Cycles of Violence provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of how norms, rules, and procedures of decision-making cohere into a decision regime. Ranan D. Kuperman balances careful theoretical discussion with a case study, to track the evolution of a decision regime over time. Focusing on the regime governing Israeli use of limited military force and using quantitative historical analysis as well as qualitative historical surveys, Kuperman uses previously unpublished documents from the 1950s and 1960s to generate a new interpretation of historical events.

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Foreign Policy Decision Making and Decision Regimes Chapter 3 A Survey of Alternative Decision Regimes Governing the Use of Military Force Chapter 4 A General Model of Decision Regime Dynamics Chapter 5 Research Methods Chapter 6 A Qualitative Descriptive Analysis of the Decision Regime Governing Israeli Military Operations Chapter 7 A Quantitative History of the Rules Governing Israeli Military Operations Chapter 8 A Comparative Analysis of the Decision-Making Process Chapter 9 Conclusion Chapter 10 Appendix I - Coding of Dataset Used for Quantitative Historical Analysis Chapter 11 Appendix II - Summary of Cases Analyzed in Comparative Decision Analysis Chapter 12 Appendix III - Coding of Dataset Used for Comparative Decision Analysis