Crises in World Politics

Abstract

In examining patterns in international crises, the authors offer one path to a cocerted attack on a central phenomenon in world politics. After surveying the releva literature, including competing definitions, they set forth a conceptual map of int national crisis variables: actor attributes (age, territory, regime, capability, values system characteristics (size, geography, structure, alliance configuration, stability); a the crisis dimensions they wish to explain (trigger, actor behavior, superpower activity, and the role of international organizations—that is, crisis management, of come, and consequences). From this taxonomy they have developed a research frar work on international crisis, and, as an illustration of more narrow explanatory devie a crisis management-outcome model. Three clusters of hypotheses on the substar and form of crisis outcomes, and the duration of crises, are then tested against I evidence from 185 cases for the period from 1945 to 1962. The ultimate aim is illuminate international crises over a 50-year period, 1930–1980, across all continer cultures, and political and economic systems in the contemporary era.