My dissertation presents a research project about the deescalation of interstate conflict. Conditions of states` interactions in an ongoing conflict are examined, which are theorized to have an impact on the deescalation of militarized disputes. If war is absent in a conflict, this implies that states have found another way of conflict management. Which conditions make that possible? As there are conditions which are considered responsible for the outbreak of war, then these conditions have to have an impact on the deescalation of conflict. If certain variations of the variables are responsible for the emerge of war, then other variations of the same variables should be in charge of the absence of war. The independent variables alliance structure, rivalry, power relations and perceptions are drawn from influential causes of war theories which have combined different research objects of war causation. A study of historical cases will illustrate the theoretical approximations. The method applied for this is a y-orientated process tracing of a small-N case study. This will help exposing intervening causal mechanisms and exploring reciprocal and complex causation and endogeneity. The in-depth focus on a small number of cases provides detailed knowledge and puts effort in including contextual conditions. Next to testing the independent variables in question there will also be variables tested which are usually employed when it comes to explaining the absence of war: the international system structure, (regional) institutions and assumptions of the democratic peace. Results of this dissertation will improve the understanding of the deescalation of interstate conflicts by processing variables which were elaborated for the onset of war before. Further it will give more insight on the impact of alliance structures, rivalries, power relations and perceptions on the dynamics of conflict. The variables` validity for the study of causes of war will be improved as the dissertation evaluates their influence on the absence of war.
