Catastrophe Theory and the Study of War

The methodologies and conceptual frameworks employed by contemporary scholars do not satisfactorily account for the outbreak of international violence. Particularly frustrating to the analyst are the facts: (1) Some wars start and escalate suddenly while others begin and gradually build in intensity; yet in either case assumed causal factors are seen to vary smoothly and continuously through time. (2) The international system may be either at war or at peace at two separate time points even though the causal factors exhibit similar configurations. What is required is a framework that can deal with continuous and discontinuous dependent variables and continuous independent variables. Catastrophe theory provides the necessary classifactory structure in which to construct a systemic-level theory of the occurrence of international violence. Changes in the level of violence in World War I and World War II and the differences between these two conflicts are interpreted in the context of a particular catastrophe model—the butterfly. Catastrophe theory is discussed in light of the problems of description, classification, and empirical generalization in the construction of social science theory.