Elites, Resources, and International Violence in South America

Why do states involved in an enduring rivalry decide to initiate the use of military force after a span during which no overt threats are issued or international violence is initiated, and when doing so, how much force do they initially decide to employ? Not all uses of military force abroad occur in the pursuit of purely foreign policy goals. Although sometimes that might be the case, many other times foreign policy is an instrument to serve domestic along with international objectives. This dissertation demonstrates that the connection between the initiation of aggressive foreign policies in the context of enduring rivalries as well as the level of militarization of such policies is a function of the nature of the relationship among domestic elites: i.e. whether domestic elites are fragmented or integrated and how threatened those elites perceive to be.