In this paper we study the relationship between dynamic national capabilities, interstate rivalry, and militarized conflict. In particular, we seek to explain two states' decisions to escalate disputes when they are involved in a rivalry. Previous research has shown that interstate rivalries are highly conflictual relationships, accounting for a large proportion of the total number of militarized disputes and wars in the entire interstate system. Yet little is known about the processes of escalation within rivalries, particularly with regard to the impact of past events on escalation within ongoing or evolving rivalries. In order to study the processes of escalation within rivalry, we synthesize several important strands of the conflict literature: power transition theory, research on interstate rivalries, and research on contentious issues. We test our hypotheses empirically using logistic regression analysis on a set of enduring rivalries from 1816-1992. We find that militarized disputes are more likely to escalate to interstate war or to the use of force if they involve territorial issues, if the rivals have previously engaged in warfare in the history of their rivalry, and if the dispute occurs earlier in the history of a rivalry. The interactive effects of previous dispute outcomes (compromise, decisive, stalemate) and escalation levels make the use of force in a dispute more likely, but escalation to war less likely. We conclude by discussing the meaning of our findings and their implications for further scholarly research. The study of interstate rivalry has begun to offer substantial theoretical and empirical contributions to the empirical literature on interstate conflict. The present paper builds on research in this tradition by examining the relationship between dynamic relative capabilities, contentious issues, and the evolution of militarized conflict in interstate rivalry. In particular, we seek to explain two states' decisions to escalate disputes when they are involved in a rivalry. Previous research has shown that interstate rivalries are highly conflictual relationships, accounting for a large proportion of the total number of militarized disputes and wars in the entire interstate system. Yet little is known about the processes of escalation within rivalries, particularly with regard to the impact of past events on escalation within ongoing or evolving rivalries. Rather than identifying which dyads are "dangerous" or most war prone (Bremer, 1992), we seek to determine the conditions under which disputes between rivals are most likely to escalate to the use of force or to full-scale interstate war. In …

This article introduces the Polity IIId (“d” is for dates) data set. The Polity IIId project codes the precise dates of changes in political structure identified by Polity III for all independent countries in the international system from 1800 to 1994. By moving from annual measurements of authority and polity characteristics, the Polity IIId data are more appropriate for event-based analysis. The authors discuss the implications of the new data set for event count and event history models of democracy and war, democratization and war, regime type and civil war, and causes of change in political structure.