Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Rusch, Hannes
Author-workplace-name: RS: GSBE UM-BIC, Microeconomics & Public Economics, RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research
Title: The logic of human intergroup conflict:
Abstract: Human history as well as our present are ripe with violent intergroup conflicts. Despite more than 2,000 years of academic engagement with this phenomenon [1] and (way too) much evidence available for analysis [2], we are still short of<br/>encompassing theories of human belligerence. Not least, theoretical progress is thwarted by the fact that intergroup conflict is an interface phenomenon: its analysis requires the methods and background knowledge of several academic<br/>disciplines. This review pushes for intensified interdisciplinary integration in the study of human warfare. It does so by presenting a selection of pathbreaking theoretical contributions from economics, political science, social psychology, and<br/>evolutionary biology, and contrasting their respective insights and blind spots against the results of recent empirical work on human behavior before, during, and after war. As a result, three key areas are identified where theoretical breakthrough<br/>is still pending: (i) individual mobilization, (ii) the ambiguous roles of leaders, and (iii) the endogenous and dynamic interaction between conflict and its participants’ malleable preferences. Thus, this review provides an overview of<br/>the research frontier and highlights crucial challenges in the theoretical study of human warfare.
Series: GSBE Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 20231204
Number: 014
File-URL: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/174330535/RM23014.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 634323
Handle: Repec:unm:umagsb:2023014
DOI: 10.26481/umagsb.2023014