Rabid Chess and the Radical Resolution of Entrenched Disputes.

I begin this paper by examining two contemporary approaches towards change in international politics, the static realist model and the gradualist constructivist model, and offer a short account of dramatic changes in the rules constituting chess. I then examine an alternative model of radical structural change, based on the punctuated equilibrium model. This model has been employed by social scientists, political scientists and several IR scholars whose work I examine in greater detail. I conclude by applying the punctuated equilibrium model to the resolution of entrenched disputes and derive three hypothesis to be tested in future research. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]