Andreas Wimmer

Annual Review of Sociology, July 2014

Abstract

Though war has long been a neglected topic in the social sciences, we now look back on several decades of systematic research. This review first summarizes the main strands of recent research in political science, where the most influential studies and well-structured debates have emerged. It then outlines four main contributions made by political, cultural, and comparative historical sociologists: the study of ideological, cultural, and legitimation processes leading to and being shaped by war; configurations of political power and inequality as causes and outcomes of war; how wars influence and are influenced by organizational developments (including of state capacity); and the long-term causal forces that produce macro-level regularities.