Are devastating wars between countries becoming a thing of the past?
Since the end of the second world war there have been few large interstate wars in the world. This ‘long peace’ has led many to argue that the world has become permanently more peaceful, and that the threat of wars between countries has drastically and indelibly declined.
But is this the case? Is the pattern observed over the last 70 plus years indicative of a lasting change, or is it just a temporary fluctuation that can soon be reversed?
In his best-selling book The Better Angels of our Nature, Steven Pinker argues that world has changed and that we have become more peaceful. Aaron Clauset challenges this view and argues that the ‘long peace’ we are currently living through is fully consistent with a system that produces wars on the scale seen during the first and second world wars. In agreement with Pinker’s thesis, Clauset also finds that the ‘long peace’ has seen fewer large scale wars than we would expect.
PRIO and the Institute of Mathematics, University of Oslo, welcome you to a seminar to discuss these topics.
Main speaker: Aaron Clauset
Panel: Håvard Hegre, Nils Lid Hjort and Siri Aas Rustad.
Moderator: Håvard Mokleiv Nygård.
More information and registration of participation on PRIO's web page