Challenging victor bias and status quo bias in realist accounts of surrender : re-reading three cases of surrender from the Peloponnesian War
From a materialist realist perspective, when a state surrenders power preponderance considerations, that is a stateâs relative weakness in terms of material power, should provide the bulk of the explanation for the surrender. Yet, weak states have surrendered quickly and slowly and on occasion have done so only to soon challenge their conquerors. This thesis is driven by a puzzle concerning whether material power and (actual or projected) victory in war can explain logics of surrender and, if not, what this may mean for our understanding of surrender, realism and IR more widely. This study focuses our attention on the fact that surrendering highlights that realismâs core assumption - that states seek survival-is in fact underspecified and problematic. On one hand, state survival seen as autonomy is theoretically paradoxical because in practice it can be easily sacrificed in some instances of surrender. On the other hand, survival as autonomy is underspecified since under different conditions it can be traded off at too high a price making state death and Annihilation a real possibility. Recognition of this is evaded in standard realist approaches. This thesis develops a perspective on surrender which shares
Koutsoukis, Alexandros
Challenging victor bias and status quo bias in realist accounts of surrender : re-reading three cases of surrender from the Peloponnesian War. From a materialist realist perspective, when a state surrenders power preponderance considerations, that is a stateâs relative weakness in terms of material power, should provide the bulk of the explanation for the surrender. Yet, weak states have surrendered quickly and slowly and on occasion have done so only to soon challenge their conquerors. This thesis is driven by a puzzle concerning whether material power and (actual or projected) victory in war can explain logics of surrender and, if not, what this may mean for our understanding of surrender, realism and IR more widely. This study focuses our attention on the fact that surrendering highlights that realismâs core assumption - that states seek survival-is in fact underspecified and problematic. On one hand, state survival seen as autonomy is theoretically paradoxical because in practice it can be easily sacrificed in some instances of surrender. On the other hand, survival as autonomy is underspecified since under different conditions it can be traded off at too high a price making state death and Annihilation a real possibility. Recognition of this is evaded in standard realist approaches. This thesis develops a perspective on surrender which shares
challenging victor bias status_quo bias realist account surrender reading three_case surrender peloponnesian_war materialist realist perspective state surrender power preponderance consideration state relative weakness term material power provide bulk explanation surrender yet weak state surrender quickly slowly occasion soon challenge conqueror driven puzzle concern whether material power actual project victory war explain logic surrender may mean surrender realism widely study_focus attention fact surrender highlight realism core assumption state seek survival fact underspecified problematic one_hand state survival see autonomy theoretically paradoxical practice easily sacrifice instance surrender hand survival autonomy underspecified since different condition trade high price make state death annihilation real possibility recognition evade standard realist approach develops perspective surrender share