Conventional wisdom holds that Republicans have hawkish foreign policy preferences compared to Democrats but quantitative research on the use of force finds no relationship between the party of the president and his propensity to use force. This article offers two reasons for this puzzling nonfinding. First, although Republicans have favored military spending and intervention more than Democrats have since the mid‐1960s, the two parties’ positions on these issues were reversed before that time. Analyses that cover the entire postwar era conflate periods when party had opposite effects. Second, previous research has generally focused on actual uses of force. Strategic conflict avoidance by potential targets is more likely to obscure a party effect when examining these relatively high‐level conflict events. Examining events data, which include many lower‐level conflict events, we find evidence that Democrats were more hawkish than Republicans during the 1949–65 period and that Republicans were more hawkish during the 1966–92 period.

Bargaining models of war point to two major causes of conflict: asymmetric information, and commitment problems. This paper focuses on the commitment problem, and specifically on how responsive bargainers are to expected changes in win probabilities. Our goal is to evaluate whether bargainers can identify commitment problems - in lab experiments, we examine subjects' choices between bargaining and fighting, given shifts in win probabilities and costs.

Demands and concessions in a multi-stage bargaining process are shaped by the probabilities that each side will prevail in an impasse. Standard game-theoretic predictions are quite sharp: demands are pushed to the precipice with nothing left on the table, but there is no conflict regardless of the degree of power asymmetry. Indeed, there is no delay in reaching an agreement that incorporates the (unrealized) costs of delay and conflict. A laboratory experiment has been used to investigate the effects of power asymmetries on conflict rates in a two-stage bargaining game that is (if necessary) followed by conflict with a random outcome. Observed demands at each stage are significantly correlated with power, as measured by the probability of winning in the event of disagreement. Demand patterns, however, are flatter than theoretical predictions, and conflict occurs in a significant proportion of the interactions, regardless of the degree of the power asymmetry. To address these deviations from the standard game-theoretic predictions, we also estimated a logit quantal response model, which generated the qualitative patterns that are observed in the data. This one-parameter generalization of the Nash equilibrium permits a deconstruction of the strategic incentives that cause demands to be less responsive to power asymmetries than Nash predictions.

Scholarly work on diversionary war is ubiquitous as is the observation that findings in the literature are mixed. One reason for these mixed results may be that potential targets strategically avoid conflict. Another theoretical possibility is that some types of domestic trouble restrain state leaders’ foreign policy behavior rather than giving them an incentive to use force. These domestic conditions could provide their international opponents with an opportunity to exploit the state’s weakness. If a state interprets its opponent’s domestic context as an opportunity to take advantage of a weakness, then we should anticipate greater aggressiveness rather than the passive avoidance behavior much work on strategic interaction and the use of force suggests. Our heteroskedastic model provides evidence that where some domestic conditions create threats for foreign opponents, others provide opportunities.

We provide the first experimental results on a two-stage model of militarized conflict based on the ubiquitous ultimatum bargaining game that dominates much of the theoretical analysis of international relations. We illustrate how data from experimental trials deviate from the equilibrium predictions from both a complete information version of the model and the quantal response version of the model. We discuss how the results from the experiments can inform future theoretical, empirical, and experimental work on bargaining theories of war.

This article introduces two new datasets produced by the Institutions and elections Project. Those datasets contain nuanced information describing the political institutions, the constitutional and practical arrangements in governments, and every national election for every country in the international system between 1972 and 2005. We believe the 127 variables in these data represent a significant contribution to research programs in comparative and world politics interested in the nuances of domestic politics.

Existing research on power and war contends that the distribution of power exerts an independent effect on the chances of armed conflict. However, theories of bargaining indicate that power's influence on war depends on the ex ante distribution of benefits and has a specific functional form. We test that claim, showing that the effect of power on war rests heavily on the distribution of benefits. Our findings strongly suggest bargaining explanations may subsume other arguments about power and war both theoretically and empirically.

This article argues that foreign policy substitution arises as a result of the costs of foreign policies relative to state resources. States with few resources are constrained in foreign policy choice compared to states with an abundance of resources. As a result, states with few resources will, on average, select, lower-cost policies than will resource-rich states. Resource-rich states, by virtue of their abundant resources, have greater discretion over policy choice and thus behave less uniformly than do resource-poor states. Our empirical results provide evidence of this and support the argument that substitution is in the variance.

This article argues that foreign policy substitution arises as a result of the costs of foreign policies relative to state resources. States with few resources are constrained in foreign policy choice compared to states with an abundance of resources. As a result, states with few resources will, on average, select, lower-cost policies than will resource-rich states. Resource-rich states, by virtue of their abundant resources, have greater discretion over policy choice and thus behave less uniformly than do resource-poor states. Our empirical results provide evidence of this and support the argument that substitution is in the variance.

While a growing body of work provides empirical support for the notion that political leaders “substitute” foreign policies depending on a variety of domestic political and economic conditions, little work examines the underlying strategic causes of substitution. This article argues that foreign states behave strategically in order to (a) avoid becoming the targets of domestically troubled executives or (b) to take advantage of the domestic trouble another state endures. Such “strategic interaction” delimits the set of foreign policies reasonably available to leaders in trouble at home, thus producing the impetus for policy substitution. This article develops a theoretical model of strategic behavior and policy substitution and reports empirical results of a multivariate probit model.

While a growing body of work provides empirical support for the notion that political leaders “substitute” foreign policies depending on a variety of domestic political and economic conditions, little work examines the underlying strategic causes of substitution. This article argues that foreign states behave strategically in order to (a) avoid becoming the targets of domestically troubled executives or (b) to take advantage of the domestic trouble another state endures. Such “strategic interaction” delimits the set of foreign policies reasonably available to leaders in trouble at home, thus producing the impetus for policy substitution. This article develops a theoretical model of strategic behavior and policy substitution and reports empirical results of a multivariate probit model.

Recent work on democratic processes (elections, parties, etc.) and foreign policy behavior makes a variety of claims about how those processes influence the decision to resort to arms. Some work also claims the diversity in the family of democracies produces different types of behaviors across democratic systems. While much theoretical and empirical rigor has been brought to bear on these issues, little attention is paid to how democratic processes shape the variance in foreign policy behavior both across different democratic systems and within systems across time. This article explores variants of democratic systems and variance in democratic systems with respect to interstate conflict.

Recent work regarding what influences the chances that states either win or lose wars focuses on two primary explanations. The first suggests that states win or lose largely on the merits of their war-fighting strategies and capabilities, The second explanation asserts that successful states simply choose their fights more carefully, thus selecting opponents they are more likely to defeat. Although these approaches are often perceived as contending theories, they actually are complementary in that both contribute to a unified explanation of why states win wars. This article provides a theoretical explanation of success in war by joining these two approaches and arguing that because the explanations are complementary, analyses ignoring one or the other are incomplete. We report a series of censored probit models that unify these explanations. The results of the unified model support the argument that the theories should be considered complementary. Our conclusions point to the importance of conceiving of international phenomena including conflict as processes rather than as discrete events.

Current conflict research increasingly suggests the relevance of unobserved strategic processes in determining how and why states engage in conflict. Alastair Smith's (1996, 1998) work, in particular, highlights the likelihood that diversionary foreign policy behavior is inhibited by the very fact that democratic leaders' political needs are abundantly apparent to their potential targets. So, the very factors that give democratic leaders the incentive to divert also give their targets incentives to maintain low profiles. Yet, few empirical tests of this proposition exist in diversionary work or elsewhere. This article seeks to provide such a test in the context of Fordham's (1998a) innovative explanation for American diversionary behavior. I test the strategic interaction hypothesis in a Zero-Inflated Poisson (ZIP) model and evaluate the utility of the ZIP model for modeling an unobserved process. The results suggest both the importance of strategic interaction and the power of the ZIP model in accounting for strategic interaction in world politics.

Introduction While the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 allowed East to meet West, the 2000s will see parts of the East joining the West through the process of accession to the European Union (EU). In such a dynamic environment, Eastern and Western institutions, including NGDOs (non-governmental development organisations), will have to learn not only to cohabit but to coordinate and adapt to common policies such as the EU Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) policy. While this new marriage brings great opportunity for both sides, it will also pose significant challenges. How will such diverse Civil Societies, each with its unique history and outlook, relate to EU institutional culture and policy? Moreover, how will the relationship of Eastern NGDOs with their national governments change? And will the increase in development funding bring competition or cooperation between NGDOs? The purpose of this article is to address these questions and assess the implications of the prospective EU enlargement in terms of development policy and its effects on current EU NGDOs and those in Accession Country (AC), as well as the relations between them. The article then highlights the challenges and opportunities facing EU and AC NGDOs and suggest ways forward. NGDOs, as products of Civil Society, are to a large extent defined by their socioeconomic environment. As Europe was divided for more than 40 years, the historical contexts of the mostly Western EU and the mostly Eastern AC NGDOs are understandably different. While EU NGDOs have well over fifty years experience of democratic, capitalist systems wherein Civil Society and Government were to a greater or lesser extent separate, the modern history of Eastern AC NGDOs only began in the twilight of the USSR as previously the centralised socialist system had effectively stifled the activity of an autonomous Civil Society. Governments on both sides of the Iron Curtain to a greater or lesser extent utilised development policy as an extension of their respective foreign policies. 1 However, Western governments used NGDOs as instruments of that development while in the East the role of NGDOs was almost non-existent, with state institutions dominating development. With over fifty years experience, EU NGOs have gone through many changes to their institutional culture and development strategies. In the postWar optimism, EU NGDOs initially embarked on relief-based aid in order to alleviate poverty while many, mostly in newly 1 For the link between development policy and state foreign policy …

This article illustrates the importance of testing empirical models in samples appropriate to the theories the models are intended to test. While social science appears to mandate that we prefer general theories to limited ones, the generality of a theory rests in its logical application to a set of observations, not solely to its statistical survival in a large data set. Theories in international relations, especially those linking domestic turmoil and international conflict, are advancing, but are sometimes applied to samples larger than the related theories indicate. This paper examines the statistical consequences of estimation in overexpansive samples with unmodeled treatment effects; we argue that samples containing cases that cannot experience the causal phenomenon in question produce unmodeled treatment effects, and we reexamine three published articles whose samples are perhaps broader than their theories suggest they should be. The empirical analyses demonstrate that overexpansive samples can produce somewhat misleading results: the new models produce interesting findings that emerge as treatment effects are identified.

Quantitative social science relies centrally on the ideal that any concept can be operationalized and measured. Although notionally tenable, practical limits dictate that some concepts might be more easily and more reliably measured than others. Some conceptual variables are not easily operationalized or measured because they are not directly observable phenomena; as a result, scholars often resort to indirect indicators of the phenomenon in question. Opportunity comprises one such concept that is important to the development of theories of international conflict. Although scholars might agree that different states have different opportunities to fight, measuring opportunity has proved to be a daunting task. This study presents a statistical method that treats unobserved concepts (such as opportunity) as latent variables. The procedure derives estimates of the latent variable and observable actions that arise from the latent process. Drawing on split population hazard models developed in the economics literature, a model of dyadic opportunity and willingness to engage in interstate conflict is produced. Results shed light on the process that leads states to fight one another.

The contributions to this special issue provide a vehicle for moving the scientific study of conflict and war forward. These articles reflect the results of a workshop on Emerging Methodologies in the Quantitative Study of Conflict held at Binghamton University in March 2001. The objective was to represent recent efforts to apply emerging methodologies to some of the more knotty empirical problems facing scholars of conflict and its management. As this community develops more nuanced theoretical arguments, we need to be able to test our ideas empirically in ways consistent with our theoretical specifications. The collection of articles in this issue clearly shows that the scientific study of world politics has reached a high degree of methodological maturity. They reveal not only the achievement of a high level of sophistication but also an ability to adopt and adapt methods designed to deal with research problems unique to world politics. Some of our recent advancements involve more refined arguments to account for the processes that lead states into militarized conflict, driven in part-but not exclusivelyby understanding the effects of processes that operate at different levels of analysis. The dyad and/or the event, for example, pose methodological issues regarding strategic choice, opportunity, and the stationarity of time-series data. Furthermore, the entire notion of how we can best test our models, or hypotheses derived from them, has important methodological implications. That is, competing model testing has developed as a viable alternative to testing the null hypothesis (see Bennett 1997) and purports to be an important approach to addressing some of the contemporary debates in