Homo Economicus goes to war: methodological individualism, rational choice and the political economy of war

摘要

Neoclassical economic theories of violent conflict have proliferated in recent years and, with their application to contemporary wars, have influenced donors and policy makers. This paper reviews the intellectual foundations and empirical substance of such theories and offers a critique drawing on a political economy perspective. There are strong grounds for arguing that orthodox economic theories of war are reductionist, speculative, and misleading. Theories that are driven by methodological individualism are compelled somehow to model "the social" as it affects contemporary warfor example, by appeal to indices of ethno-linguistic fragmentationbut do so in ways that fail to capture reality and its variations.