The Past Speaks

Tower of London Poppies

On Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War, it is customary to think of the fallen, and of the ways by which the likelihood of war can be reduced. As armistice day reading this year, I would recommend an excellent new collection of essays called The Handbook on the Political Economy of War edited by Christopher J. Coyne and Rachel L. Mathers. The papers in this collection, which are by scholars working a variety of disciplines and intellectual traditions, are, for the most part, superb.

Here is the book’s Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
Christopher J. Coyne and Rachel L. Mathers

PART I: WHY WARS ARE WAGED
2. Theories and Causes of War
Jack S. Levy

3. The Reasons for Wars: An Updated Survey
Matthew O. Jackson and Massimo Morelli

4. Can’t We All Just Get Along? Fractionalization, Institutions and Economic Consequences
Peter T. Leeson and Claudia R. Williamson

5. Psychological Aspects of War
Iain Hardie, Dominic Johnson and Dominic Tierney

PART II: WAYS OF WAGING WAR
6. What is Guerrilla Warfare?
Anthony James Joes

7. The Economics of Torture
Pavel Yakovlev

8. Terrorism in Rational Choice Perspective
William F. Shughart II

9. The Political Economy of Conscription
Panu Poutvaara and Andreas Wagener

PART III: CIVIL WAR AND REVOLUTION
10. Economic Perspectives on Civil Wars
Nathan Fiala and Stergios Skaperdas

11. Political Economy of Third World Revolutions
Misagh Parsa

PART IV: THE ARMS TRADE
12. The Arms Trade
David Kinsella

13. Arms Trade Offsets: What Do We Know?
Jurgen Brauer and John Paul Dunne

PART V: POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
14. The Capitalist Peace
Erich Weede

15. On the Democratic Peace
Sebastian Rosato

16. International Conflict and Leadership Tenure
Randall J. Blimes

17. A Public Choice Perspective on Defense and Alliance Policy
Bernhard Klingen

18. International Regimes and War
James Ashley Morrison and Avery F. White

PART VI: POST-CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION AND NATION BUILDING
19. Fixing Failed States: A Dissenting View
Justin Logan and Christopher Preble

20. Choice and Consequence in Strategies of Transitional Justice
Geoff Dancy

21. Dynamics of Military Occupation
Michael Hechter and Oriol Vidal-Aparicio

22. Three’s Company? Towards an Understanding of Third-Party Intervention Effectiveness
David Carment and Martin Fischer

23. Credible Commitment in Post-Conflict Recovery
Thomas Edward Flores and Irfan Nooruddin

24. Conflict, Credibility and Asset Prices
Gregory M. Dempster and Justin P. Isaacs

PART VII: ALTERNATIVES TO WAR
25. Disaggregated Trade Flows and International Conflict
Han Dorussen and Hugh Ward

26. Sanctions as Alternatives to War
David Cortright and George A. Lopez

27. International Negotiation and Conflict Prevention
I. William Zartman

28. The Economics of Peacekeeping
Lloyd J. Dumas

Index