Political Bias and War

Abstract

We examine the incentives for countries to go to war as they depend on the comparison between how much their pivotal decision-makers have at risk and how much they stand to gain from a war. How this ratio compares to the country at large is what we term "political bias." If there is no political bias, then there are always payments that one country would like to make to the other that will avoid a war in the presence of commitment or enforceability of peace treaties. If there is a bias on the part of one or both countries, then war can result and in some cases cannot be prevented by any transfer payments. We examine how war technology and relative wealth levels interact with political bias in determining whether countries make transfers, go to war, and form alliances. Our results shed some new light on the uneven contender paradox and the interpretation of the "democratic peace".

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