Long-term trends in violence and armed conflicts
Dr. Marek Rybář
Political Violence
Spring 2022

Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes (1651)
•“[All men have the equality of ability such that the weak may be able to kill the strong] . . .
this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends.  And therefore if
any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies”

questions that have been at the core of major world religions and addressed by many philosophers
Trends in political violence in the last 100/150 years?
If so, how can we explain it?

Leviathan (cont.)
•“In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel:  first, competition; secondly,
diffidence (fear), thirdly, glory.    The first maketh man invade for gain; the second, for safety;
and the third, for reputation.”

Hobbes explain why people fight each other: 3 human "instincts"
The conflict is not necessary, can be avoided. Under what conditions?

Leviathan (cont.)
•“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a condition
which is called war. . . . every man against every man. . . . and the life of man [is] solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
•

To avoid violence, people need a central authority with oversight powers

Hobbes
•Hobbes’ work is sometimes confused for an apology for absolutism
•however, it is more appropriate to understand it as a warning: situations in which there is no
central authority (the state), i.e. no monopoly for legitimate use of violence, recede to chaos
•William Golding – Lord of the Flies
•a good illustration is the anarchical nature of international relations: there is no central
authority able to control the states‘ behavior

Hobbes works is best seen as a warning against situations without central authority (the state)
the anarchical nature of international relations

Is violence ubiquitous?
•a suicide bombing attack in Mogadishu (Somalia) in February 2022
•a threat of Russian invasion of Ukraine
•frozen conflict in Eastern Ukraine
•civil wars in Ethiopia and Yemen
•ongoing conflicts in Somalia, Libya, Venezuela and elsewhere
•the war of Mexican drug cartels
•Mass killing (200+) in northwestern Nigeria in January 2022 in an ongoing conflict between
government and various gangs and militias

TV news report violence as omnipresent and ubiquitious

Unusually peaceful times

Explore the question from European perspective first:
the last 500 years - unusually peaceful times

Unusually peaceful times

Consider global incidence of violence
an overall decline to zero of great powers fight each others
(Korean war, effectively ended 70 years ago)
the last sustained regular war with regular armies - Ethiopia-Eritrea war
(Armenia-Azerbaijan 2020)

Battle deaths in international conflicts per 100.000 inhabitants (Acemoglu 2012)

battlefield deaths - the last three decades very peaceful

armed conflicts declined because they have fundamentally changed: asymmetrical wars do not produce
extremely high costs of lives
technological change make wars less brutal (arm drones)
improvement in battlefield medicine

Is it a statistical fluke?
•skeptics: human nature has not changed, we all share innate inclination to violence
•similar innate aggressive tendencies exist among all primates
•the universality of violence in human societies: homicide, rape, domestic violence, rioting,
raiding and feuding

Is it a statistical fluke?
•furthermore, evolutionary psychology concludes that, as our species evolved, certain genes,
hormones, brain circuits, and selective pressures militated toward violence
•those pressures could not have gone into reverse within two-three generations since the end of
WWII

If it is not a trend, how can we explain that
•human sacrifice was a regular practice in every early civilization and now has vanished?
•Between the Middle Ages and the 20th century, rates of homicide in Europe fell at least 35fold?
•since the second half of the 18th century, every major Western country abolished the use of
torture as a form of criminal punishment?
•European countries used to have hundreds of capital crimes, including trivial offenses, and by
mid-20th century the death penalty was abolished by every western democracy (except the US)?

If it is not a trend, how can we explain that
•slavery was once legal everywhere on earth, the last country to outlaw it was Mauritania (1980)?
•witch hunts, religious persecutions, dueling, blood sports, and debtors’ prisons were abolished?
•corporal punishment of children (both paddling and whipping in schools AND smacking in households)
in sharp decline in most Western countries and made illegal in several European countries?

Human nature has multiple components 1/4
•human violence springs from several motives, each involving different neurobiological system:
•1. exploitation: violence used as the means to an end, damaging a human who is an obstacle to
something one wants
•2. dominance: the urge to dominate, to become the alpha male; the urge among groups for tribal,
ethnic, racial, national or religious supremacy

Human nature has multiple components 2/4
•3. revenge: the conviction that someone who has committed a moral infraction deserves to be
punished
•4. ideology: shared belief systems, spread virally or by indoctrination or force, hold out the
prospect for a utopia: since utopia is a world that will be infinitely good, one is permitted to
use unlimited amount of force against those who stand in its way

Human nature has multiple components 3/4
•some of our kinder gentler faculties are pushing against these impulses:
•1. self-control: circuitry in the frontal lobes of the brain that can anticipate the long-term
consequences of our actions and inhibit them accordingly
•2. empathy: the ability to feel someone else’s pain

Pinker: factors that mitigate human violence: kinder gentler faculties

Human nature has multiple components 4/4
•3. the moral sense: a system of norms and taboos centered on intuitions of fairness, loyalty to a
community, deference to legitimate authority etc., can motivate the imposition of standards of
fairness
•4. reason: cognitive processes that allow us to engage in objective detached analysis

Contextual nature of the use of violence
•any combination of the violence-inducing motives may trigger the decision to wage war •many human
responses are opportunistic, reactive or facultative, elicited by various combinations of
environmental triggers and cognitive and emotional states •predation and exploitation may occur
when an opportunity to exploit a victim at low risk presents itself • vengeance to punish (and thus
deter) insults or injuries •if one lives an orderly bourgeois life free from grave threats or
insults, any violent tendencies could lie as dormant

Complexity of human nature: the use of violence is highly dependent on context

Human Cognition
•the cognitive apparatus which makes it possible for humans to reason is special in inhibiting
humans from the use of violence
•human cognition can produce social constructs that are capable of preventing violence if the right
social infrastructure is there: literacy, open debate, the mobility of people
•they work by disincentivizing leaders and populations from plunging into war

Social Constructs capable of Preventing Violence
•limits on government, including in democracy, so that governments do not perpetrate more violence
on their people than they prevent
•an infrastructure of commerce, which makes it cheaper to buy things than to plunder them and which
makes other people more valuable alive than dead
•an international community which can propagate the norms of nonviolent cooperation
•intergovernmental organizations which can encourage commerce, resolve disputes, police infractions
and penalize aggression

Social Constructs capable of Preventing Violence
•measured responses to aggression, including economic sanctions, symbolic declarations, tactics of
nonviolent resistance, and proportional counterstrikes
•reconciliation measures such as ceremonies, monuments, truth commissions and formal apologies
•humanistic counter-ideologies such as human rights which can compete with nationalism, militarism,
revanchism and utopian ideologies

Criticism
•there is wide agreement on the decline of war and other forms of violence
•however, we are unable to choose between alternative plausible theories explaining that decline
•furthermore, even if the trend is accepted, it cannot be extrapolated into the future

decline of war and violence, we do not know why that is the case
cannot be extrapolated to future unless we understand the reasons behind the decline of war

Criticism
•there may be lack of “better angels” outside the West, and even the West may be backsliding
•Pinker may underestimate the importance of the international system and the distribution of power
•the rise of China is of particular concern
•a panel of scientist in 1912 could have extrapolated from the current trends toward a decline of
war too
•environmental change, esp. climate change (future scarcity conflicts, population migration etc.)

decline of violence on the personal level cannot be easily transferred to the level of
international system (inter-state relations)
peace caused by economically liberal worldwide networks? (not human nature)

Criticism
•democracy may lead to peace but democratization process has often been associated with violence
•our evolutionary legacy ensures that the inner demons never go away, they may be triggered in
response to threats and actions outside West
•leaders play a key role: they may be more likely than the average person motivated by inner demons
(competition, corruption etc.)

The Importance of International System
•Pinker misses the influence of the system in promoting and (after WWII) suppressing violence
•US primacy: during the Cold War, US leadership reduced frictions among many states that were
historical antagonists
•ability to spread democracy and many of the other positive forces identified by Pinker
•economically liberal worldwide network – the growth of the global economy

•Once a power shift has occurred, the states will reach a negotiated settlement. (War is costly.)
•But if states are experiencing a great power shift, that peaceful settlement may be highly
disadvantageous for the declining state.
•Declining states therefore launch preventive wars if they prefer a costly but advantageous war
today to an efficient but disadvantageous peace tomorrow.
•

even more unsettling - war may be at times rational (cost-benefit calculations)

How does incomplete information cause war?
•Incomplete information may lead overly-optimistic states to make too large demands.
•Rival states that are tougher than expected reject those demands and fight wars.
•What stops states from resolving the informational discrepancy?
•Weak states always have incentives to misrepresent: they bluff to convince the other side to give
up more in bargaining.
•This prevents talk from communicating anything meaningful.
•

Indivisible issues as causes of war?
•An indivisible issue is something that cannot be adequately divided (who is king of a country or
who controls an island, for example).
•If states cannot effectively bargaining because issues are indivisible, then war can result.
•However, states can make side payments to resolve the indivisibility and avoid war.
•