DONDENA Seminar - Alexandre Debs
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“Assurance and Self-Assurance under Power Imbalance”
SPEAKER: Alexandre Debs (YALE University)
ABSTRACT:
How could power imbalance lead to war? How could power imbalance allow formutual optimism? I analyze these questions using a formal model of incomplete information,where two parties bargain over two periods. I argue that power imbalance causes war becausethe strong party wishes to crush its weaker opponent, obviating the need for futureconcessions. This dynamic also explains how the two countries could be mutually optimisticabout their path to victory, under two-sided incomplete information on capabilities andresolve. The strong country hopes that its enemy lacks the capabilities to survive the initialbattle. The weak country hopes that its enemy lacks the resolve to continue the fight. I illustratethis argument by reevaluating the dynamics of the Pacific War of 1941-1945.
BIO:
Alexandre Debs is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University, wherehe is also the Faculty Director of the Nuclear Security Program at the MacMillan Center forInternational and Area Studies.Alexandre’s research focuses on the causes of war, nuclear proliferation, and democratization.His work has appeared in top political science and international relations journals, such asthe American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal ofPolitics, International Organization, and International Security. He is the author of thebook Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation (with Nuno Monteiro), published byCambridge University Press in 2017. Alexandre received a Ph.D. degree in Economics from M.I.T.,an M.Phil. in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, anda B.Sc. in Economics and Mathematics from Université de Montréal.