Professor of Politics Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is best known for his groundbreaking research on international politics, in particular the development of mathematical models regarding conflict and the means to test their empirical validity. In addition, he has advised the American and British governments on national security matters and numerous corporations on questions related to complex negotiations.

Essay
The study of international conflict is undergoing a rapid and dramatic transformation. Some of the field’s most venerable beliefs now confront fundamental challenges to their logic and to their consistency with the record of history. For example, the idea that a balance of power promotes peace and an imbalance, war can easily be traced back more than two millennia to Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War. It is a belief that permeates the thinking of such influential statesmen as Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell and yet has been shown to bear no clear relationship to the likelihood or intensity of international conflict. In this essay I briefly touch upon some of the most important debates regarding our understanding of international affairs and the ways we go about studying conflict and peace. More...

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