Abstract
In 1994, there was a depressing number of ongoing wars and armed conflicts being waged in the world: 43 wars and 18 other major armed conflicts just below the threshold of war. Since the end of the Second World War, the world has experienced only two weeks, in September 1945, without the plagues of war. Since then, the number of wars and major armed conflicts has been steadily increasing.
This is a revised version of a paper that has been previously published in Interdependent, Nr. 16, K.J. Gantzel und K. Schlichte (eds), Das Kriegsgeschehen 1993. Daten und Tendenzen der Kriege und bewaffneten Konflikte im Jahr 1993. Dietrich Jung, Klaus Schlichte and Jens Siegelberg, ‘Das Kriegsgeschehen 1993 —Analysen und Tendenzen’. Reprinted by permission of Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden.
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Notes
Classical formulations of the problem can be found in Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the Slate and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959)
Joseph S. Nye, Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), p. 28ff.
Martin Mendier and Wolfgang Schwegler-Rohmeis, Weder Drachentöter noch Sicherheitsingenieur: Bilanz und kritische Analyse der sozialwissenschaftlichen Kriegsursachenforschung (Frankfurt am Main: Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research, 1989).
The empirical findings presented here are the result of the work of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kriegsursachenforschung (AKUF). Since 1980 this study group has registered data on wars since 1945 and has tried to trace trends and tendencies of the world-wide development of armed conflicts. This research is done under the direction of Professor Gantzel, and the first bulk of data was delivered by Professor Istà n Kende, Budapest. The register of wars and a quantitative analysis, covering the period between 1945 and 1992, can be found in Klaus Jürgen Gantzel and Torsten Schwinghammer (eds), Die Kriege von 1945 bis 1992: Daten und Analysen (Münster: Lit, 1994).
See, for example, the theses in Kalevi J. Holsti, Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order 1648–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 279ff.
Ted R. Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethno-Political Conflict (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1993), p. 131ff.
The classical text in this field is still useful to avoid the bulk of confusion. See Carl G. Hempel, Science, Language, and Human Rights (Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press, 1952), pp. 65–86.
This notion, central to the work of classical German sociology, is hard to translate. In this context it signifies the process of insertion of individuals, the determining principles of ties in a given society, formulated in ideal typical notions. See the explication given by Max Weber concerning the term ‘associative relationships’, in Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (eds.), Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), pp. 40–43.
Concerning the theoretical considerations presented here, see Klaus Jürgen Gantzel and Jens Siegelberg, ‘War and Development: Theorizing about the Causes of War, with Particular Reference to the Post-1945 Period’, in Law and State (Tübingen), vol. 44, pp. 1–29; for further reading see also Jens Siegelberg, Kapitalismus und Krieg: Eine Theorie des Krieges in der Weltgesellschafl (Münster: Lit, 1994).
This does not implicate a view of history as a continuous progress: ‘The emergence of modern capitalism does not represent the highpoint of a progressive scheme of social development, but rather the coming of a type of society radically distinct from all other forms of social order’. See Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, Vol. Two of A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985), p. 32.
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© 1996 The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS)/The Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael
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Jung, D., Schlichte, K., Siegelberg, J. (1996). Ongoing Wars and their Explanation. In: van de Goor, L., Rupesinghe, K., Sciarone, P. (eds) Between Development and Destruction. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24794-3_3
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