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African Lessons for International Relations Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Douglas Lemke
Douglas Lemke
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Type
Review Articles
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World Politics , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , October 2003 , pp. 114 - 138
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Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2003

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References

1 Recent critical works include Holsti, Kalevi, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neuman, Stephanie, ed., International Relations Theory and the Third World (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998)Google Scholar; and Herbst, Jeffrey, States and Power in Africa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

2 Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 73Google Scholar; Levy, Jack, War in the Modern Great Power System (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), xiGoogle Scholar; Mearsheimer, John, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 17Google Scholar; and Danilovic, Vesna, When the Stakes Are High (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 A prominent exception is offered by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, who separately analyzes four regional subsets of a global data set; de Mesquita, Bueno, The War Trap (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 137–40Google Scholar.

4 For an informative discussion of balancing and bandwagoning, see Vasquez, John, “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs,” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the replies in the same issue by Christensen and Snyder and by Schweller. For developing world alliance behavior, see David, Steven R., “Explaining Third World Alignment,” WorldPolitics 43 (January 1991)Google Scholar.

5 An example of claims of the centrality of power maximization is found in Mearsheimer (fn. 2). A discussion of power and security maximization operating differently in the developing world than they do in the developed world forms the heart of Ayoob, Mohammed, The Third World Security Predicament (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995)Google Scholar. Vivid examples of political elites dismantling their governmental structures can be found in Reno, William, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1998)Google Scholar.

6 Herbst (fn. 1) and Ayoob (fn. 5) offer theoretical arguments incorporating such differing contexts.

7 For power transition theory, see Kugler, Jacek and sLemke, Douglas, “The Power Transition Research Program,” in Midlarsky, Manus, ed., Handbook of War Studies, vol. 2 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000)Google Scholar. For the democratic peace, see Russett, Bruce and Oneal, John, Triangulating Peace (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001)Google Scholar. For territorial disputes as an influence on international conflict, see Vasquez, John, The War Puzzle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Huth, Paul, Standing Your Ground (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. All of the data used are from EUGene, a description of which is offered by Bennett, D. Scott and Stam, Allan, “EUGene: A Conceptual Manual,” International Interactions 26, no. 2 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with the exception that the data for territorial disagreements are from Huth, Paul and Allee, Todd, The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)Google Scholar, appendix.

8 Lemke, Douglas, Regions of War and Peace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chap. 7. Therein I calculate that Africa has had between one-third and one-fifth as many wars as might be expected based on global frequencies of war.

9 Statistically significant African variables are found in a variety of other research projects. Most macroeconomic growth models include a statistically significant negative African effect. The most influential example is Barro, Robert, “Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 106 (May 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Africa also generates a significant and negative effect in cross-national studies of public health; see Davis, David R. and Iqbal, Zaryab, “The Social Consequences of Political Violence” (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Portland, Oregon, February 2003)Google Scholar. Additionally, the trend favoring central bank independence has disproportionately bypassed Africa, at least as reported in Maxfield, Sylvia, Gatekeepers of Growth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 50Google Scholar.

10 Lemke(fn. 8).

11 Data availability is similarly disadvantageous for those interested in African economic characteristics. The widely used Penn World Tables provide information about many economic characteristics of states. For the 1950–88 time period it includes 1,833 annual African observations. Twenty-four percent of these cases (438 observations) lack GDP data. Data are similarly missing for African exchange rates and price levels.

12 Dawson, John, Dejuan, Joseph, Seater, John, and Stephenson, E. Frank, “Economic Information versus Quality Variation in Cross-Country Data,” Canadian Journal of Economics 34 (November 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 The only international conflict data set I know of that includes a similar quality assessment score is Lewis Fry Richardson's deadly quarrels data set. Given the discussion here, it comes as no surprise that the correlation between Richardson's seven-point quality indicator and an Africa variable is negative and significant. These data are available Richardson, in, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Boxwood Press, 1960)Google Scholar. For an interesting essay about the quality of international war data generally, see Weede, Erich, “The Myth of Random Measurement Error in International Conflict Data Analysis,” Quality and Quantity 7, no. 1 (1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For trade interdependence, see Hegre, Havard, “Development and the Liberal Peace,” Journal of Peace Research 37 (January 2000)Google Scholar; and for joint democracy, see Mousseau, Michael, “Market Prosperity, Democratic Consolidation, and Democratic Peace,” Journal of Conflict Resolution AA (August 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Good examples are provided by Barro (fn. 9); Sachs, Jeffrey and Warner, Andrew, “Sources of Slow Growth in African Economies,” Journal of African Economies 6, no. 3 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Easterly, William and Levine, Ross, “Africa's Growth Tragedy,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 (November 1997)Google Scholar; idem, “Troubles with the Neighbors: Africa's Problem, Africa's Opportunity,” Journal of African Economies 7, no. 1 (1998)Google Scholar; Collier, Paul and Gunning, Jan Willem, “Explaining African Economic Performance,” Journal of Economic Literature 37 (March 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Englebert, Pierre, “Solving the Mystery of the Africa Dummy,” World Development 23, no. 10 (2000)Google Scholar.

16 The heteroskedastic probit results are available upon request. For an example of heteroskedastic probit elsewhere in political science research, see Alvarez, R. Michael and Brehm, John, “American Ambivalence towards Abortion Policy,” American Journal of Political Science 39 (November 1995)Google Scholar.

17 Jackson, , Quasi-States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

18 In this last chapter Clapham's work anticipates Reno's (fn. 5).

19 See the macroeconomic analyses listed in fn. 15.

20 Herbst, , “Responding to State Failure in Africa,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996–97)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Herbst (fn. 1).

22 Reno (fn. 5) describes the Kasai Oriental elite in Mbuji-Maye, who constitute “a center of autonomous development efforts and separatist tendencies,” made manifest by creation of a university, economic ties with foreign mining firms, and construction of independent hydroelectric powergenerating capability (chap. 5, p. 175).

23 I do not mean to suggest the only challenge Africa poses in Dunn and Shaw's volume is that nonstate actors matter. In addition, contributors question whether power maximization is a goal in Africa or whether African experience refutes liberal thought, and they explore how pan-Africanism may differentiate Africa from other areas. To be sure, however, the concern about nonstate actors is the most common challenge raised.

24 Clapham, Christopher, ed., African Guerrillas (Oxford: James Currey, 1998)Google Scholar.

25 Lacking accurate data on the power capabilities of these beset states and insurgencies, I cannot be definitive, but their behavior certainly is reminiscent of realist balancing. It would be very interesting to revisit David's claims about alignments in the developing world (fn. 4), taking into account alignments among or involving nonstate but nevertheless international actors.

26 For civil wars, see Small, Melvin and Singer, J. David, Resort to Arms (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1982)Google Scholar; Sambanis, Nicholas, “Do Ethnic and Nonethnic Civil Wars Have the Same Causes?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45 (June 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gleditsch, Kristian, All International Politics Is Local (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; esp. appendix B. For coups, see David, Steven, Third World Coups d'Etat and International Security (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

27 King, Charles, “The Benefits of Ethnic War: Understanding Eurasia's Unrecognized States,” World Politics 53 (July 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Clapham, Christopher, “Degrees of Statehood,” Review of International Studies 24 (April 1998), 150CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 However, it may not be too difficult. Freedom House reports data about “related and disputed territories” for the past thirty years. The number of such nonsovereign territories included has varied from a high of sixty-two to a low of sixteen. But for all included territories “political rights” and “civil liberties” scores comparable to those recorded for sovereign states are listed. What's more, the country summaries reported at length in Freedom House publications also describe de facto states, including many not listed among the “related and disputed territories.” For examples of such nonsovereign “state” coverage, see Gastil, Raymond, ed., Freedom in the World (New York: Freedom House with G. K. Hall, 1978)Google Scholar; or more recently Karatnycky, Adrian, ed., Freedom in the World, 2001–2002 (New York: Freedom House, 2002)Google Scholar.

30 King, Gary, Honaker, James, Joseph, Anne, and Scheve, Kenneth, “Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data,” American Political Science Review 95 (March 2001)Google Scholar.

31 Clapham (fn. 28).