Conversations with Tyler4 Maj 2022

Chris Blattman on War and Centralized Power

What causes war? Many scholars have spent their careers attempting to study the psychology of leaders to understand what incentivizes them to undertake the human and financial costs of conflict, but economist and political scientist Chris Blattman takes a different approach to understanding interstate violence. He returns for his second appearance on Conversations with Tyler to discuss his research into the political and institutional causes of conflict, the topic of his new book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and The Path to Peace.

Chris and Tyler also cover why he doesn't think demographics are a good predictor of a country's willingness to go to war, the informal norms that restrain nations, the dangers of responding to cyberattacks, the breakdown of elite bargains in Ethiopia, the relationship between high state capacity and war, the greatest threats to peace in Ireland, why political speech isn't usually a reliable indicator of future action, Vladimir Putin's centralized motives for invading Ukraine, why he's long on Colombia democratically – but not economically, why more money won't necessarily help the Mexican government curb cartel violence, the single-mindedness necessary for bouldering, how Harold Innis's insights about commodities led Chris to start studying war, how the University of Chicago has maintained a culture of free inquiry, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded March 1st, 2022

Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Chris on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(288)

Sheilagh Ogilvie on Epidemics, Guilds, and the Persistence of Bad Institutions

Sheilagh Ogilvie has spent decades examining the institutional structures that shaped European economic history, challenging conventional wisdom about everything from guilds to marriage patterns. In h...

2 Apr 202559min

Ezra Klein on the Abundance Agenda

What happens when a liberal thinker shifts his attention from polarization to economic abundance? Ezra Klein's new book with Derek Thompson, Abundance, argues for an agenda of increased housing, infr...

19 Mars 20251h 8min

Carl Zimmer on the Hidden Life in the Air We Breathe

Carl Zimmer is one of the finest science communicators of our time, having spent decades writing about biology, evolution, and heredity. His latest (and 16th) book, Air-Borne: The Hidden History of t...

5 Mars 202551min

Gregory Clark on Social Mobility, Migration, and Assortative Mating (Live at Mercatus)

How much of your life's trajectory was set in motion centuries ago? Gregory Clark has spent decades studying social mobility, and his findings suggest that where you land in society is far more predic...

19 Feb 20251h 23min

Ross Douthat on Why Religion Makes More Sense Than You Think

Sign Up for the Boston Listener Meet Up For Ross Douthat, phenomena like UFO sightings and the simulation hypothesis don't challenge religious belief—they demonstrate how difficult it is to escape rel...

5 Feb 20251h 13min

Joe Boyd on the Birth of Rock, World Music, and Being There for Everything

Sign Up for the Boston Listener Meet Up Joe Boyd was there when Dylan went electric, when Pink Floyd was born, and when Paul Simon brought Graceland to the world. But far from being just another music...

22 Jan 20251h

Scott Sumner on Monetary Rules, Blooming Late, and the Death of Cinema

Scott Sumner didn't follow the typical path to economic influence. He nearly lost his teaching job before tenure, did his best research after most academics slow down, and found his largest audience t...

8 Jan 20251h 8min

Conversations with Tyler 2024 Retrospective

Donate to Conversations with Tyler Give Crypto Other Ways to Give On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including ...

25 Dec 202458min