Balances of Power and the Escalation to War of Serious Disputes among the European Great Powers, 1815-1939: Some Evidence

Abstract

Two contrary balance of explanations of escalation of interstate conflict to war are tested: (1) parity in power preserves peace and (2) rough parity in power encourages escalation to war. Unlike other tests of these propositions, the assessment of the balance of includes information on political capacity of a state, political geography, and different types of alliance formations. During 1815-1939, conflicts between approximately equal, nonseparated great power opponents were much more likely to escalate to war than were conflicts between unequals.