Lawfare
Millions of hostile rivalries exist between groups worldwide, but their conflicts rarely escalate to protracted violence. Because would-be combatants know that all-out conflict usually proves immensely costly to all sides, they regularly find ways to avoid open warfare. And when it comes to international affairs in particular, we tend to focus on the wars that do occur at the expense of internalizing the core truth that, most of the time, they simply don’t happen.
Political scientist and economist Christopher Blattman has a fresh take on these big issues of war and peace. He argues for sustained attention not only to the mechanisms by which conflict wins out over compromise but also to the remedies that routinely shift incentives away from protracted violence and get rivals back to deal-making. His research has put him in the room with street gang leaders and African dictators, British football hooligans and drug kingpins–experiences that combine with his insights from political science, economics, and psychology in his new book, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace.
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