Chris Blattman

Des femmes apprennent le maniement des armes en Ukraine. Atlantico : Vous avez récemment publié un livre intitulé "Why we fight" (Pourquoi nous nous battons) et, à l'occasion de la fête des mères aux États-Unis, vous avez décidé d'examiner la question sur un fil : Y aurait-il moins de guerre dans le monde si les mamans étaient aux commandes ? L'argument commun est qu'elles sont par nature plus pacifiques, en raison de leur nature ou de leur culture. Mais vous avez tendance à rejeter cette...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]More than half the world lives in cities, and a lot of those cities (especially those in the Americas) are plagued with homicides and crime. Americans often think this violence is an individual problem: greed, passions, feuds, and hot reactive thinking drive killers. That’s true to an extent. But this view overlooks something important: that, […] The post The terrible trade-off: Why less violent cities often means more powerful and organized...

0:37Intro. [Recording date: March 24, 2022.]Russ Roberts: Today is March 24th, 2022, and my guest is economist and author, Chris Blattman of the University of Chicago. This is Chris's fourth appearance on EconTalk. He was last here in July of 2017, talking about Chickens, Cash, Development. Our topic for today is his book, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace. Chris, welcome back to EconTalk.Chris Blattman: Thanks for having me.1:04Russ Roberts: How did this book come about?...

A member of the Ukrainian special forces in the city of Kharkiv on March 30, 2022. Photo: FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty Images By Adam Kuper May 6, 2022 11:05 am ET...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]  1. I am loving Tradle (guess the country by its exports–this one took me 5 tries) 2. Clive Thompson’s writing advice: getting a first draft is all about finding ways to trick yourself into avoiding procrastination When I’ve finally convinced myself to sit down and start writing, I write prose by following four rules. […] The post Tradle, Russian demographic disasters, writing advice, why economics publishing has hit a new...

Show Notes War is costly, deadly and destructive. So, why do we do it? In his new book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and The Paths to Peace, Prof. Chris Blattman of the University of Chicago lays out the five main reasons why countries go to war—and why building peace is actually a lot easier than we may think. Blattman is an economist and political scientist who studies global conflict, crime and poverty. As a seasoned peacebuilder, he has worked in a...

What causes war? Many scholars have spent their careers attempting to study the psychology of leaders to understand what incentivizes them to undertake the human and financial costs of conflict, but economist and political scientist Chris Blattman takes a different approach to understanding interstate violence. He returns for his second appearance on Conversations with Tyler to discuss his research into the political and institutional causes of conflict, the topic of his new book ​​Why...

Millions of hostile rivalries exist between groups worldwide, but their conflicts rarely escalate to protracted violence. Because would-be combatants know that all-out conflict usually proves immensely costly to all sides, they regularly find ways to avoid open warfare. And when it comes to international affairs in particular, we tend to focus on the wars that do occur at the expense of internalizing the core truth that, most of the time, they simply don't happen. Political scientist and...

If you’ve enjoyed the posts, the links, and the advice columns over the years, I have a request. Those of you who have gotten my book Why We Fight: Reviews are extremely helpful for sales and marketing. Please consider writing one, or even leaving a starred rating without a formal review. The most helpful thing is to post both on the site you bought the book and on Goodreads. After Goodreads, here are links to the book on Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, and other booksellers with links...

Dmitri Alperovitch asks how Ukraine will pay for its war if it cannot export in this thread: Let’s talk about the state of the war and one of the most underreported yet crucially important issues: Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports and resulting strangulation of the country’s economy 🧵 — Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) April 30, 2022 The full thread is worth reading but here is the key part: Last week I pointed to Yuriy Gorodnichenko‘s estimate that Ukraine needed about 40-50% of...