@article{ref1,
title="Microfoundations in international relations",
journal="Conflict management and peace science",
year="2017",
author="Kertzer, Joshua D.",
volume="34",
number="1",
pages="81-97",
abstract="Many of our theories of international politics rely on microfoundations. In this short note, I suggest that although there has been increasing interest in microfoundations in international relations (IR) over the past 20 years, the frequency with which the concept is invoked belies a surprising lack of specificity about what microfoundations are, or explicit arguments about why we should study them. I then offer an argument about the value of micro-level approaches to the study of conflict. My claim is not that all theories of IR need to be developed or tested at the micro-level in order to be satisfying, but rather, that many of our theories in IR already rest on lower-level mechanisms--they either leave these assumptions unarticulated or fail to test them directly. In these circumstances, theorizing and testing micro-level dynamics will be especially helpful. I illustrate my argument using the case of resolve, one of the central explanatory variables in the study of international security. I argue that the absence of microfoundations for resolve is one reason why IR scholars have had difficulties testing whether resolve has the effects we often claim, and sketch out a two-stage research design political scientists can use to study unobservable phenomena.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0738-8942",
doi="10.1177/0738894216665488",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0738894216665488"
}