Winning the war on war

I have been reading Joshua Goldstein's fantastic book Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide, which summarizes the state of warfare today and suggests strategies for eliminating it.

The book begins by demonstrating that war has been declining by nearly every measure since World War II. The case is capably made with a cautious use of statistics, at times in grisly detail. Media coverage notwithstanding, no conflict has risen to the level of WWII in recent history. Since the collapse of the U.S.S.R., warfare has declined from the levels of the proxy wars between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, etc. There is no direct war between nations in the world today, and various civil wars are ending faster than they are starting. (In May, he updated the argument on his blog, noting that "Warfare is literally shrinking across the face of the earth.")

Goldstein focuses primarily on UN peacekeeping efforts as the force behind this decline. Peacekeeping forces — though often underfunded and disorganized — can act as impartial observers to help enforce peace agreements, or to oversee elections. In some cases, a conflict will continue even when both sides would gain from its end, simply because neither side can guarantee its safety if the other decides to renege on a peace agreement. UN forces can provide that guarantee and circumvent this frustrating impasse.

To buttress his arguments, Goldstein cites a study by political scientist Page Fortna:

[According to Fortna] The presence of peacekeepers reduced the risk of renewed war by somewhere between 55 and 85 percent. "The statistical evidence is overwhelming. In short, any way you slice the data, peacekeeping works." Quantitative studies by other researchers "have reached a consensus, and it is an optimistic one." Although these studies find that peacekeeping is less effective in reaching a cease-fire in the first place than in making it last once reached, the success of the latter "has emerged as a strongly robust result in the quantitative literature." Thus, the answer to whether peacekeeping works is "a resounding yes."

This research will create problems for libertarian critics of the UN. How does a person oppose state aggression while simultaneously denouncing an institution which has been remarkably successful at ending warfare— the most direct and brutal form of state aggression? Given the information in this book, libertarians should be much more supportive of UN peacekeeping. (But don't hold your breath.)

In the second half, Goldstein's history of American peace movements, and his analysis of their weaknesses, makes his book an indispensable resource for serious peace activists. He argues that, while it may be an institutional necessity, the tendency of organizations to focus on peace and justice (or freedom, etc.) undermines their activism. The two are inseparable, goes the peace-and-justice reasoning, and this allows groups to survive on justice issues when peace is less popular. In fact, research suggests that the two issues are largely unrelated, and peace organizations, to perpetuate the myth, must promote solutions that have little real-life impact.

Modern peace groups, for this and other reasons, fail to provide relevant information about UN efforts to American voters. If Winning the War on War can correct the oversight, it will do much to promote peace in the world.

Deliberative defense budgeting

Most voters don't know very much about politics. This has been a consistent finding in public opinion polling for decades, a finding that some commenters find vexing. But the finding doesn't surprise economists, because economists know that people respond to incentives, and there's little incentive to stay informed. The chance of a single vote affecting an election is vanishingly small, so why bother? In this situation, rather than research the issues, most people will prefer to spend time with friends and family, do homework, work overtime, or watch a movie. Economists call this rational ignorance.

Some political scientists have argued that voter ignorance doesn't matter, because voters can use shortcuts to reach reasonably accurate decisions. For example, they may vote along party lines, or they may mimic the views of a favorite politician or talk show host. In reality, sometimes this seems to work, and sometimes it doesn't.

Looking for a better system, another group of political scientists have been experimenting with alternative forms of democracy, in particular deliberative democracy. In a deliberative democracy, voters are provided with relevant information to help them deliberate before voting. Researchers use a variety of approaches. Sometimes they have participants deliberate together, among themselves. Other times participants decide on their own. They select participants and the information to present in many different ways. (My favorite variant is the policy jury.)

Last Thursday, the Program for Public Consultation released the results of a deliberative democratic poll focusing on the defense budget. The participants, 665 Americans, were selected using random telephone numbers and street addresses. They were presented with arguments over the internet for and against cutting defense spending. The arguments were vetted by experts at non-partisan, non-profit organizations. Participants without internet access were provided with laptops and internet. Throughout the process, participants answered questions about their opinions.

Their responses suggest that the shortcut theory fails in the case of defense budgeting. Old-fashioned polls repeatedly find that large majorities of Americans oppose cuts to defense spending. After being presented with arguments from both sides, however, participants in this deliberative poll—Democrat, Republican, and independent alike—overwhelmingly supported significant spending cuts. Among Republicans, about two thirds supported spending cuts, with an average preferred spending level 15% lower than the 2012 budget. Nine out of ten Democrats supported spending cuts, with an average 28% cut, and about two thirds of independents called for cuts, with an average 26% reduction.

Unfortunately, since politicians work within a system of old-fashioned, non-deliberative democracy, the results of this poll are unlikely to provoke policy changes. In order to keep their jobs, politicians must satisfy rationally ignorant voters, even if that leads to poor outcomes. But the first step to recovery is admitting that we have a problem.

You can read the official release here.

HT: The Economist.