Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Political Science 101: War’s Inefficiency Puzzle (Part 2)

William Spaniel explains war’s inefficency puzzle. Based off of James Fearon’s “Rationalist Explanations for War,” which can be found here http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-8183%28199522%2949%3A3%3C379%3AREFW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B (JSTOR access required.)

Part 1 can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhr1RJJhv8

Ethnic Violence as a Commitment Problem can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwGSVc5to4g

The pie game based off of Ariel Rubinstein’s (1982) pie game. It adds the ability to go to fight over the pie to mimic war.

William Spaniel’s homepage: http://wjspaniel.wordpress.com/

Duration : 0:8:2


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4 Responses to “Political Science 101: War’s Inefficiency Puzzle (Part 2)”

JimBobJenkins Says:
August 29th, 2009 at 2:14 am

It is a mistake to …
It is a mistake to believe terrorists do not think strategically, and thinking that will result in correspondingly bad policy. There is a large amount of literature on the subject, but I recommend “Rational Extremism” by David Lake as a start. It was published in 2002 (and therefore written long before then), but it is amazingly predictive given what we know now about the Iraqi war.

JimBobJenkins Says:
August 29th, 2009 at 2:14 am

I think you’ve …
I think you’ve missed the point–both sides are better off NOT fighting. A better question may be why states do not “sit in rooms and discuss problems” when doing so is superior.

Now, (ignoring commitment problems for the moment) it is possible for war to be better than peace but only when your opponent offers you less than war pays. But, again, your opponent has a rational self-interest to offer YOU more. So why don’t they do just that?

simpleglory1 Says:
August 29th, 2009 at 2:14 am

2) Sometimes …
2) Sometimes science and mathematics don’t apply to jihad-implementing terrorists who would much rather blow up a couple buildings.

simpleglory1 Says:
August 29th, 2009 at 2:14 am

1) This video is …
1) This video is never going to stop war. It is a facet of human existence, and the inevitable truth is: not everyone will be able to sit down in a room and discuss problems and solve them like that. Thinking that diplomacy and shaking hands would be able to solve all problems is just a load of b.s. liberal idealism. Sometimes things have to be dirty.

Stick to the Magic videos, they’re more entertaining.

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