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Materialist Explanations for War
Materialist Explanations for War
상세정보
- 자료유형
- 학위논문 서양
- 최종처리일시
- 20250211151057
- ISBN
- 9798383161005
- DDC
- 320
- 서명/저자
- Materialist Explanations for War
- 발행사항
- [Sl] : New York University, 2024
- 발행사항
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2024
- 형태사항
- 316 p
- 주기사항
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-12, Section: A.
- 주기사항
- Advisor: Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce.
- 학위논문주기
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2024.
- 초록/해제
- 요약Over the course of the historical development of the field of International Relations, and over the past thirty years in particular, a host of seemingly robust empirical regularities have been discovered. Taken from the vantage point of individual research projects and their empirical contributions, one is drawn towards an old view in the philosophy of science: that the social process of scientific discovery is progressing incrementally and cumulatively towards an increasingly clear empirical picture of violent conflict. Yet when one looks at this mass from the perspective of the field as a whole, one is equally struck by the apparently contradictory and competing middle-range theoretical perspectives used to motivate, justify, and explain their empirical products. Taken together, over the past few decades international relations scholars have established that a large number of patterns of violence exist. The question which remains to be answered is why such patterns jointly occur, a puzzle existing middle-range theoretical structures seem unable to adequately address.It is the purpose of this work to provide such a theoretical basis to the study of conflict. This is done by (a) developing micro-founded mechanistic explanations for risk preference as causes of bargaining failure and (b) connecting the predicted patterns of bargaining failure back to the empirical patters of conflict discovered in recent decades. In contrast to the piecemeal and theoretically inconsistent manner by which these patterns were found, they nonetheless may be jointly and coherently explained.The work takes the following structure. In the first chapter I lay out the basic philosophical orientation of the work and the theoretical and empirical crises that International Relations faces. In particular, it is shown that - from a strictly logical standpoint -- the modal approach to theorizing within the field yields zero empirical implications and that what few empirical patterns we have discovered do not reflect back on these theories. Rather than theory supporting evidence and vice versa, today these two domains remain largely detached. After discussing several related philosophical and methodological issues constituting the core of the present crisis, several properties that a theory must exhibit to overcome these crises - logical coherence, weak realism, empirical content, and mass accommodation -- are outlined.In the second chapter I examine the circuitous path along which International Relations has developed to determine why a theory exhibiting such properties has not arisen and the preconditions for one to be established. This involves developing a meta-narrative spanning the founding of our modern field, the early ambitions for 'grand' theory, the disillusionment resulting from slow progress, and the contemporary retreat into eclecticism. A dialectical materialist view of the relationship between the empirical base and theoretical superstructure is developed to critique the prevailing Mertonian dogma that the path to progress involves the synthesis of existing middle range theories into something grander from which each special theory may be derived. This "peaceful integration" view of scientific development, while appealing for its potential theoretical inclusivity and an incredibly popular viewpoint within the social sciences, is based on rhetoric rather than logic and evidence. Indeed, the path by which cumulative scientific progress generally proceeds is via the emergence of a new theoretical superstructure which, through a process of "violent appropriation," levels multiple pre-existing theoretical superstructures whilst appropriating their empirical products. In this regard the contemporary moment of eclecticism, fragmentation, and crisis to be applauded and appreciated for setting the stage for its undoing rather than being glorified and ossified as a permanent state of affairs.In the remaining chapters I put the theory into practice for the study of the onset of violent conflict and institutional change. Following the conclusions of the first chapter, I propose two basic theoretical components - both entirely absent from recent research - upon which an adequate theory of these issues might be based. The first component, old and intuitive yet largely neglected, was called the "The First Premises of Materialist Method" by Marx and Engels and was taken as a fundamental axiom by Malthus: that human beings must consume to live. The second component, once influential but now universally assumed away, is the concept of risk acceptance introduced by Friedman and Savage. In the relatively short third chapter of this work, I briefly discuss the history of these concepts and the reasons for their absence in the contemporary literature, and highlight the bumpy path taken toward the development of mechanistic explanations for risk preference. Critical to the argument is how the observation of our mortality satisfies what Hempel called a nomological basis, how the second comports with the principle of weak realism, and how risk acceptance can be caused by threats to our necessary consumption.This last point is taken up in detail in the fourth chapter, which presents a "first image" model of conflict. Beginning from these materialist premises a dozen empirical patterns related to the onset of war are explained, the majority of which have only been established within the past decade. In the fifth chapter I develop a "second image" model which explains a collection of major patterns of conflict known as the democratic peace, autocratic peace, capitalist peace, and diversionary war phenomena - a set of findings which constitute the core findings of empirical scholars of conflict within the past thirty years. In doing so, the deep consistency between patterns of conflict across levels of analysis is explained as a consequence of identical strategic incentives: the necessary consumption required by human beings to live being mirrored by the necessary expenditure required by political leaders to maintain themselves in office, threat to satisfy either generating a proclivity towards risk which eliminates the ex ante bargaining range in a manner consistent with modern empirical results.Having established the logical consistency, weak realism, empirical content, and ability of the approach to engender the mass accommodation of previously found empirical patterns, in the sixth chapter I turn towards a collection of additional results somewhat more fragmented than the preceding discussion. In particular, I consider how these frameworks relate to the "third image," the role of beliefs and punishments, how endogenous risk preference rationally arises and how these features bring together a wide set of otherwise detached theoretical patterns.In the concluding section of this chapter, I take stock of what has been accomplished and lay out the outlines of an empirical program. This involves a return to the crises with which we began and commentary on the possibility (and limits) of point/order predictions as opposed to the merely directional hypotheses in the study of violent conflict.
- 일반주제명
- Political science
- 키워드
- Social process
- 키워드
- Violent conflict
- 기타저자
- New York University Politics
- 기본자료저록
- Dissertations Abstracts International. 85-12A.
- 전자적 위치 및 접속
- 로그인 후 원문을 볼 수 있습니다.
MARC
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■006m o d
■007cr#unu||||||||
■020 ▼a9798383161005
■035 ▼a(MiAaPQ)AAI31142482
■040 ▼aMiAaPQ▼cMiAaPQ
■0820 ▼a320
■1001 ▼aSchwarz, Christopher.
■24510▼aMaterialist Explanations for War
■260 ▼a[Sl]▼bNew York University▼c2024
■260 1▼aAnn Arbor▼bProQuest Dissertations & Theses▼c2024
■300 ▼a316 p
■500 ▼aSource: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-12, Section: A.
■500 ▼aAdvisor: Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce.
■5021 ▼aThesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2024.
■520 ▼aOver the course of the historical development of the field of International Relations, and over the past thirty years in particular, a host of seemingly robust empirical regularities have been discovered. Taken from the vantage point of individual research projects and their empirical contributions, one is drawn towards an old view in the philosophy of science: that the social process of scientific discovery is progressing incrementally and cumulatively towards an increasingly clear empirical picture of violent conflict. Yet when one looks at this mass from the perspective of the field as a whole, one is equally struck by the apparently contradictory and competing middle-range theoretical perspectives used to motivate, justify, and explain their empirical products. Taken together, over the past few decades international relations scholars have established that a large number of patterns of violence exist. The question which remains to be answered is why such patterns jointly occur, a puzzle existing middle-range theoretical structures seem unable to adequately address.It is the purpose of this work to provide such a theoretical basis to the study of conflict. This is done by (a) developing micro-founded mechanistic explanations for risk preference as causes of bargaining failure and (b) connecting the predicted patterns of bargaining failure back to the empirical patters of conflict discovered in recent decades. In contrast to the piecemeal and theoretically inconsistent manner by which these patterns were found, they nonetheless may be jointly and coherently explained.The work takes the following structure. In the first chapter I lay out the basic philosophical orientation of the work and the theoretical and empirical crises that International Relations faces. In particular, it is shown that - from a strictly logical standpoint -- the modal approach to theorizing within the field yields zero empirical implications and that what few empirical patterns we have discovered do not reflect back on these theories. Rather than theory supporting evidence and vice versa, today these two domains remain largely detached. After discussing several related philosophical and methodological issues constituting the core of the present crisis, several properties that a theory must exhibit to overcome these crises - logical coherence, weak realism, empirical content, and mass accommodation -- are outlined.In the second chapter I examine the circuitous path along which International Relations has developed to determine why a theory exhibiting such properties has not arisen and the preconditions for one to be established. This involves developing a meta-narrative spanning the founding of our modern field, the early ambitions for 'grand' theory, the disillusionment resulting from slow progress, and the contemporary retreat into eclecticism. A dialectical materialist view of the relationship between the empirical base and theoretical superstructure is developed to critique the prevailing Mertonian dogma that the path to progress involves the synthesis of existing middle range theories into something grander from which each special theory may be derived. This "peaceful integration" view of scientific development, while appealing for its potential theoretical inclusivity and an incredibly popular viewpoint within the social sciences, is based on rhetoric rather than logic and evidence. Indeed, the path by which cumulative scientific progress generally proceeds is via the emergence of a new theoretical superstructure which, through a process of "violent appropriation," levels multiple pre-existing theoretical superstructures whilst appropriating their empirical products. In this regard the contemporary moment of eclecticism, fragmentation, and crisis to be applauded and appreciated for setting the stage for its undoing rather than being glorified and ossified as a permanent state of affairs.In the remaining chapters I put the theory into practice for the study of the onset of violent conflict and institutional change. Following the conclusions of the first chapter, I propose two basic theoretical components - both entirely absent from recent research - upon which an adequate theory of these issues might be based. The first component, old and intuitive yet largely neglected, was called the "The First Premises of Materialist Method" by Marx and Engels and was taken as a fundamental axiom by Malthus: that human beings must consume to live. The second component, once influential but now universally assumed away, is the concept of risk acceptance introduced by Friedman and Savage. In the relatively short third chapter of this work, I briefly discuss the history of these concepts and the reasons for their absence in the contemporary literature, and highlight the bumpy path taken toward the development of mechanistic explanations for risk preference. Critical to the argument is how the observation of our mortality satisfies what Hempel called a nomological basis, how the second comports with the principle of weak realism, and how risk acceptance can be caused by threats to our necessary consumption.This last point is taken up in detail in the fourth chapter, which presents a "first image" model of conflict. Beginning from these materialist premises a dozen empirical patterns related to the onset of war are explained, the majority of which have only been established within the past decade. In the fifth chapter I develop a "second image" model which explains a collection of major patterns of conflict known as the democratic peace, autocratic peace, capitalist peace, and diversionary war phenomena - a set of findings which constitute the core findings of empirical scholars of conflict within the past thirty years. In doing so, the deep consistency between patterns of conflict across levels of analysis is explained as a consequence of identical strategic incentives: the necessary consumption required by human beings to live being mirrored by the necessary expenditure required by political leaders to maintain themselves in office, threat to satisfy either generating a proclivity towards risk which eliminates the ex ante bargaining range in a manner consistent with modern empirical results.Having established the logical consistency, weak realism, empirical content, and ability of the approach to engender the mass accommodation of previously found empirical patterns, in the sixth chapter I turn towards a collection of additional results somewhat more fragmented than the preceding discussion. In particular, I consider how these frameworks relate to the "third image," the role of beliefs and punishments, how endogenous risk preference rationally arises and how these features bring together a wide set of otherwise detached theoretical patterns.In the concluding section of this chapter, I take stock of what has been accomplished and lay out the outlines of an empirical program. This involves a return to the crises with which we began and commentary on the possibility (and limits) of point/order predictions as opposed to the merely directional hypotheses in the study of violent conflict.
■590 ▼aSchool code: 0146.
■650 4▼aPolitical science
■653 ▼aEmpirical contributions
■653 ▼aSocial process
■653 ▼aPeaceful integration
■653 ▼aViolent conflict
■690 ▼a0601
■690 ▼a0615
■71020▼aNew York University▼bPolitics.
■7730 ▼tDissertations Abstracts International▼g85-12A.
■790 ▼a0146
■791 ▼aPh.D.
■792 ▼a2024
■793 ▼aEnglish
■85640▼uhttp://www.riss.kr/pdu/ddodLink.do?id=T17160663▼nKERIS▼z이 자료의 원문은 한국교육학술정보원에서 제공합니다.


