Introduction

This book started as a tribute to the work of Stuart A. Bremer, who died in 2002 at the age of 58. Professor Bremer served as the Executive Secretary of the Peace Science Society (International) and as editor of Conflict Management and Peace Science from 1990 until shortly before his death. Some of the papers in this volume were presented in their original form at a conference dedicated to his work held in 2003 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During the process of gathering these papers into the present volume, I felt it arbitrary and misleading to constrain the selection only to those papers whose initial appearance was at that conference and the papers in this volume include several that were not presented there. As the reader will see, Bremer's influence did not end with his death and the papers presented in this volume do more than serve as testament to his immediate effect on the scholarship on the causes of war. That immediate effect was and remains significant, however. For example, Stuart's 1992 paper, "Dangerous Dyads: Conditions Affecting the Likelihood of Interstate War, 1816—1965," remains one of the most widely cited articles in the quantitative international relations literature. Beyond his direct contributions through his published works, Professor Bremer, through his teaching, affected the research of his students, through his presence and careful and systematic approach to research, influenced the thinking and teaching of his colleagues (myself included), and through his direction of the Peace Science Society, provided one of the main fora for the presentation and dissemination of current research on the causes of war. The papers here represent the effects of Stuart's influential research and the fruits of his teaching and his rigorous thinking.