Analyzing Strategic Rivalries in World Politics

William R. Thompson is Distinguished Professor and Rogers Chair of Political Science Emeritus at Indiana University and Editor-in-chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. He is a former President of the International Studies Association and twice Editor-in-Chief of International Studies Quarterly. Recent books include The Oxford Encyclopedia of Empirical International Relations Theory (editor, 2018); Racing to the Top: How Energy Fuels Systemic Leadership in World Politics (co-author, 2019), Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa (co-editor, 2020); Power Concentration in World Politics: The Political Economy of Systemic Leadership, Growth and Conflict (2020); American Global Pre-eminence: The Development and Erosion of Systemic Leadership (2021), and Climate Change in the Middle East & North Africa From Pre-History to the Present: 15,000 Years of Crises, Setbacks, and Adaptation (co-author, 2021). Kentaro Sakuwa is an associate professor of international politics at the School of International Politics, Economics, and Communication (SIPEC), Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2015. Prior to joining SIPEC as an assistant professor in April 2017, he was a visiting assistant professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana, USA. His research focuses on the causes of conflict and peace, especially from the regional, spatial, and network perspectives. Key research questions include why some regions are more peaceful than others, how regime type and international peace coevolve, and how rivalries transform into peaceful relationships.Prashant Hosur Suhas works as an assistant professor of International Relations at Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY. His research focuses on international conflict processes, theories of international relations, and South Asian politics. His ongoing research examines how states with multiple rivalries behave differently than states with one principal rival. Specifically, his research examines how the presence of multiple rivalries have implications for state capacity, resolution of territorial disputes, conflict escalation, and conflict duration. An avid reader of ancient and medieval Indian texts, his secondary interests include examining the evolution of strategic thought in the Indian Subcontinent over the last three millennia, and how the evolution of strategic thought shaped the political landscape of the Indian Subcontinent.