Over the past two centuries, a majority of the principal conflicts in world politics fall into the definition of enduring rivalries. The Franco-German, Arab-Israeli, Soviet-American, Greek-Turkish, and Indo-Pakistani conflicts are examples of such clashes. In Bound by Struggle, Zeev Maoz and Ben D. Mor offer a systematized approach to the study of enduring conflicts. They suggest that the decisions of governments to begin, continue, or end rivalries are guided by two principal factors: the degree to which a state is satisfied with the status quo and the perception of its leaders regarding the state's capability to defend or change this status quo.

Bound by Struggle provides several new contributions to the literature on international conflict and enduring rivalries. Maoz and Mor have developed a deductive theoretical framework, in contrast to existing literature that is heavily oriented toward empirical tests and findings. Notably, this is one of the few studies offering an application of evolutionary perspective to the study of interstate rivalries.

Zeev Maoz is Professor of Political Science and head of the Graduate School of Government and Policy at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Domestic Sources of Global Change and the coeditor of War in a Changing World.

Ben D. Mor is Senior Lecturer of International Relations at the University of Haifa.

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