The Path(s) to Rivalry: Behavioral and Structural Explanations of Rivalry Development

Despite the importance of enduring rivalries, to date little attention has been placed on understanding how they develop. This article presents one of the first attempts to understand rivalry development. Two broad approaches to protracted rivalry development, behavioral and structural, are contrasted. The behavioral approach focuses on the actions of the potential rivals during their early confrontations, and argues that initial behavior will establish the direction of future interactions. The structural approach proposes that rivalries are caused by environmental factors largely out of the immediate control of the participants. When tested, we find that the development of proto and enduring rivalries can be explained best by a combination of both approaches. We also find that longer term rivalries do not appear to have one single cause. They may instead be produced by the confluence of many small factors.