Unpacking Escalation

Braithwaite, Alex; Lemke, Douglas

doi:10.1177/0738894210396631

Cited by 32 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…They are likely to affect many inferences found in previous studies. We document several of these with replications of recent works on dispute escalation (Braithwaite and Lemke 2011), dispute duration (Gibler and Miller 2013), and dispute reciprocation (Weeks 2008). Our reanalyses of these studies suggest that interpretation of several key relationships depends wholly on improperly coded cases in the original data, and we document how specific change recommendations affect inferences from these studies.…”

supporting

confidence: 61%

An Analysis of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) Dataset, 1816–2001

2016

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This research note discusses a five-year examination of the original coding work of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) project. After strictly applying MID coding rules, we recommend dropping 251 cases (or over 10% of the dataset), as either we were unable to find a militarized incident in the historical record or the dispute appeared elsewhere in the data. We found evidence linking 75 disputes to other cases, and we could not identify 19 cases in the historical record. Among the remaining disputes, we recommend major changes (changes in dispute year, fatality level, and participants) in 234 disputes and minor changes in 1,009 disputes. We use this article to examine the potential impact of our suggestions on existing studies. Though we identified several systematic problems with the original coding effort, we also find that these problems do not affect current understandings of what predicts the onset of interstate conflict. However, estimates in our replications of three recent studies of dispute escalation, dispute duration, and dispute reciprocation all witness substantial changes when using corrected data-to the point of reversing previous conclusions in some cases.

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supporting

confidence: 61%

An Analysis of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) Dataset, 1816–2001

2016

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“…A majority of interstate wars and a large share of intrastate wars are fought over territory . Territorial disputes are associated not only with conflict onset but with its escalation (Braithwaite and Lemke, 2011) and duration (Fuhrmann and Tir, 2009), and have been shown to be significantly more difficult to resolve (Fearon, 2004;Miller and Gibler, 2011;Walter, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contested Ground: Disentangling Material and Symbolic Attachment to Disputed Territory

Manekin¹,

Grossman²,

Mitts³

2018

PSRM

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Territorial disputes are prone to conflict because of the value of territory to publics, whether due to its strategic and material worth, or to its intangible, symbolic value. Yet despite the implications of the distinction for both theory and policy, empirically disentangling the material from the symbolic has posed formidable methodological challenges. We propose a set of tools for assessing the nature of individual territorial attachment, drawing on a series of survey experiments in Israel. Using these tools, we find that a substantial segment of the Jewish population is attached to the disputed West Bank territory for intangible reasons, consisting not only of far-right voters but also of voters of moderate-right and centrist parties. This distribution considerably narrows the bargaining space of leaders regardless of coalitional configurations. Our empirical analysis thus illustrates how the distribution of territorial preferences in the domestic population can have powerful implications for conflict and its resolution.

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“…One thousand battle-related deaths are often considered the threshold for 'war,' although this is of course somewhat arbitrary. 6 These are very similar to several MID-based indicators used in other studies of conflict escalation, which show relatively consistent patterns regardless of exactly how escalation is operationalized (Bennett and Stam 2004;Braithwaite and Lemke 2011). Dyad-years of MID continuation are dropped because conflict duration is not the topic of inquiry.…”

Section: Measures Of Trade and Conflictmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Power parity is dropped because the balance of power between states is assumed to be observable at the onset stage, and thus discounted by leaders at later stages (Braithwaite and Lemke 2011). Alliances, contiguity, and distance are dropped for the same reason; these factors are easily observable at the onset stage, and are likely to be fully considered by states at that time.…”

Section: International Trade and The Onset And Escalation Of Interstamentioning

confidence: 99%

International Trade and The Onset and Escalation of Interstate Conflict: More to Fight About, or More Reasons Not to Fight?

Goldsmith

2013

Defence and Peace Economics

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Although study of the relationship between international trade and militarized conflict has become more sophisticated, whether trade reduces the chance of conflict, exacerbates it, or has no effect, remains contested. Integrating expectations from schools of thought often portrayed as incompatible, I consider two aspects of trade -volume and interdependence -and model conflict as a two-stage process involving onset and escalation. This perspective leads to robust statistical findings that trade is Janus-faced, both facilitating and inhibiting conflict at different stages, supporting the conclusion that a focus on international conflict as a communication process promises better theory in international relations.

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Unpacking Escalation

Cited by 32 publications

References 45 publications

An Analysis of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) Dataset, 1816–2001

An Analysis of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) Dataset, 1816–2001

Contested Ground: Disentangling Material and Symbolic Attachment to Disputed Territory

International Trade and The Onset and Escalation of Interstate Conflict: More to Fight About, or More Reasons Not to Fight?

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