Getting to the Root of the Issue(s): Expanding the Study of Issues in MIDs (the MID-Issue Dataset, Version 1.0)

Abstract

Because existing issue classification schemes omit prominent issues (e.g., domestic armed conflict) or contain significant within-category heterogeneity, theorizing about the role of issues in international conflict processes has stagnated. Our project jump-starts it again, by independently—and systematically—reconceptualizing and gathering data on five issues connected to dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) during the period 1900–2010: land (borders), maritime (borders), islands, civil conflict, and coups. After conceptually introducing these issues and embedding them within a larger framework, we describe and apply our MID-Issue data. These efforts show that (i) the MID dataset’s issue classification scheme does not systematically capture our issues, (ii) events in 37.58% of dyadic MIDs connect to domestic armed conflict—a prevalence not on the field’s radar, (iii) some factors promote issue-based international conflict, but only via indirect channels, and (iv) significant value even derives from a further conceptualization of “territorial issues” (broadly defined).

Managing complexity: addressing the civil conflict component of international-civil militarized conflicts (I-CMCs)

“…One such issue concerns the events and effects of civil conflict (e.g., rebels receiving safe-haven in another state, refugee flows or the spillover of militarized conflict). A MID intersects with civil conflict issues when its events connect to at least one organized, militarized group that challenges the authority of a state government (Jackson et al , 2022). The challenged government (or civil-war host state) could be among the MID-participating states; the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, experiences a civil conflict on its territory, the events of which result in a MID between it and Rwanda.…”

“…5. For more details about the collection of these data, see Jackson et al (2022). The data do not include cases of civil conflict in which two or more external states: support opposite sides of the civil conflict – either politically or through the provision of weapons – but have not directly threatened, displayed or used force against one another as a result of the civil conflict’s events.…”

“…externalities) create tension among states that do not themselves experience that civil conflict. Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, engage in militaristic behavior with one another as a result of events related to the Yemeni civil conflict (Jackson et al , 2022). I-CMCs therefore capture what are arguably the most dangerous conflicts in the international system, in terms of the number of actors involved, their severity, their death toll, the resources actors devote to them and their risk of further expansion.…”

Why don’t democracies fight each other? The role of territorial issues

“…Yet, as Senese (1997: 1) shows, once democratic states enter a MID with each other, they are "about as likely (possibly a little more so) to escalate that dispute through further stages of antagonism short of war, as is a non-jointly democratic dyad." Thus, the question becomes: what issues do democratic dyads fight about militarily (for recent data on issues in MIDs, see Jackson et al, 2022)? Are they qualitatively different than the issues over which non-democratic states fight?…”

“…Reed (2000) and Huth and Allee (2002) find that democratic dyads do not go to war because they have fewer militarized interstate disputes (MIDs)—that is, cases in which one state threatens, displays, or uses force against another (Palmer et al, 2015). Yet, as Senese (1997: 1) shows, once democratic states enter a MID with each other, they are “about as likely (possibly a little more so) to escalate that dispute through further stages of antagonism short of war, as is a non-jointly democratic dyad.” Thus, the question becomes: what issues do democratic dyads fight about militarily (for recent data on issues in MIDs, see Jackson et al, 2022)? Are they qualitatively different than the issues over which non-democratic states fight?…”