The Evolution of the Franco-german Rivalry

Recent research on interstate conflict has suggested that the concept of interstate rivalry can be extremely useful in accounting for the outbreak or escalation of conflict. Scholars have found that so-called "rival" adversaries account for a large proportion of all interstate conflict, including interstate wars, militarized interstate disputes, and violent territorial exchanges. Furthermore, confrontations that occur in the context of rivalry tend to be more severe, escalatory, or war-prone than confrontations between non-rival adversaries, and this severity seems to increase somewhat as a rivalry relationship evolves (see, e. These existing studies of rivalry have helped to show the value of the concept of rivalry in studying interstate conflict. Yet they have also been accused of using somewhat arbitrary definitions and quantitative measures of conflict behavior, and of obscuring the value of the concept of rivalry. Thompson (1995a), for example, points out some dyadic relationships that he considers to be wrongly identified as "enduring rivalries" by typical quantitative measures of rivalry, as well as some that he considers important cases of rivalry that were not identified as such by the existing definitions. As Thompson rightly points out, we need a more detailed examination of individual cases of rivalry, in order to reach a better understanding of this concept and its implications. In this paper I examine the rivalry between France and Germany, in order to extend our knowledge on rivalries from the existing quantitative large-N analyses. The Franco-German relationship showed many characteristics that are commonly associated with "enduring rivalry," and few scholars would quibble with its identification as a rivalry. The conflictual relationship lasted for an extended period of time, featured frequent confrontations between the adversaries, and saw many of these confrontations escalate to dangerous levels-including three full-scale interstate wars and a series of prominent crises. By examining this particular rivalry in some detail, I hope to illustrate the real-world meaning of the rivalry concept, as well as to gain a better understanding of how relationships between these two rivals changed as their rivalry evolved. This paper's analyses begin with a brief examination of the concept of rivalry, and of what it means to study the evolution of rivalry. I then present a brief outline of the history of the Franco-German rivalry, and use this historical case to address some theoretical issues regarding interstate rivalry. Finally, I use the results and conclusions from this analysis to suggest possible lines of future …