Conceptualizing and Measuring War

Some Issues Along the Way

Are there multiple causal paths to war (e.g. more than one cause)?

Example: Bremer (1993)

Are there domain specific laws, or no universal explanations of warfare?

Example of domain specific law

Case# Domain IV DV1 A X war2 A X war3 A X war4 A not X not war5 B X not war6 B X not war7 B X not war8 B not X war

Example of domain specific law

In domain A, X is a necessary and sufficient condition for war.In domain B, X is neither necessary nor sufficient for war.If we analyzed cases 1-8, we would conclude that X is unrelated to war, even though it is strongly related to war in a particularly domain.

Some Issues Along the Way

Because wars are so rare, the number of plausible explanatory factors far exceeds the number of wars, and if it is not true that only a very few of these factors play a significant role in war, then the task of sorting out the causes of war will be very difficult.

Major War Data Collection Efforts

Quincy Wright, A Study of War (1942, 1965)Lewis Fry Richardson, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (1960)Melvin Small and J. David Singer, Resort to Arms (1982): Correlates of War (COW) Project

COW project

Data collected from 1816-2001The purpose of the COW project is “to

identify the variables that are most frequently associated with the onset of war..[to] discover the trends and fluctuations in the frequency, magnitude, severity, and intensity of war.” (Singer and Small, 1972:4)

COW Criteria for Interstate War1) Fatalities: minimum 1000 military personnel casualties among all participating system members2) On each side, there must be at least one participant that is a member of the international system:

-Minimum 500,000 population-Diplomatic recognition by France and UK

through WWI-After 1920, UN or League of Nations member or received diplomats from any two major powers

COW Criteria for Interstate War

3) To be a war participant, a state must suffer 100 fatalities or have a minimum of 1000 armed personnel engaged in active combat

MID Data SetThe COW Project also developed the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) data set.This data codes over 2,300 threats, displays, and uses of military force from 1816-2001.This data is often employed in dyadic form, where each case records a MID between two states in a given year.We can study escalation from dispute to war with the MID data.

Major Powers

Austria-Hungary (1816-1918)Prussia/Germany (1816-1918, 1925-1945,

1991-present)Russia/USSR (1816-1917, 1922-present)Italy (1860-1943)Japan (1895-1945, 1991-present)

Major Powers

France (1816-1940, 1945-present)Great Britain (1816-present)United States (1898-present)China (1949-present)