Collaborative Research: What Do Leaders Want?: Collecting and Coding Issue Positions and Demands in the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) Data, 1816-2010

Clemson University, Clemson SC

Investigators

Abstract

General Abstract This research investigates a strange paradox that persists in the study of international conflict. Most theories explain international conflict in terms of differences over issues or across issue positions, but few actually examine the particular types of issues lead states to fight. This is due primarily to the lack of good data on the types of issues over which states contend. This work will alleviate this problem by collecting data on all salient issues for all actors involved in militarized conflicts from 1816 to 2010. For each issue in contention the team will code the status of the issue at the beginning of the dispute for each actor, each actor's initial position on the issue, and how those positions change as the conflict persists. The data will provide policymakers and scholars the ability to generalize about the causes and consequences of international conflict with a greater level of precision, examining the specific issues most likely to lead to conflict and how issue positions evolve as states demonstrate their capabilities and willingness to fight. Technical Abstract International conflict scholars know territorial issues are war-prone while bargaining models provide a theoretical roadmap to the onset and evolution of militarized conflict. However, territorial conflict scholarship routinely conflates indicators over what leads states fight with indicators of why states are fighting. Meanwhile, bargaining theory's rich formal models cannot actually be tested because the appropriate data on issue positions does not exist. The current Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID) dataset gives us only broad summary measures, and no other data set is available to document issue positions of combatants over time and across the international system. This project addresses this by building on the team's previous projects that gathered and analyzed source data on militarized interstate disputes. The team will collect, code, and analyze issue positions and issue position change data within all disputes from 1816 to 2010. The corresponding data set generate will provide information about initial demands from disputants and will chronicle the evolution of these demands over the duration of the dispute. These data are central for bargaining model assumptions that states respond to demonstrations of capabilities and resolve, and specific issues are important for those arguing threats to territory are difficult to settle. This extensive coding project will also provide firsthand experience for numerous graduate and undergraduate student researchers.