TY - JOUR
T1 - The escalation of great power militarized disputes
T2 - Testing rational deterrence theory and structural realism
AU - Huth, Paul
AU - Gelpi, Christopher
AU - Bennett, D. Scott
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 1993/9
Y1 - 1993/9
N2 - Realism has been the dominant paradigm in the study of international conflict. Within this paradigm, two leading alternative approaches have been deterrence theory and structural realism. We test the relative explanatory power of these two theoretical approaches on the escalation of deterrence encounters among great powers from 1816 to 1984. We derive a set of hypotheses from each model, operationalize them for systematic empirical analysis, and test the hypotheses on 97 cases of great-power deterrence encounters by means of probit analysis. The results are that the hypotheses derived from deterrence theory receive considerable support, whereas none of the hypotheses derived from structural realism are supported.
AB - Realism has been the dominant paradigm in the study of international conflict. Within this paradigm, two leading alternative approaches have been deterrence theory and structural realism. We test the relative explanatory power of these two theoretical approaches on the escalation of deterrence encounters among great powers from 1816 to 1984. We derive a set of hypotheses from each model, operationalize them for systematic empirical analysis, and test the hypotheses on 97 cases of great-power deterrence encounters by means of probit analysis. The results are that the hypotheses derived from deterrence theory receive considerable support, whereas none of the hypotheses derived from structural realism are supported.
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U2 - 10.2307/2938739
DO - 10.2307/2938739
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0001076342
VL - 87
SP - 609
EP - 623
JO - American Political Science Review
JF - American Political Science Review
SN - 0003-0554
IS - 3
ER -