The existing studies on determinants of alliance reliability focus exclusively on alliance types and alliance attributes. One big weakness of this approach is that it depicts the decision making of upholding or disregarding alliance commitments as largely externally determined, and thus downplays the role of individual states. The present study assumes that states are rational utility maximiers and contends that the decision of whether or not to uphold alliance commitments is determined by the utility calculations at the time when an alliance is formed and the time when an ally is called upon. An ally will assist its defense pact partner under attack only when the expected costs of upholding commitment are lower than the expectations held at the time of alliance formation. Empirical testing, however, fails to lend strong support for the expectation. A discussion of the performance of the model leads to some interesting conclusions about the existing literature and possible future studies.

The occurrence of third-party intervention is a hallmark of many of the most devastating conflicts in world history, because the entrance of third parties into a conflict expands the scope of the violence, amplifies the severity and duration of the fighting, and increases the overall amount of death and destruction. Even in international conflicts in which intervention does not occur, the possibility that third parties may intervene can affect the behavior of disputants and therefore shape the way disputes evolve and are eventually resolved. This dissertation develops a theory of intervention by laying out a story about how strategic third parties and disputants make interdependent decisions in the context of an ongoing militarized dispute, and then formalizing this story into a simple-game theoretic model. The theory produces a general, causal explanation for third-party intervention that specifies the precise conditions under which it does and does not occur. Overall, the theory predicts approximately two-thirds of cases correctly when subjected to rigorous empirical tests. In addition, the theory produces theoretically-interesting, empirically-supported insights about the relationships between the resources of the actors involved in a militarized dispute and the likelihood that intervention occurs. The dissertation concludes with an application of the theory to the debate in the international relations literature over whether balancing or bandwagoning is the more common form of intervention. The application shows that the theory produces a more powerful explanation for the occurrence of balancing and bandwagoning than the existing literature offers, and suggests that the debate is misspecified.

Traditional approaches to the study of international disputes and war have generally aimed at providing very simple and broad explanations. Dominant among theories has been the explanation that war is a result of power politics between states competing in the international system. This type of explanation though, overlooks the study of how states make choices and how the resulting actions influence international relations. In this dissertation, I take a different theoretical approach by considering the influence of domestic factors as an important component for understanding international relations. I contend it is important to understand how the domestic political process influence foreign policy choices to best understand international affairs. In particular, I focus on the influence of institutional relationships and the role of the stakeholders as they relate to foreign policy decision-making. I present a general theory of foreign policy development that addresses the specific role of domestic political institutions and selectoral constraints. I treat the foreign policy process as a modified principal-agent model where three important actors have an influence on the development of policy: the chief policy maker, the primary oversight institution, and the relevant stakeholders of a state. I consider policies to be the result of the interaction between these three actors. In empirical examinations, I find moderate support for the expectations drawn from the theory. I find that domestic institutional relationships have an influence on foreign policy behavior, however the scope and strength of the influence still warrant further investigation. My primary theoretical contribution is the notion that the key domestic political factors that affect policy are institutional relationships combined with leadership selection factors. The theory presented in this research fully specifies this relationship and sheds light on how domestic political relationships affect policy development, and how the resulting policies influence international dispute behavior.

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This thesis extends the existing research on alliance disintegration by more fully specifying the values which motivate states' foreign policy behaviors. Previous research held that security is the foremost good which states pursue. An implication of this assumption is that states forge alliance commitments solely in an effort to gain this good. I contend that not only do states desire security, they also desire proaction, defined as the ability to implement changes in those aspects of the status quo which are less than satisfactory. Furthermore, states may pursue one or both of these goods through their alliance activity. From this altered set of assumptions, more precice predictions are made with respect to the timing of alliance disintegration. I find that asymmetric alliances have the greatest probability of terminating when both parties are losing power while symmetric alliances are more likely to break up when only one state is decreasing in strength.

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According to the requirements stated within their charters, the IMF and the IBRD are prohibited from including non-economic criteria in their decisions to lend to members. Despite this restriction, political criteria such as regime type and foreign policy orientation with respect to the East-West conflict have entered into Bank and Fund lending behavior. Political criteria do not, however, dominate decisions to lend in either organization; rather, the appearance of political criteria depends on circumstances in the environment of both the Bank and Fund and the particular relationship of a member to that environment. Using the Communist members of the Bank and the Fund as examples, it appears that foreign policy orientation is the most frequent political input into decisions to lend by the IMF and the IBRD. Due to the pro-capitalist bias of both organizations, only five Communist states have ventured to join the Bank and the Fund, and by 1980 that number had dwindled to two, Yugoslavia and Romania. Mutual suspicion and hostility, coupled with the reluctance of the Bank and Fund to accommodate the special needs of their Communist members, eventually led to the withdrawal of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Cuba from the organizations. Conversely, Yugoslavia and Romania have received levels of IMF and IBRD funding which exceed the average level of members which are non-Communist, developing nations. The uneasy relationship of Yugoslavia and Romania with the Soviet Union and the need of the Bank and Fund to achieve the goal of universal membership in order to control the increasingly volatile nature of the international economy explains this seemingly preferential treatment.

Article 22 of the Warsaw Convention, 1929 limits the liability of the air carrier in the event of death or wounding of a passenger to 125,000 Francs-Poincare based on a defined gold value. In 1955, the limitation has been raised to 250,000 Francs-Poincare. / As gold has lost its special position in the monetary system the value of the limitation of liability has decreased and some plaintiffs have argued that the limitation of liability is unconstitutional. / The Warsaw System is presented, the grounds for a limitation of liability, and Article 22 are analyzed. The relationship between municipal law and international law is described. The constitutionality of Article 22 is examined for the jurisdictions of Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America. Those lines of argumentation that could be used to challenge Article 22 in all constitutional systems similar to those of the abovementioned States are presented.

This paper constructs a graphical and mathematical model of dyadic interstate security competition. It does so by integrating arms racing and war initiation in to a single rational choice framework. The model is constructed from rigorously-defined concepts and all assumptions are made explicit. Equilibrium values for security-based arms racing are derived under the model and compared to conquest-seeking arms races. Comparative static results are provided for several shocks to the basic system. The model is informally extended in to probabilistic war scenarios. Finally, a number of testable predictions generated by the model are presented. / Ce mémoire présente un modèle graphique et mathématique du conflit dyadique dans le domaine de la sécurité internationale. Le modèle permet d'interpréter la course aux armements et le déclenchement des guerres dans un cadre formel. Le modèle est construit a partir de concepts rigoureusement définies et nos postulats ont été présenté de manières explicites. Les valeurs d'équilibre pour une course aux armements voulant assurer la sécurité nationale sont prédits à partir du modèle et comparé aux valeurs produites pour une course aux armements avec des objectifs de conquête. Différents résultats d'analyse statique sont comparés pour différentes perturbations du modèle de base. Le modèle est étendu intuitivement pour présenter des scénarios probabilistes de guerre. Finalement, de nombreuses propositions réfutables sont dérivées du modèle.