Maintenance Processes in International Rivalries

Abstract

This article asks a new question: what are the processes that maintain rivalries? The authors argue that rivalries are maintained through the failure of realist strategies and conflict management ones. They focus on stalemate outcomes as both a signal that militarized strategies for dealing with conflict have not succeeded and as reasons for the countries to continue the rivalry. They explore the process of rivalry maintenance, largely from the perspective of the punctuated equilibrium model of rivalries, and examine 1,166 rivalries across the period from 1816 to 1992. They contrast their approach with that of the “repeated conflicts” literature, which only examines the impact of the previous dispute on recurring conflict. The authors find that the most recent conflict does matter, and the longer term history of the rivalry is more important. They also find that the impacts of various factors (e.g., democracy) change over the course of the rivalry.