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Annual Review of Political Science

Volume 20, 2017

Information, Uncertainty, and War

Abstract

Uncertainty about capabilities, intent, or resolve has long been linked to war. More recently, the bargaining model of war has established uncertainty, also referred to as asymmetric information, as one of the two major causes of costly conflict, the other being the dynamics of commitment in anarchy. A growing theoretical literature has made significant strides in fleshing out causal mechanisms and expanding our understanding of the role of information in conflict onset and how it relates to crisis bargaining and arms races. This article reviews these theoretical developments and describes current efforts to better understand the relationships between information, uncertainty, and war.

Keyword(s): beliefs, cascades, conflict, game theory, optimism, spirals, strategy, war
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/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051215-022729
2017-05-11
2024-04-25
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/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051215-022729
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Information, Uncertainty, and War
Annual Review of Political Science 20, 505 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051215-022729
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051215-022729
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051215-022729
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