human nature and war

Question 1

three different propositions we will look at in greater detail:

Answer 1

o (1). The ethnological (or nature) argument that human nature causes war.
o (2). The constructivist (or nurture) argument that socialization causes war.
o (3). The systemic (or Waltzian) argument that human nature does not matter.

Question 2

• Definition of War:

Answer 2

Armed contest between two independent political units (not intra-state), by means of organized military force, usually fought for political ends.

Question 3

(I). Ethology:

Answer 3

• Ethology is the study of human and animal behavior.
  o Much of their work focuses evolutionary biology and its adaptive purposes, rather than learned behavior.
  o Ethologists therefore tend to emphasize the genetic origins of behavior and downplay the role of socialization.

Question 4

• The underlying logic of ethology is that

Answer 4

human behavior, (the behavior of everyone in this room), is the result of millions of years of successful evolution.
* Outlined in Charles Darwin’s (1859 Origin of Species), you have a process of natural selection, in which there is survival for the fittest.

Question 5

• For ethology, the human brain is

Answer 5

hardwired, and therefore human thought has predispositions. People have instincts. These fundamental drives: hunger, sex, fear, aggression, territoriality.

Question 6

One human instinctual behavior that has received a significant amount of evidence is

Answer 6

the effects of ingroupism & outgroupism.

Question 7

• The implication for constructing identities is that

Answer 7

no in-group can survive without an outgroup.

Question 8

• Extrapolating this interstate relations, we can merge ingroupism/outgroupism with:

Answer 8

o The security dilemma,
 In which one exaggerates the extent to which outgroups are preparing hostilities against the ingroup.
o The fundamental attribution error,
 In which outgroups are attributed with hostile policies by choice and in-groups with defensive policies by necessity.
* This seems like an adaptive:
o It predisposed early human to be suspicious of nature and its many dangers:
 Wild cats, bears, and perhaps other hostile simians.
o But makes inter-state negotiation very difficult.

Question 9

(II). Constructivism:

Answer 9

• Constructivism examines the role of how realities are constructed and reproduced through the transmission of ideas.
• There is an historical explanation and it is that somehow we came to share these ideas and the Americans to the South of us did not.
  o To understand human behavior, we therefore have to look at the history of ideas

Question 10

know milgram study:

Answer 10

• The Study
  o These subjects were told, but an authoritative looking scientist, that the experiment was the effects of punishment on learning.
  o The learning task consisted of associating nonsense syllables.
  o The subject was put in the role of a teacher and was instructed to punish the student’s mistakes with electric shocks.
  o The strength of the shocks was graduated from 15 volts, increasing in 15-volt intervals to 300 volts, and a final voltage labelled XXX.
  o The student was strapped in a chair with electrodes hooked up to the voltage device.
  o The teacher was instructed to punish the student with increasingly severe shocks.
  o The teacher was accompanied by the research scientists who instructed the teacher when to inflict the shocks.
  o The student was actually an actor, and simulated the pain suffered every-time a shock was administered, pleading at times and hitting the walls when the heavier shocks were administered.
  o While 35% of the subjects refused to administer shocks beyond a certain point, fully 65% of subjects applied the XXX shock treatment.
• Milgram sought to demonstrate that the influence of authority figures is greater than the inhibition not to harm innocent human beings.
• To control for the possibility that the subjects were motivated by conformity as different from obedience to an authority figure, Milgram added two scientist accomplices who recommended lower charges in the first control group, and higher voltages in the second control group.
  o The subject tended to conform with these suggestions, and therefore there is an independent effect from group conformity that Milgram could control for.

Question 11

implication of Milgram study

Answer 11

o Subjects could be socialized, through the trusted proxy of an authoritative scientist, to counter-act their instincts.
o This is a good demonstration that human instincts are shaped by powerful social and learning influences.

Question 12

Margaret Mead: war is

Answer 12

learned

Question 13

• A favorite case of Mead was the crucial case of the

Answer 13

Eskimo: the Eskimo are both isolated from modern civilization and are remarkably peaceful.
o Problem: Mead does not try and cannot explain the variance: some societies like the Pueblo Aboriginals seldom fought, whereas the Sioux fought wars frequently.

Question 14

• There are 5 reasons why the Inu people should not be warlike:

Answer 14

o (1). No need for territory;
o (2). Limited need for property;
o (3). No need for slaves;
o (4). Sparsity of population makes war difficult;
o (5). Poverty striken populations.

Question 15

• Charles Tilly, in his study of how war was the most important process in the origin of European states, concluded that militaries had two roles:

Answer 15

o (1). The protection of the country from external threats and
o (2). Ensuring domestic stability and taxation.

Question 16

The origins of social identities: There are good explanations and bad explanations. Let us look first at a bad explanation:

Answer 16

(1). Primordialism is the concept that there existed in the beginning pure and distinct races of people with a fixed and original geographic homeland. Primordialism has a powerful social and political impact: people act on it as if it were true, and use it as an organizational rallying point.
_The concept of race is based on salient physical characteristics, such as skin color.

Question 17

Aside from primordialism, there are a number of alternative explanations for the origins of identities:

Answer 17

(1). Socio-economic processes as creators if identity:
(2). Discourse, meaning the symbols of language and culture, which have their own logic, defines identity:
_Discourse normally proceeds through up to three stages:
(a). The venacular: Traditions linked to dynastic histories or as moral guides become examples of national virtues.
(b). Politicized venacular: This is when venacular symbols are used to mobilize a population against an external threat.
(c). Ethnic purification: Efforts are made to ground all aspects of a community’s existence around the principles, and the exclusion of individuals, groups and ideas that are not compatible.

(3). The state as the agent of identity: states assimilate old identities into a new composite identity.
(4). Individuals may create identities as a tactic to mobilize populations.

_An important point is that in the same way that ideas can change, so can identities, in response to external circumstances:

(5). A fifth source of identity can occur in the process of domestic insecurity:
_This is where we take a closer look at the Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict:

Question 18

Two considerations increase the incentive to act offensively

Answer 18

(1). In most ethnic conflicts there exist isolated enclaves that will succumb through starvation if they are not liberates – so there is a strong offensive incentive to act.
(2). Land matters, because land means populations that constitute recruiting grounds

Question 19

_Mobilization consists of both

Answer 19

both the accumulation of weapons and organizing for defense, as well as an intensification of the symbols of the group: this can lead to further demonization of those excluded from the group, decreasing the opportunity to compromise with them.

Question 20

Ethnic conflicts since 1945 have ended in one of five ways (Chaim Kaufmann):

Answer 20

(1). One groups overpowers others (19):
(2). Partition, but many of these conflicts simply become interstate conflicts: (16):
(3). Suppressed by third-party occupation (2):
(4). Regional Autonomy (8):
(5). Power-Sharing Agreement (1):

Question 21

Clash of Civilizations:

Answer 21

The influence of identities on ethnic associations on a macro-scale forms the basis for Samuel Huntington’s prediction for a clash of civilizations at present and in the future.
He argues that there are eight civilizations on earth and that most wars will occur along the boundaries between these different civilizations rather than within civilizations. He defines a civilization as the broadest cultural entity with which people intensely identify.

Question 22

He defines a civilization as

Answer 22

the broadest cultural entity with which people intensely identify.

Question 23

There are eight basic civilizations:

Answer 23

: the Western, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and African.

Question 24

Huntington provides six reasons why civilizations will clash:

Answer 24

(1). Civilizations differ fundamentally on the basis of religion, social organization, and justice, and so this incompatibility leads to conflict on the frontiers between different civilizations:
(2). Inter-civilization interactions are increasing with technology and civilizational-awareness is increasing with education.
(3). Economic modernization is weakening the state and leaving in its place the identity of the civilization, often a fundamentalist variant of the dominant religion.
(4). Non-Western civilizations are returning to their cultural roots in order to compete with a powerful Western civilization.
(5). Civilizational identity is not mutable. During the Cold War, the question was “whose side are you on?” In the coming civilizational conflict, the question is “what are you?” This intensifies differences and increases the likelihood of conflicts.
(6). Trade is increasing intra-regionally (within a region), rendering civilizations more autonomous and self-reliant. Less interdependence.

Question 25

Huntington hypothesizes that most of the coming conflicts will occur on the fault lines between civilizations where people are fighting to maintain their identities.

Answer 25

(a). Balkans: Islamic, Slavic, Western.
(b). Caucasus: Chechnya, Armenia, Georgia: Slavic v. Islamic
(c ). Southeast Asia: Islam v. Hindu and Confucian (Philippines + Indonesia).
(d): Kashmir: Islamic v. Hindu.

Question 26

The first weakness of his argument is that there is

Answer 26

little statistical evidence of a pattern of conflicts occurring between civilizations rather than within civilizations.

Question 27

States will align themselves not according to identity, but

Answer 27

according to power, and this will create a checkerboard pattern of allies and enemies.

Question 28

The appeal of primordialism here had less influence than

Answer 28

the imperatives of the balance of power.

Question 29

irredentism
(Ethnic conflict matters as a cause of war at the inter-state level)

Answer 29

one state pursues policies to liberate its minority population in another state,These minorities are typically accused of dual loyalty, between their state of residence and their state of origin.

Question 30

Social Darwinism

Answer 30

argued that weak nationalities would be overcome by the stronger and nobler nationalities.

Question 31

(III). Systemic:

Answer 31

• The systemic or Waltzian understanding of the impact of human nature argues that it does not matter. While individual level characteristics interact, it is the system as an intervening variable, with its process of nature selection (market), that governs outcomes.

Question 32

reductionism

Answer 32

the error of assuming the nature of the parts can be easily extrapolated to the nature of the overall system.

Question 33

• International system is

Answer 33

the most important cause of war:

Question 33

intentions do not necessarily lead to

Answer 33

outcome