements

The purpose of international conflict-resolution efforts is, in the short term, to bring an end to violent armed conflict, and, in the medium to longer term, to prevent the revival of conflict. However, at least one of the mechanisms often utilised in conflict resolution and peace agreements, power-sharing, may not only prove problematic in early negotiation and implementation, but may potentially be at odds with the longer-term goal of preventing resurgence of conflict. Why might this be the case? Longer-term peacebuilding seeks to prevent conflict in part by building strong and sustainable states. Such states should be able to avoid reverting to armed conflict because they would be more responsive to grievances and more effective in dealing with violent dissent. However, power-sharing arrangements may undermine such efforts by placing in power individuals and groups not fully committed to, or unable to take part in, governance for the benefit of the entire populace; in part because it necessarily places in power those who have engaged in significant violence to achieve their ends. This is likely to create less democratic states, although we do not insist that democracy is or should be the only goal of peacebuilders. Rather, we suggest that power-sharing arrangements may tend not only towards undemocratic states, but towards states which are not responsive to the needs of the citizenry for security in ways which may undermine human security and state legitimacy.

Beyond the Null Ritual

2009 ◽  
Vol 217 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian N. Marewski ◽  
Henrik Olsson
Keyword(s):  
Hypothesis Testing ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Model Testing ◽  
Formal Models

Rituals shape many aspects of our lives, and they are no less common in scientific research than elsewhere. One that figures prominently in hypothesis testing is the null ritual, the pitting of hypotheses against chance. Although known to be problematic, this practice is still widely used. One way to resist the lure of the null ritual is to increase the precision of theories by casting them as formal models. These can be tested against each other, instead of against chance, which in turn enables a researcher to decide between competing theories based on quantitative measures. This article gives an overview of the advantages of modeling, describes research that is based on it, outlines the difficulties associated with model testing, and summarizes some of the solutions for dealing with these difficulties. Pointers to resources for teaching modeling in university classes are provided.

International Actions and Neutrality

1953 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard J. Taubenfeld
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Current Period ◽  
Legal Problems ◽  
The Status ◽  
The United Nations

Despite a widespread hope that in the United Nations mankind had created an organization which would eliminate warfare, events have unfortunately proved that international conflict, with all its attendant legal problems, is not yet a dead issue. Although the United Nations has not extirpated armed conflict, it has, by its very existence and by its actual and potential role as a participant in, and even as an originator of, military actions, altered, of necessity, the status both of Members and nonMembers in the course of such an action. This is a study of that status, together with a consideration of the necessary concomitant changes in the concept of neutrality in the modern world. The laws of neutrality will first be briefly considered; the effect of the League of Nations period will then be examined as background for a comparison with the current period; and the effect and influence of the United Nations will then be studied in greater detail.

scholarly journals Does the end justify the means? The FARC and drug trafficking as a related crime

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (32) ◽  
pp. 841-856
Author(s):  
Esteban Arratia-Sandoval ◽  
Diego Jimenez-Cabrera ◽  
Aldo Barria-Jorquera
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Funding Source ◽  
Theoretical Relationship ◽  
Drug Smuggling ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Crime

The use of drug trafficking as the main funding source of The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) led to its consideration in the Havana peace talks. If its rebellion was financed by drug smuggling, this would compel the Special Jurisdiction for Peace to consider it as a related crime to political crime in the Final Agreement’s framework, prompting the question, is it legally possible to consider drug-trafficking a related crime? This article is structured into five sections. The first, historically describes the context in which the armed conflict evolved. The second discusses the theoretical relationship between drug trafficking, international conflict, and international law. The third analyzes the concepts of political crime and related crime according to doctrinal debate. From a legal stance, the fourth validates if drug trafficking constitutes a related crime. From these, conclusions are drawn.

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