Why Justify? Explaining Variation in Conflict Justification, 1980–2008
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12805852 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Travis Nelson (University of Wisconsin–Platteville, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 128-146 |
| Publication date | 2010-07-17 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Democracy and Security (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1555-5860 • E-ISSN: 1741-9166 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17419161003722963 |
| OpenAlex | W2045195040 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
This article is about state justifications for conflict initiation, an understudied yet nonetheless significant element of the foreign policy behavior of sovereign states. To what degree do such justifications vary among states? And what drives any variation that does exist? Regime type? Power status? Or, as implicitly assumed by some constructivist scholars, normative identification? Through an analysis of conflict justifications between 1980 and 2008, I find not only that states almost always publicly justify their actions and that conflict justifications always include at the very least an assertion of self-defense, but that there is also substantial variation regarding whether states make claims of humanitarianism and multilateralism and whether they utilize international law in their justificatory statements. The former is best explained through normative identification and the latter by the power status of the justifying state. Differences in regime type, however, do not play a significant role in conflict justification variation
Assertion · Economics · Element (criminal law · Epistemology · Identification (biology · International conflict · International relations · Law and economics · Multilateralism · Normative · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Power (physics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Variation (astronomy · Computer Science · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Development and Aid · Law · Philosophy · Political Conflict and Governance
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |