2017/01/18 by Max Gallop · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Political Conflict and Governance #Defense, Military, and Policy Studies #International Relations and Foreign Policy
paper · doi:10.1177/0951629816682884
openalex publication_date 2017/01/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
For the bargaining model of war, in the absence of incomplete information and commitment problems, war is irrational. But this finding rests on a simple and rarely discussed assumption, that bargaining is between exactly two participants. When we relax this assumption, in a three-player bargaining game, war is an equilibrium. Thus, a key finding of the bargaining model, that there is always an agreement that all states prefer war, is an artifact of dyadic analysis. By removing this limitation, we can find new factors that affect the risk of war: the number of actors, divergence in state preferences, alliance dynamics, and the issue being bargained over.