Causes of War and Peace Course Description Course Requirements: Lateness and Absence

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1 Causes of War and Peace PCJ Fall 2015 Mondays 10-12, Room OI 5170 Professor Seva Gunitsky Office Hours: Fridays 10-12, 3052 Sidney Smith Hall s.gunitsky@utoronto.ca Course Description: This seminar examines some fundamental questions about the nature of war and peace in international politics. We will explore various factors that contribute to both conflict and cooperation between and within states. Along the way, we will examine questions like: Is war part of human nature or is it a cultural artifact? What explains the decline of conflict between powerful states since World War II? And what are the prospects for interstate peace in the twenty-first century? Since these questions deal with many different elements of human history, we will examine them from an interdisciplinary perspective, incorporating insights from anthropology and economics as well as standard political science approaches. Course Requirements: As a seminar for advanced students, this course will emphasize writing and critical engagement with the readings. Course grades will be based on: Short Responses (40%) Three times over the course of the semester, you will write response papers (3-4 pages) that critique the readings for that week. The papers should not summarize the readings, but analyze the arguments and draw parallels or contrasts among them. Please see the Reading Critique Handout for more information. Class Discussion Posts (35%) Seven times over the course of the semester, you will write short comments/quasi-blog entries that will be posted on a private course website. These should at least 300 words in length, and examine an element of the readings or raise a question about any of the arguments made in the readings for that week. The posts are due by midnight the day before class. Please see the Discussion Posts Handout for more information. Final Exam (25%) The final exam will be distributed on Dec 1 (due on Dec. 3). It will be a take-home exam that students will have 48 hours to complete and back to me. The exam will be based both on coursepack readings and in-class lectures. Lateness and Absence: Because arriving late disrupts the class, please be here on time, and in return I promise to always end the class on time. There is no attendance taken in this class, but missing lectures will severely impact your ability to complete assignments and to write the final exam. Although there is no formal discussion component in the course, I will often pause lectures to provide opportunities for questions or discussion. 1

2 Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a serious offense and will be penalized harshly. You are certain to fail the assignment and, depending on the nature of the offense, may also fail the class and be referred to the Dean s Office for further sanctions. If you are running out of time, keep in mind that you are much better off turning in a late paper than a plagiarized one. Course Materials: This class has a required coursepack, which contains all the readings and is available at Image X-Press (193 College Street). I may add additional short readings drawing on current evens, such as newspaper op-eds or articles, if they are particularly relevant for the week s readings. Course Outline Week 1 September 14. Introduction (37p) Week 2 September 21. War as Instinct (65p) Week 3 September 28. War as Culture (60p) Week 4 October 5. War as Mutual Fear (79p) [October 12 no classes; Thanksgiving break] Week 5 October 19. War as Diplomacy (84p) Week 6 October 26. War as a Racket (83p) Week 7 November 2. The Democratic Peace (55p) [November 9 no classes; fall break] Week 8 November 16. The Capitalist Peace (80p) Week 9 November 23. The Hegemonic Peace (75p) Week 10 November 30. The Nuclear Peace (76p) Week 11 December 7. Conclusion: War and Peace in the 21st Century (83p) 2

3 Week 1 September 14. Introduction Overview of the Course. Concepts and definitions. [37p] 1) Steven Pinker, A History of Violence The New Republic, March 19, 2007 [5p] 2) Geoffrey Blainey (1973) The Causes of War, Macmillan Press, p.3-9 [7p] 3) Leo Tolstoy (1868) Some Words About War and Peace in War and Peace, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, p [2p] 4) David McRaney (2011) Excerpt from The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight [5p] 5) Stephen Walt, International Relations: One World, Many Theories Foreign Policy, No. 110, Spring 1998 [13p] Week 2 September 21. War as Instinct Psychological and biological explanations of warfare. The origins and anthropology of war. War and human nature. Warfare in ancient societies. [72p] 1) Chris Hedges (2002) War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, PublicAffairs Ltd, p.1-7 [7p] 2) Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson (1996) Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, Ballantine Books, p [6p] 3) Steven LeBlanc (2005) Prehistory of Warfare in The Archeology of War, Hatherleigh Press, p.3-10 [8p] 4) Civilization s Double-Edged Sword (2012) Science Vol.336, May 18 [2p] 5) Jared Diamond, Vengeance is Ours, The New Yorker, April 21, 2008 [8p] 6) Azar Gat (2009) So Why Do People Fight? Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of War European Journal of International Relations 15.4, p [25p] 7) David Livingstone Smith (2007) The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, p [7p] 8) Margaret Mead (1940) Warfare Is Only an Invention Not a Biological Necessity in Conflict After the Cold War, Pearson Longman, p [5p] Week 3 September 28. War as Culture Ideological sources of warfare. War and society. The role of culture and nationalism. Ethnic and religious conflict. [60p] 1) Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris (2003) The True Clash of Civilizations Foreign Policy 135, p [8p] 2) Excerpt from Henry V by William Shakespeare, c.1599 [1p] 3) Wilfred Owen (1917) Dulce et Decorum Est [2p] 4) James Hillman (2004) Selections from Religion is War in A Terrible Love of War, Penguin Press, p [6p] 5) Daniel Posner (2004) The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and 3

4 Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi American Political Science Review 98.4, p [15p] 6) Eric Carlton (1990) The Crusader Knights, and The Maoists in War and Ideology, Routledge, p , [28p] Week 4 October 5. War as Mutual Fear The consequences of international anarchy. Polarity and the balance of power. The prisoner s dilemma. Perception and misperception in anarchy. [79 p] 1) Philip Ball (2006) Raising Leviathan: The Brutish World of Thomas Hobbes p in Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another, Farrar, Straus and Giroux [7p] 2) Glenn Snyder (2002) Mearsheimer s World Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security: A Review Essay International Security 27.1, p [25p] 3) Philip Ball (2006) Order in Eden: Learning to Cooperate p in Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another, Farrar, Straus and Giroux [19p] 4) At a Glance: The Prisoner s Dilemma Game p. 25 in Steven L. Spiegel et al, World Politics in a New Era, 4 th edition (2008) [1p] 5) Robert Jervis (1999) War and Misperception in The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars, edited by Robert Rotberg and Theodore Rabb, p [27p] Week 5 October 19. War as Diplomacy Clausewitz s Dictum. Rationalist explanations of war. War and bargaining. [84p] 1) James Fearon (1995) Rationalist Explanations for War International Organization 49.3, p [36p] 2) David Lake (2010) Two Cheers for Bargaining Theory: Assessing Rationalist Explanations of the Iraq War International Security 35.3, p.7-52 [46p] 3) Dylan Thomas (1957) The Hand That Signed the Paper [1p] Week 6 October 26. War as a Racket Domestic Theories of War. New democracies and war. Lobbies and corporations. Capitalism and war. [83p] 1) Erich Maria Remarque (1929) All Quiet on the Western Front, p [8p] 2) Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder (1995) Democratization and War Foreign Affairs 74.3, p [19p] 3) Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer (2006) The Israel Lobby London Review of Books, March 23 [26p; the ensuing correspondence is optional reading] 4) Michael Massing (2006) The Storm over the Israel Lobby New York Review of Books, June 8 [16p] 5) Smedley Butler (1935) War is a Racket [14p] 4

5 Week 7 November 2. The Democratic Peace Democratic institutions and interstate cooperation. [55p] 1) Robert Jervis (2002) Theories of War in an Era of Leading-Power Peace American Political Science Review 96.1, p.1-14 [11p] 2) Matthew White (2005) Democracies Do Not Make War on One Another or Do They? [16p] 3) Azar Gat (2005) The Democratic Peace Theory Reframed: The Impact of Modernity World Politics 58.1, p [28p] 4) Sebastian Rosato (2003) The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory American Political Science Review 97.4, p [16p] 5) John Mueller (1989) The Obsolescence of Major War, p in Richard Betts, ed., Conflict After the Cold War: Arguments on Causes of War and Peace, 2 nd edition, Pearson Longman [10p] Week 8 November 16. The Capitalist Peace The effects of trade and globalization on interstate peace. [80p] 1) Norman Angell (1913) Selections from The Great Illusion [2p] 2) Michael Doyle (1997) Commercial Pacifism: Smith and Schumpeter in Ways of War and Peace, p [21p] 3) Geoffrey Blainey (1973) Paradise is a Bazaar, p in The Causes of War, 3 rd edition, Simon and Schuster [15p] 4) Michael Mousseau (2009) The Social Market Roots of Democratic Peace International Security 33.4, p [13p] 5) Michael Mousseau (2010) Coming to Terms with the Capitalist Peace International Interactions 36, p [8p] 6) Jeffrey Winters and Benjamin Page (2009) Oligarchy in the United States? Perspectives on Politics 7.4, p [21p] Week 9 November 23. The Hegemonic Peace The role of great powers. Hegemonic stability theory and hegemonic wars. Power transitions and the likelihood of war. [75p] 1) G. John Ikenberry (2001) After Victory, Princeton p [18p] 2) G. John Ikenberry, The Myth of Post-Cold War Chaos Foreign Affairs, May 1996 [5p] 3) Genghis the Globaliser, The Economist, Dec. 19, 2007 [1p] 4) Jack Levy (1985) Theories of General War World Politics 37.3, p [12p] 5) John Mearsheimer, China s Unpeaceful Rise Current History, April 2006, p [3p] 5

6 6) Jonathan Kirshner (2012) The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Classical Realism and the Rise of China European Journal of International Relations 18, p [19p] 7) Gregory Chin and Ramesh Thakur (2010) Will China Change the Rules of Global Order? The Washington Quarterly 33:4, p [17p] Week 10 November 30. The Nuclear Peace Nuclear statecraft and mutually assured destruction. [76p] 1) Robert Jervis (1989) The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon, p.1-14, Cornell University Press [14p] 2) Kenneth Waltz (2013) More May be Better in The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate, by Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz, p.1-9, [18p] 3) Scott Sagan (2013) More Will be Worse in The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate, by Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz, p.41-57, 67-69, [25p] 4) Kenneth Waltz (2012) Why Iran Should Get the Bomb Foreign Affairs July/August 2012, p.2-5 [4p] 5) Nina Tannenwald (1999) The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-Use International Organization 53.3, p [9p] 6) Erik Voeten (2011) Americans Don t Think That Using Nuclear Weapons is a Taboo The Monkey Cage, November 17 [2p] 7) Elbridge Colby (2011) Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the New Logic of Nuclear Deterrence The National Interest, October 19, 2011 [4p] Week 11 November 30. War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century Conflict and technological change. Globalization and the international economy. The future of war and peace. [83p] 1) The Economist, Streams of blood, or streams of peace May 3, 2008 [6p] 2) Michael Ross, Blood Barrels: Why Oil Wealth Fuels Conflict in Foreign Affairs Foreign Affairs, May 2008 [6p] 3) Christian Caryl (2011) Predators and Robots at War The New York Review of Books, September 29 [9p] 4) Thomas Rid (2012) Think Again: Cyberwar Foreign Policy March/April 2012 [9p] 5) John Arquilla (2012) Cyberwar is Already Upon Us Foreign Policy March/April 2012 [4p] 6) Azar Gat (2007) The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers Foreign Affairs 86, Jul 2007, p [12p] 7) Daniel Drezner (2007) The New New World Order Foreign Affairs March/April [8p] 8) The Economist (2012) The Rise of State Capitalism, January 21 [5p] 9) Richard Haass (2008) The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow U.S. Dominance Foreign Affairs May/June [7p] 10) Robert Kaplan (2007) Was Democracy Just a Moment? The Atlantic Monthly, December 2007 [17p] 6