Contemporary Conflict Analysis in Perspective 43
theories of international conflict refer to among others, J S Levy. Contending the-
ories of international conflict: a level-of-analysis approach, Managing global
chaos: Sources of and reponses to international conflict, op cit; and also D J D
Sandole, Paradigms, theories, and metaphors in conflict and conllict resolution:
coherence or confusion?, Sandole & van der Menve (eds), op cit.
96 K Waltz, Man, the state and war: a theoretical analysis. Columbia University Pms.
New York & London, 1959. After the publication of Man, the state and wr, the
shift from 'images of international relations' to 'levels of analysis' was essentially
a result of two authors: J D Singer, International conflict. three levels of analysis.
World Politics Review Article, vol12, Issue 3, April 1960, pp 453-461 where Singer
replaces the term 'images' with 'levels: In the first page of this review anicle this
authors conflates both terms by saying that "the treatise under review is a com-
mendable exception to our tendency to 'bootleg' assumptions, consciously or 0th-
enuise, into our research and teaching; as such, it is a welcome and valuable addi-
tion to the literature of what many of us view as a nascent discipline. But Prnf.
Waltz's book is more than that; it is, in effect an examination of these assumptions.
which find their way inevitably into every piece of description, analysis, or pre-
scription in international political relations. These assumptions lead into, and flow
from, the level of social organisation, which the observer selects as his point of
enuy into any study of the subject. For Waltz, there are three such levels of analy-
sis: the individual, the state and the state system: Op cit, p 453.
97 In Waltz's own words, "Where are the major causes of war to be found? The
answers are bewildering in their variety and in their contradictory qualities. To
make this variety manageable, the answers can he ordered under the following
three headings: within man, within the structure of the separate states, within
the state system." Ibid, p 12.
98 Waltz, op cit, p 14.
99 Ibid, pp 160 & 225. A focus on one single image does in fact affect the way the
other images are perceived. In this respect the author points out that "the firm-
ness with which a person is wedded to one image colon his interpretation of the
others" (p 226). He gives the example of Woodrow Wilson's "emphasis upon the
second image [that] led him to particular interpretations of the first and third.
rather than to a complete ignoring of them" (p 227). In effect, "in each image a
cause is identified in terns of which all others are to be understood" (p 228).
Manus Midlarsky provides us with insights into this problem: "Whether con-
sciously or unconsciously, investigators generally focus on one level or another
as a necessary demarcation of research boundaries. I will take no position on the
utility of one or another of these levels of analysis because, as we shall see, all
have a major contribution to make, but in different ways." M I Midlarsky,
Introduction, Handbook of war studies. pp xiii-xiv, M I Midlarsky fed). The
University of Michigan Press, 1993, originally published by Unwin Hyman, 1969.
100 B Buzan, The level of analysis problem in international relations reconsidered.
International relations theory today, K Booth and S Smith (eds), Polity Press.
Cambridge, 1995, p 196.
101 Ibid, p 230. He also says that "with the first image the direction of change ... is
from men to societies and states. The second image catches up both elements.