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A Darwinian Theory of International Conflict Stockholm Studies in Politics 182 Tarek Oraby A Darwinian Theory of International Conflict A Darwinian Theory of International Conflict of International Theory A Darwinian Tarek Oraby ISBN 978-91-7797-811-4 ISSN 0346-6620 Department of Political Science Doctoral Thesis in Political Science at Stockholm University, Sweden 2019 A Darwinian Theory of International Conflict Tarek Oraby Academic dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science at Stockholm University to be publicly defended on Friday 27 September 2019 at 10.00 in hörsal 11, hus F, Universitetsvägen 10 F. Abstract This dissertation aims to advance the current understanding of the general conditions affecting the likelihood of military conflicts and wars between states. To that end, the dissertation develops a Darwinian theory of international conflict. This theory is developed by generalizing Darwinian principles as they are used in the study of biological entities, and applying those principles to study states and their behavior. Though states are markedly different from life forms, the same Darwinian principles—at a high level of abstraction—provide a parsimonious explanation of states’ conflict behaviors. Based on this Darwinian theory, the key substantive argument of this thesis is that military conflicts between states are more probable when the use of force is likely to enhance the material power of the involved states. The specifics of this argument entail novel predictions about the likelihood of conflict occurrence that differ in important respects from existing claims in the study of international relations. Among other things, and contrary to the prediction of the influential neorealist tradition, this thesis predicts that states are more likely to join the strong side of an ongoing conflict than the weak. This, and other Darwinian-based predictions are statistically evaluated in this thesis using all incidents of conflict initiation, conflict reciprocation, and conflict joining occurring in the international system over the period from 1816 through 2010. The results of these statistical analyses are largely consistent with the Darwinian-based predictions. Moreover, the variables derived from the Darwinian framework are found to have a large substantive effect in predicting whether a state will participate in conflict. Indeed, the substantive effects of the Darwinian variables match (and occasionally exceed) the substantive effects of some of the most important determinants of conflict identified in the literature, such as those related to geographical proximity, the democratic character of states, and the presence of military alliances between states. Keywords: international relations, peace and conflict, Universal Darwinism, Neorealism, balance of power, causes of war. Stockholm 2019 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-171219 ISBN 978-91-7797-811-4 ISBN 978-91-7797-812-1 ISSN 0346-6620 Department of Political Science Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm A DARWINIAN THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT Tarek Oraby A Darwinian Theory of International Conflict Tarek Oraby ©Tarek Oraby, Stockholm University 2019 ISBN print 978-91-7797-811-4 ISBN PDF 978-91-7797-812-1 ISSN 0346-6620 Printed in Sweden by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2019 To Mom, Dad, Adam, and Jenni Acknowledgments I received the help and support of many people in the process of developing my ideas and writing this dissertation. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Hans Agné and Jonas Tallberg for being such excellent supervisors. Both were unfailingly generous with their time and advice; and their guidance, encouragement, and critical feedback were invaluable, especially during times of setbacks. My sincere gratitude also goes to Andreas Duit, Faradj Koliev, Joakim Kreutz, Kjell Engelbrekt, Magnus Reitberger, Naima Chahboun, and Viktor Elm for reading and commenting on my manuscript at various stages of its evolution (a special thanks to Joakim for doing so more than once). In addition, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to all colleagues in the Department of Political Science for enabling such a great academic and social environment. I am particularly thankful for the friendship and support of Faradj Koliev, Hedvig Ördén, Karim Zakhour, Magnus Christiansson, Markus Furendal, Ragnhild Nilsson, and Tyra Hertz. Last but not least, to my dear family: to my parents, Said and Noha, my brother, Hatem, my sister, Mariam, my son, Adam, and my wife, Jenni, thank you all very much for being so supportive and encouraging. I could not have reached this milestone without your kindness and affection. Tarek Oraby Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 Neorealism and state survival ....................................................................................... 5 Research aims and questions ....................................................................................... 9 Definition of key terms ................................................................................................. 11 The essence of the theory and its argument ............................................................... 12 Research design ......................................................................................................... 14 Key findings and their contributions............................................................................. 15 Organization of the dissertation ................................................................................... 18 2. Conflict and state survival in neorealism ................................................... 20 Neorealist predictions .................................................................................................. 20 Empirical evidence ...................................................................................................... 26 The way forward ......................................................................................................... 30 3. A Darwinian theory of international conflict ............................................... 37 Darwinism: from biology to society .............................................................................. 39 The deep-level constitution of the state ....................................................................... 44 Theories of the state .............................................................................................. 46 Reducing the state to its deep-level constitution .................................................... 48 Retention, variation, and selection in global politics .................................................... 53 Three Darwinian models of interstate conflict .............................................................. 58 The action sets ...................................................................................................... 61 The fitness criterion ............................................................................................... 64 The payoffs ............................................................................................................ 66 Three hypotheses on interstate conflict ....................................................................... 72 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 80 4. Evaluating the expected evolutionary value of conflict initiation ................ 83 Statistical analysis design ........................................................................................... 86 Dependent variables and samples ......................................................................... 87 EEV operationalization .......................................................................................... 89 Control variables .................................................................................................... 95 Statistical estimator ................................................................................................ 97 Findings and discussion .............................................................................................. 98 The EEV as an index ............................................................................................. 98 The EEV as an interaction term ........................................................................... 102 The EEV vs. other CINC-based scores ................................................................ 104 Darwinian mechanisms in conflict initiation .......................................................... 107 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 109 5. Evaluating the expected evolutionary value of conflict reciprocation ...... 111 Statistical analysis design ......................................................................................... 112 Dependent variable and samples......................................................................... 112 EEV operationalization ........................................................................................ 115 Control variables .................................................................................................. 117 Statistical estimator .............................................................................................. 118 Findings and discussion
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