War: Anthropological Aspects
term, we should be prepared for the possibility that
war, as we know it, may not define future conflict.
While employing violence in the pursuit of dominance
may continue to fuel war, violence may shift from
physical killing to a different order of threat and
inequality, and dominance might be reckoned along
such nonmilitary factors as economics, environmental
control, social viability, or a set of factors as yet
unrecognized. War has not always been a part of the
human condition, and perhaps future changes in
sociopolitical organization and ethical systems will
render war altogether obsolete. Effective research into
the causes, solutions and future of war will hone
combinations of theoretical inquiry with ethno-
graphy—helpingtoerasearbitrarydistinctionsbetween
theory and data (Nordstrom 1997). The greatest
advances will be in rethinking the very meanings of
violence and aggression, going beyond simple biolo-
gical and rudimentary social explanations to explore
the complex interactions of violence and power,
economics, survival, and identity both within and
across local, regional, and transnational populations.
See also: Conflict and War, Archaeology of; First
World War, The; Military and Politics; Military
Geography; Military History; National Security Stud-
ies and War Potential of Nations; Second World War,
The; Tribe; War: Causes and Patterns; War, Sociology
of; Warfare in History
Bibliography
Castells M 1998 End of Millennium. Blackwell, London
Enloe C H 2000 Maneu
ers: the International Politics of
Militarizing Women’s Li
es. University of California Press,
Berkeley, CA
Ferguson R B, Whitehead N L (eds.) 1992 War in the Tribal
Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare. School of
American Research Press, Santa Fe, NM
Foster M L, Rubinstein R A (eds.) 1986 Peace and War: Cross-
Cultural Perspecti
es. Transaction Books, Oxford, UK
Gregor T (ed.) 1996 A Natural History of Peace. Vanderbilt
University Press, Nashville, TN
Holsti K J 1996 The State, War, and the State of War. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, UK
Kaldor M 1999 New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a
Global Era. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA
Keane J 1996 Reflections on Violence. Verso, London
Nordstrom C 1997 A Different Kind of War Story. University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
Nordstrom C, Robben A C G M (eds.) 1995 Fieldwork Under
Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Sur
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al. Uni-
versity of California Press, Berkeley, CA
Rupesinghe K, Rubio Correa M 1994 The Culture of Violence.
United Nations University Press, Tokyo
Simons A 1999 War: back to the future. Annual Re
iews in
Anthropology 28: 73–108
Sluka J 1992 The anthropology of conflict. In: Nordstrom C,
Martin J (eds.) The Paths to Domination, Resistance
and Terror. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA,
pp. 18–36
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van Creveld M 1991 The Transformation of War. The Free Press,
New York
Warren K B (ed.) 1993 The Violence Within: Cultural and
Political Opposition in Di
ided Nations. Westview Press,
Boulder, CO
C. R. Nordstrom
War: Causes and Patterns
War involves large-scale organized violence between
states or other political units. Although the conduct of
war has changed in important ways over the millennia,
war itself has been a recurrent phenomenon in in-
ternational politics. It is one of the primary sources of
change in international systems and an important
factor in the evolution of the social and political
organization of societies. Theorizing about the causes
of war goes back to Thucydides’ History of the
Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, but
scholars are far from agreement on what causes war.
1. Patterns of Warfare
The current international system represents the most
recent stage in the evolution and globalization of the
system that originated in Europe about five centuries
ago. Warfare in this system has historically been
dominated by the ‘great powers,’ though the fre-
quency of wars between these leading states has
steadily declined, while their severity has increased.
The period since 1945 has been characterized by both
the longest period of great power peace in the last half
millennium and a dramatic shift in the concentration
of war from Europe to other regional subsystems and
from international wars to internal wars, many of
which have been intractable ethnonational or religious
‘identity wars.’ These recent trends have led some to
argue that we have reached a turning point in the
history of warfare. Some argue that major war between
advanced industrial states has become obsolete, while
others argue that traditional wars over power or
ideology will give way to a ‘clash of civilizations’
defined in terms of religious or cultural identity
(Huntington 1996). These arguments reflect different
theoretical perspectives on the causes of war.
2. Theoretical Approaches
Carl von Clausewitz (1976) wrote in his influential
book On War that war is a ‘continuation of politics by
other means,’ suggesting that war is an instrument of
policy for advancing state interests. This implies that
war ultimately involves a political decision by state

political leaders, so to understand war one must
understand why political leaders choose war rather
than other strategies to achieve their ends. Technically,
we must understand the joint decisions by rival states,
because one side can usually avoid war if it is willing to
make enough concessions.
2.1 The ‘Le
els of Analysis’ Framework
Scholars previously emphasized monocausal explana-
tions that identified a single primary cause of war,
but political scientists have moved away from such
explanations. Although they prefer parsimonious ex-
planations that explain as much as possible with as
little theoretical apparatus as possible, they generally
recognize that there are many possible causes of war
and that there is no single factor that is either necessary
or sufficient for war. One analytic framework that they
have found useful for categorizing the many possible
causes of war is based on patterns of causation located
at different ‘levels of analysis’: international system,
nation-state, and individual. The first focuses on
threats and opportunities to states that originate in
their external environment and that affect the
‘national interests’ of the state as a whole. The second
emphasizes the internal sources of foreign policy
decision making that derive from either governmental
structures or processes or from societal influences
outside of the government. The third emphasizes the
distinctive role of key individual decision makers in
the processes leading to war.
2.2 Systemic-le
el Theories of War
Systemic-level causes of war include the anarchic
structure of the international system (defined as the
absence of a legitimate authority to regulate disputes
and enforce agreements), the distribution of military
and economic power among the leading states in the
system, patterns of military alliances and international
trade, and other variables deriving from the external
environment of states. The leading systemic-level
approach is ‘realist theory,’ which begins with the
assumption of the primary role of sovereign states who
act rationally to advance their security, power, and
wealth in an anarchic international system. Given
uncertainties regarding the current and future inten-
tions of the adversary, political leaders focus on short-
term security needs, adopt worst-case thinking, engage
in a struggle for power, and utilize coercive threats to
advance their interests, influence the adversary, and
maintain their reputations.
At a very general level, realist theory posits two
distinct paths to war. In one, the direct conflict of
interests between states leads at least one side to prefer
war to any feasible compromise. In the second, states
prefer peace to war but are driven by the structure of
the situation and by uncertainty regarding the inten-
War: Causes and Patterns
tions of others to take actions to protect themselves
through armaments, alliances, and deterrent threats.
These actions are often perceived as threatening by
others (the ‘security dilemma’) and often lead to
counteractions and conflict spirals which sometimes
escalate to war.
The leading realist theory is balance of power
theory. Although there are several versions of balance
of power theory, most posit that the primary goal of
states is to avoid hegemony, to prevent any single state
from achieving a position from which it can dominate
over others. This leads to the instrumental goal of
maintaining a balance of power through the internal
mobilization of military power, external alliances
against potential aggressors, or the use of force if
necessary. The theory predicts that this balancing
mechanism almost always works successfully to avoid
hegemony, either because potential hegemons are
deterred by their anticipation of a military coalition
against them or because they are defeated in war after
deterrence fails.
Another theory that gives primary emphasis to the
systemic-level sources of war, but that is associated
with a liberal perspective that downplays the con-
flictual consequences of anarchy, emphasizes the
potential for cooperation among states, and includes
some domestic factors as well, is the liberal economic
theory of war. The core of the theory, which originates
with Immanuel Kant’s Eternal Peace (1795\1977), is
that trade promotes peace. Trade leads to economic
benefits, but the economic interdependence generated
by trade leaves states vulnerable to any disruption
through war, and the fear of economic disruption and
the loss of the gains from trade deter political leaders
from taking actions that are likely to lead to war.
Realists challenge this view and argue that because
trade and interdependence are usually asymmetrical
they often contribute to conflict rather than deter it,
either because states may be tempted to exploit their
trading partner’s vulnerabilities or because domestic
groups vulnerable to external economic developments
demand protectionist measures, which can lead to
retaliatory actions, conflict spirals, and war.
2.3 National-le
el Theories of War
Systemic-level theories, with their emphasis on the
external forces that shape state decisions for war, posit
that states in similar situations behave in similar ways.
The implication is that factors internal to states have
little impact on foreign policy decisions. There is
substantial evidence, however, that decisions for war
are often influenced by internal political and economic
structures, political cultures and ideologies, and dom-
estic political processes, and over the last decade
international relations theorists have been giving more
attention to domestic factors.
Regime type is particularly important, based on
evidence that democratic regimes behave differently in
16355
War: Causes and Patterns
important respects than do authoritarian regimes.
Although democracies get involved in wars as fre-
quently as do authoritarian states, frequently fight
imperial wars, and once involved in war often adopt a
crusading spirit and fight particularly destructive wars,
it is striking that democracies rarely if ever go to war
with each other. This ‘interdemocratic peace’ is based
on standard definitions of democracy (fair, competi-
tive elections and constitutional transfers of executive
power) and war (which is often distinguished from
lesser conflicts by the threshold of a minimum of 1,000
battle-related deaths).
There are several interrelated explanations for
interdemocratic peace. To be valid these explanations
must account not only for the near absence of war
between democracies but also for the fact that
democracies get involved in wars just about as much as
other states do. One model emphasizes the insti-
tutional constraints on democratic leaders—checks
and balances, the dispersion of power, and the need
for public debate—that enable governmental or so-
cietal groups to block attempts by political leaders to
take the country into war. Related to this ‘institutional
model’ is the ‘political culture model,’ which suggests
that the norms of peaceful conflict resolution that have
evolved within democratic societies are extended to
relations between democratic states, and that these
norms facilitate negotiated settlements.
Authoritarian leaders face fewer institutional or
cultural constraints, and they often attempt to exploit
the conciliatory tendencies of democracies. This
undermines democratic political leaders’ expectations
that their conciliatory negotiating strategies will be
reciprocated, reduces the internal constraints on their
use of force, and provides incentives for democratic
regimes to resort to force against authoritarian regimes
both to protect themselves and sometimes to facilitate
democratic transitions.
The institutional model of interdemocratic peace
assumes that political leaders are more inclined to war
than are their peoples, but this assumption does not
always hold. Jingoistic public opinion, often exacer-
bated by the media, can force political leaders into
wars that they would prefer to avoid or preclude them
from making the concessions that might prevent war.
There is a strong tendency for the use of force against
external adversaries to generate a temporary boost in
domestic support for political leaders in the form of a
‘rally round the flag’ effect. Political leaders anticipate
this, and are sometimes tempted to undertake risky
foreign ventures in an attempt to distract attention
from domestic problems or to blame other states or
groups for those problems. Many contemporary
ethnic wars result in part from political leaders
manipulating images of ethnic rivals and mobilizing
their domestic publics against those rivals in order to
serve their own narrow political interests. External
scapegoating can backfire, however, if it results in a
military defeat.
16356
2.4 Indi
idual-le
el Theories of War
Whereas systemic and national-level theories
emphasize the role of international and domestic
forces that lead to war and suggest that individ-
ual political leaders have little impact, other theories
give significant causal weight to individuals, their
beliefs about the world and specific adversaries, the
psychological processes through which they acquire
information and make decisions, and their person-
alities and emotional states. Some theories emphasize
cognitive limitations and affective variables that im-
pact most people in similar ways and result in standard
patterns of deviations from ideal-type models of
rational decision making. Other theories emphasize
the variations among political leaders in the way they
define state interests, perceive threats to those inter-
ests, assess the intentions of adversaries, evaluate the
merits of alternative strategies to achieve those inter-
ests, use the lessons of history to shape current policies,
and respond to the pressures and uncertainties of
foreign policy crises. Misperceptions of the intentions
and capabilities of adversaries and third states can be
a particularly important cause of war.
3. Conclusion
Although the levels-of-analysis framework initially led
scholars to focus on the question of which level of
analysis was most important in the causes of war, and
thus to emphasize single-level explanations, attention
has recently shifted to the question of how variables
at different levels interact in the processes leading to
war.
See also: Alliances: Political; Balance of Power:
Political; Cold War, The; Conflict and War, Arch-
aeology of; Conflict Sociology; Deterrence; Foreign
Policy Analysis; Imperialism: Political Aspects; Inter-
nal Warfare: Civil War, Insurgency, and Regional
Conflict; Military and Politics; Military Geography;
Military History; Military Sociology; National Secur-
ity Studies and War Potential of Nations; Peace;
Peace Movements; Realism\Neorealism; War: Anth-
ropological Aspects; War Crimes Tribunals; War,
Sociology of; Warfare in History
Bibliography
Clausewitz C von 1976 On War Howard M and Paret P.
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Huntington S P 1996 The Clash of Ci
ilizations and the Remaking
of World Order. Simon and Schuster, New York
Jervis R 1976 Perception and Misperception in International
Politics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Kant I 1977 Eternal peace. In: Friedrich C (ed.) The Philosophy
of Kant. Modern Library, New York, pp. 430–76

Levy J S 1983 War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495–
1975. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Ray J L 1995 Democracy and International Conflict. University of
South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC
Thucydides 1954 History of The Peloponnesian War. In: The
Landmark Thucydides, ed. and trans. Strassler R B. Free Press,
New York
Van Evera S 1999 Causes of War. Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, NY
Vasquez J A 1993 The War Puzzle. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK
Waltz K N 1959 Man, the State, and War. Columbia University
Press, New York
J. S. Levy
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
War Crimes Tribunals
From Nuremberg to The Hague and Kigali, the latter
half of the twentieth century witnessed the beginnings
of an international framework for the prosecution and
punishment of war crimes. Yet progress in this area
has been sporadic and discontinuous, often seeming to
reveal as much or more about what does not work as
about what does. Contemporary efforts to establish a
permanent international criminal court usually are
traced to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly a
half-century ago. These efforts continued through a
summer of 1998 meeting of more than 100 nations in
Rome that led to a tentative treaty to establish a
permanent international criminal court (ICC). Con-
tinuing efforts include war crime tribunal activity in
relation to the wars in Rwanda and the former
Yugoslavia and ongoing efforts to ratify and im-
plement the treaty for a permanent court through the
United Nations. Although there is much anecdotal
and growing empirical evidence of the need for a
permanent institution to deal with war crimes, there is
a lack of social science analysis and a resulting
knowledge base that could help to broaden the
foundation of support for an international criminal
court by the public. The agenda of such a court
increasingly is recognized as not only involving right-
ing wrongs of the past but also preventing war crimes
in the future.
1. The Lessons of War
A lesson of World War I was that, left to their own
devices, vanquished as well as victorious nations often
will do little to punish war criminals appropriately
(Marrus 1997). Following World War I, the vulnerable
politicians of the fledgling Weimar Republic insisted
that the prosecution and punishment of German war
criminals should be handled by the German Supreme
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
War Crimes Tribunals
Court in Leipzig. The resulting sentences ranged from
two months to four years of imprisonment and were
given to only six of 12 war criminals tried from a list of
more than 900 suspects supplied by the Allied forces.
The proceedings at Nuremberg following World
War II were a notable improvement. The results of
Nuremberg are made more notable by the fact that
public opinion tended to simply favor summary
execution of the captured leaders of the Axis powers.
Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of War, Henry
Stimson, argued instead for a trial before an in-
ternational tribunal. Roosevelt’s successor as presi-
dent, Harry Truman, endorsed the trial model and
persuaded the Allied powers to work through the
United Nations in establishing the International Mili-
tary Tribunal (IMT) to prosecute and punish ‘crimes
against peace,’ ‘war crimes,’ and ‘crimes against
humanity.’
The resulting Nuremberg Indictment was regarded
as an extension of the common law of the nations
involved, although this common law was far from
universally recognized at the time of Nuremberg. A
defense posed in response to the resulting prosecutions
was that the tribunal’s charges were ex post facto,
retroactive creations. Marrus (1997, pp. 565–6) notes
that the Harvard criminologist and law professor,
Sheldon Glueck, responded with the common law
retort that
Surely … Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Ribbentrop, Frank,
Doenitz, and the rest ... knew full well that murder is murder,
whether wholesale or retail, whether committed in pursuance
of a gigantic conspiracy to disregard all treaties and wage
lawless wars or of a smaller conspiracy evolved by a group of
domestic murderers.
Twelve war criminals included under the Nurem-
berg Indictment received death sentences. Three
acquittals also demonstrated that such a tribunal could
provide reprieve as well as punishment. The devel-
opment of a jurisprudence of ‘crimes against hu-
manity’ was especially noteworthy as an innovation
that addressed the persecution of specific groups, in
this case including the German Jews as well as other
groups. And, of course, Nuremberg helped establish in
the public mind the responsibility of individuals to
refuse illegal orders. The tribunal’s work also brought
into limited question some Allied war strategies and
methods, including the firebombing of German cities.
But the Nuremberg Tribunal also received justi-
fiable criticism. The presence on the tribunal of
Russian judges and the impunity of Stalin and other
Russian leaders belied their wartime atrocities. Some
charges of ‘crimes against peace’ were clumsily con-
ceived and pursued. In spite of Eleanor Roosevelt’s
successful work for the adoption of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, this effort
expressly rejected a standing tribunal to deal with
future war crimes. Similarly, the impetus of the
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ISBN: 0-08-043076-7