This conclusion synthesizes the book’s investigation into the puzzle of insincere coercion: why states often adopt coercive strategies they expect and/or intend to fail. Reviewing the book’s multimethod approach, the chapter first revisits the militarized conflict model and the four distinct rationales for insincere coercion introduced in Chapter 1. It then highlights the quantitative findings from the Coercion in Interstate Militarized Conflict (CIMC) database introduced in Chapter 2, which demonstrate that insincere coercion is frequent, occurring in a quarter of cases where the target resisted coercive demands. Furthermore, the broader empirical record since 1945 reveals that coercers successfully achieved their foreign policy objectives 59 percent of the time through the threat or use of violence. It further demonstrates how intentional coercion failure often contributed to foreign policy success. By consolidating insights from five detailed case studies, the book shows how and why decision-makers, rather than stumbling into war, may calculate that insincere coercion can facilitate obtaining foreign policy objectives unattainable through threats alone. The book offers lessons along with a critical framework for future foreign policy analysis.

This chapter provides the empirical evidence for the book’s theoretical framework by introducing a new Coercion in Interstate Militarized Conflict (CIMC) dataset. Comprising ninety-nine post-World War II crises from 1945 to 2018, the CIMC categorizes conflicts based on the coercer’s demands (major or minor), threats (denial or punishment), and outcomes. By filtering these historical cases through the militarized conflict model, the chapter systematically distinguishes between coercive diplomacy, military coercion, and overall foreign policy success or failure. The quantitative analysis reveals a pattern: while coercive strategies fail to secure target concessions in over half of the cases, coercers still achieve their broader foreign policy objectives 59 percent of the time, often by subsequently escalating to brute force. The chapter isolates forty-three instances where targets resisted and threats were imposed, identifying eleven distinct cases of “insincere coercion.” In these specific cases, coercers knowingly issued ultimatums they expected and/or intended to fail. By mapping these historical events onto the book’s four-part typology, mobilizing support, moving the goalposts, making an example, and restoring deterrence, this chapter validates that insincere coercion is a recurrent, rational, and consequential phenomenon in modern international conflict.

In this chapter, the authors focus on prescribing within those contexts most susceptible to coercion from the perspective of the clinician, the patient, and third parties when applicable. The chapter describes coercive elements that may play out in a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient settings, while also considering relationships between the clinician and patients, law enforcement, family and friends, and institutional administrators.

This chapter addresses a number of foundational issues in relation to the position of the modern liberal state and the use of techniques and procedures that can prevent the birth of a disabled child. It begins by explaining why the traditional approach to the ethics of selective reproduction is insufficient as it usually sidelines or minimises the role of the state, following on from a common assumption that the state is neutral. It then considers the meaning of a liberal commitment to neutrality, so that we can analyse and question this common assumption. Among other things, the chapter claims that the relevance of the role of the state is not limited to the use of coercive measures, and that we should focus on state intention. Although neutrality can be a matter of degree, and while there are different interpretations of a neutral state intention, the chapter suggests that the position of the state can be assessed by reference to certain central liberal commitments. In particular, the chapter examines the importance of individual choice as an essential commitment of the modern liberal state, and considers what choice should be available to prospective parents.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the objectives that states try to achieve in their relationships of threat and support, and then develops the theoretical framework regarding the network coevolution of enmity and amity. It considers why states form supportive relationships in the shadow of looming interstate and intrastatesecurity threats. It then posits the conditions in which the interplay of the intergroup and intragroup security dilemmas leads to coercion and subversion as rival states pursue wedge strategies and supporting states pursue control strategies. The argument focuses on interest congruence in a state’s support group as a key factor driving the use of wedge and control strategies. The arguments presented in this chapter form the basis for the hypotheses that are explored in the subsequent chapters.

Aggression is associated with inflicting damage. Anger underlies it. Links to coercion and dominance are described, as well as excitation transfer. Defensive/offensive aggression and predatory aggression are distinct. The dichotomy between reactive aggression and instrumental (proactive) aggression is described. ‘Appetitive aggression’ is conducted for intrinsic pleasure. The notion of levels of control applies to the inhibition on aggression. Explanatory models are discussed (e.g. Lorenz’s hydraulic model). Aggression can exhibit positive reinforcement. A number of brain regions are discussed (e.g. the amygdala, VTA−NAcc, hypothalamus, cortex, and periaqueductal grey). The role of hormones is reviewed. Healthy development consists in part of learning to inhibit aggression. Early exposure to toxic role models increases the chances of later showing aggression. Other things that inhibit aggression are discussed (e.g. empathy). The chapter concludes with a discussion of several situations associated with aggression: ostracism, xenophobia, dehumanization, the weapons effect, media violence, alcohol, and traumatic brain injury.

Chapter 1 links current concerns about the ambiguities of persuasion to ancient Greek preoccupations with peithō (inducement). The chapter outlines the central contribution of the book: a recontextualization of peithō as a necessary yet dangerous force that demanded cautious attention within ancient Greek communities, particularly those committed to democracy. This study is then situated as a series of synchronic analyses of peithō as a goddess or abstract force presented throughout a breadth of textual, visual, and material source material from the archaic through the Hellenistic ages and even into late antiquity, with particular focus on Athenian evidence from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. An analysis of Aesop’s fable of the North Wind and the Sun re-positions peithō a fraternal twin to bia (physical force) and outlines different manifestations of her coercive action. The chapter concludes with an overview of methodology and the social-psychological principles of ambiguity tolerance and psychological reactance that are used to reframe collective practices from ancient Greece as tools for fostering communal resilience before peithō’s threats.

This chapter argues against the so-called independence thesis, that Kant’s doctrine of right is not grounded on and a proper part of his moral philosophy. On the contrary, Kant’s conception of the innate right of each to as much freedom as is consistent with the equal freedom of everyone else follows directly from the obligation to humanity owed to each, the foundation of Kant’s moral philosophy as a whole; and the rightful possibility of coercion, the crucial attribute of the state, follows from the same foundation, as the hindrance to the hindrance of freedom. While Kant’s conception of right, as the coercively enforceable part of morality, is distinct from his conception of ethics, as the noncoercively enforceable part of morality as a whole, to take this to mean that right is not part of morality as a whole is to confuse morality as a whole with ethics, a confusion traced back to Johann Fichte, among others.

Like Hobbes and unlike Locke, Kant denied the possibility of a right to rebellion. But unlike Hobbes, Kant did not argue for a unitary head of state in whom legislative, judicial, and executive powers are inseparable, and thus did not believe that the executive power in a state to whom must be conceded a monopoly of coercion also defines all rights in the state. Instead, Kant insisted on the necessary division of authority in a state into a separate legislature, executive, and judiciary, and thus, while rejecting the idea that a people could ever rightfully overthrow their entire constitution or government, he could and did hold that a people represented by a parliament have genuine rights against the executive power within their state, even though that executive power properly has a monopoly on the coercive enforcement of the parliament’s laws.

The environment has been leveraged as a tool of control in conflict settings throughout human history. Capturing or enclosing and controlling the resources needed for everyday needs and livelihoods has been a feature of most conflicts. Understanding how this happens and what the implications are for the environment in conflict is critical to addressing environmental and conflict issues. This chapter lays out how this has unfolded in many contexts and highlights critical nuances for different environmental mediums and across space and time.

Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) is a controversial civil court program wherein a judgeorders a person with severe mental illness to adhere to an outpatient treatment plan designed to improve treatment adherence, prevent relapse and dangerous deterioration. Several states, including California and New York, have recently promoted use of AOT to try to address high rates of homelessness among person with severe mental illness. Under AOT, clinicians treating these patients must balance the ethical principles of patient autonomy and beneficence, andemploy AOT only when previous treatment failed as a result of treatment non-adherence. However, some critics of AOT argue that not only is it coercive and ineffective but that the court mandate to adhere to prescribed medications, usually antipsychotic medications, compels AOT recipients to take ineffective and even harmful medications. This article examines the assertion of these critics and reviews the evidence of antipsychotic effectiveness and potential harms in treating psychotic disorders under a civil court order.