Mark J. C. Crescenzi

Time Remembered: A Dynamic Model of Interstate Interaction

Over time, states form relationships. These relationships, mosaics of past interactions, provide political leaders with information about how states are likely to behave in the future. Although intuitive, this claim holds important implications for the manner in which we construct and evaluate empirically our expectations about interstate behavior. Empirical analyses of interstate relations implicitly assume that the units of analysis are independent. Theories of interstate interaction are often cast in the absence of historical context. In this article we construct a dynamic model of interstate interaction that we believe will assist scholars in empirical and theoretical studies by incorporating a substantively interpretable historical component into their models of interstate relations. Our conceptual model includes both conflictual and cooperative components, and exhibits the basic properties of growth and decay that characterize dyadic relationships. In an empirical exposition, we derive a continuous measure of interstate conflict from the conflictual component of the model. We rely on Oneal and Russetts (1997) analysis of dyadic conflict for the period 1950–1985 as a benchmark, and examine whether the inclusion of our measure of interstate conflict significantly improves our ability to predict militarized conflict. We find empirical support for this hypothesis, indicating that our continuous measure of interstate conflict significantly augments a well-known statistical model of dyadic militarized conflict. Our findings reinforce the assertion that historical processes in interstate relationships represent substantively important elements in models of interstate behavior rather than econometric nuisances.

Ripples from the waves? A systemic, time-series analysis of democracy, democratization, and interstate war

Few puzzles in international relations research have received as much attention as the relationship between political regimes and interstate conflict. Here we examine a particular aspect of this puzzle: the systemic relationships between democracy, democratization, and interstate conflict. We test hypotheses aimed at exploring three dimensions of this general inquiry. First, that democracy, democratization, and war are endogenous phenomena. Second, that the relationships between these three processes vary across time with respect to their strength and direction. Lastly, that these relationships also vary spatially, paying particular attention to geographic regions. Using time-series techniques with data for the period 1816-1992, we employ Granger causality and vector auto-regression (VAR) techniques to test our hypotheses. Briefly, we find evidence confirming the endogeneity of these processes, though this endogeneity is not as extensive as we anticipated and is conditional on the spatial and temporal sample selected. Perhaps more importantly, we find evidence suggesting that the statistical strength and sign of the relationships of interest exhibit considerable spatial and temporal heterogeneity. We conclude that the regional level, rather than the global level, holds more promise for understanding the interrelationships between systemic democracy, democratization, and interstate conflict.

Economic Exit, Interdependence, and Conflict

This article examines the question of whether economic interdependence constrains or motivates interstate conflict. The theoretical model predicts when and how interdependence influences conflict, using exit costs to separate economic interdependence from less binding economic interaction. Analysis of the model suggests that when exit costs exceed an endurance threshold for at least one state, the threat of exit becomes a viable but limited bargaining tool. Exceeding this threshold increases low-level conflict as states use economic and diplomatic tools to resolve demands, but it decreases high-level conflict because states take advantage of more efficient means of dispute resolution. If the stakes are too high, however, exit costs fail to check conflict, and the economic relationship becomes an ineffective bargaining arena. Empirical analysis provides support for the hypotheses derived from the model.

Reconfiguring The Arms Race-War Debate

A recent article by Susan Sample purports to resolve a debate that has generated a great deal of scholarly attention over the past two decades, whether arms races are associated with the escalation of militarized disputes to war. In response, we outline a research agenda designed to reconfigure the arms race-war debate rather than to perpetuate the controversy. We argue for better theoretical specification of the arms race-war relationship, and for empirical tests to sort out whether this relationship is direct, indirect, or spurious. We also advocate some methodological changes including more longitudinal studies, a broader spatial domain to include minor powers, less reliance on military expenditure data, and multivariate (rather than bivariate) tests of the arms race-war relationship.

Violence and Uncertainty in Transitions

This article develops a model of the strategic interaction between a regime and its domestic opposition. The author formally explores the strategic nature of the decision to pursue a transition. Specifically, the model incorporates the notion of uncertainty in the sense that the opposition does not know whether hard-liners or soft-liners control the regime. Liberalization then becomes a signal to the opposition, which may or may not convey meaningful information about the regimes type. An important result of the analysis is that in a scenario in which the opposition seeks a transition but wishes to avoid violence, conflict between the opposition and the regime can still occur. The model also provides an explanation for the occurrence of pacted transitions (negotiated transitions without violence) as well as why some transition opportunities do not materialize even when conditions are ripe for a peaceful transition. In addition, the model explains why and under what circumstances regimes liberalize. Empirical analysis of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and pretransition Brazil during the late 1970s lends support to the model.

Practicing democratic community norms: Third-party conflict management and successful settlements

1: New Approaches, Methods, and Findings in the Study of Mediation Jacob Bercovitch and Scott Gartner Part I: Mediation Strategy 2: Is There Method in the Madness of Mediation? Some Lessons for Mediators from Quantitative Studies of Mediation Jacob Bercovitch and Scott Gartner 3: Third-Party Intermediaries and Negotiated Settlements, 1946-2000 Derrick V. Frazier and William J. Dixon Part II: Mediator Type A. Bias and Information 4: Credibility and Strategy in International Mediation Zeev Maoz and Lesley G. Terris 5: Mediator Types and the Effectiveness of Information Provision Strategies Burcu Savun B. UN & Neutrality 6: Guaranteeing Peace: The Credibility of Third-Party Mediators in Civil Wars Isak Svensson 7: Choosing Sides: UN Resolutions and Non-Neutrality Michelle Benson and Nil Satana Part III: Dispute and Crisis Types 8: Softening Up: Making Conflicts More Amenable to Diplomacy J. Michael Greig and Paul F. Diehl 9: Power Play: Mediation in Symmetric and Asymmetric International Crises David Quinn, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Kathleen Smarick and Victor Asal 10: Protracted Conflict and Crisis Mediation: a Contingency Approach David Carment, Yiagadeesen Samy and Souleima EL Achkar Part IV: The Conflict Management Environment 11: Practicing Democratic Community Norms: Third Party Conflict Management and Successful Settlements Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J.C. Crescenzi 12: Philippine and Taiwanese Legal Mediation James Wall, Tsungting Chung, Daniel Druckman and Wan Yan Part V: Data 13: Conflict and Mediation Event Observations (CAMEO): An Event Data Framework for a Post Cold War World Deborah J. Gerner, Philip A. Schrodt and Omur YilmazIn this paper we investigate the methods by which aggregate democratic forces influence dyadiclevel interactions. We examine the causal linkage between a global democratic community and the involvement of third parties in attempts to settle dyadic claims that may otherwise lead to violence. We hypothesize that a strong democratic community and its institutions make third party settlement attempts more frequent and successful, and that these third party mediators are likely to be democracies or international institutions. Using data from the ICOW project as well as from Kadera, Crescenzi and Shannon (2003), we test these hypotheses and find broad but not universal support for the notion that when the democratic community has the ability to influence international politics, it does so through the propagation of democratic societal norms of dispute resolution. ince the classic Liberals proposed republican governance of states as a foundation for a “perpetual peace,” a plethora of empirically minded scholars have investigated this claim. Almost without exception, they have found little support at the monadic level of analysis and strong support at the dyadic level: although democracies are just as likely as nondemocracies to participate in conflicts, they do not fight each other (e.g., Chan 1984, Maoz and Russett 1993, Morgan and Schwebach 1992, Russett and Oneal 2001). Kant ([1784] 1991, [1795] 1991, and [1797] 1991) exemplifies the original vision of the democratic peace as a systemic phenomenon, a tranquility produced by a developed international society of republican (representative) governments (Harrison, 2002; Huntley, 1996). Yet, rigorous systemic democratic peace analyses have only recently been conducted. These recent investigations indicate that augmenting global democracy ultimately has a pacifying effect, though there is some debate about whether the path to peace involves a monotonic lessening of conflict or initial increases in warfare up to some critical value after which war levels subside (cf. Crescenzi and Enterline 1999; Gleditsch and Hegre 1997; Kadera, Crescenzi, and Shannon 2003; Mitchell, Gates, and Hegre 1999). Nonetheless, much is left to learn. We do not yet know much about the mechanisms by which systemic peace is achieved. This paper seeks to investigate the processes by which aggregate democratic forces produce pacific benefits. S We theorize that a “strong democratic community” (Kadera, Crescenzi, and Shannon 2003) nurtures the expansion of democratic norms in international society. While there are multiple ways to practice democratic norms, we focus this paper on conflict alleviation strategies. In particular, we ask how does the strength of the democratic community affect the willingness of states to allow third party involvement in the resolution of contentious issues?

Bringing Cooperation Back In: A Dynamic Model of Interstate Interaction

In an earlier article (Crescenzi & Enterline, 2001), we developed a formal, dynamic model of the cooperative and conflictual dimensions central to interstate relationships. However, the empirical data employed as inputs into the original model informed only the models conflictual dimension. Here, we operationalize the conflictual and cooperative dimensions of the model, with the latter derived by inputting information on joint participation in intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) for the period 1965—2000. Doing so enables us to trace the joint cooperative—conflictual temporal trajectories of interstate dyads, in addition to capturing the degree and dynamism of these relationships. We demonstrate the flexibility and practicality of the model-derived empirical indicators of interstate interaction with an analysis of dyadic interstate conflict. Our dynamic approach to studying interstate relationships promises to facilitate fruitful contributions to several research agendas in comparative politics and international relations.

An analysis of the TABARI coding system

Textual Analysis by Augmented Replacement Instructions (TABARI) provides an automated method for coding large amounts of text. Using TABARI to code lead sentences of news stories, the KEDS/Penn State Event Data project has produced event data for several regions. The wide range of events and actors, TABARI’s ability to filter duplicate events and the number of events coded allow users to analyze patterns in conflict and cooperation between state and nonstate actors over time. We evaluate whether coding full stories provides more detailed information on the actors referenced in the lead sentences. Additional actor information would allow researchers interested in the interactions between violent nonstate actors to test hypotheses regarding group cohesiveness and splintering, spoiling behavior, commitment problems between factions and many other issues critical to management of an insurgency. We downloaded Reuters news stories relevant to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and used TABARI to code the lead sentences. We then analyzed the full text of the coded stories to determine the level of actor detail available. Our findings highlight the dynamic relationship among nonstate and state actors during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and we find that, contrary to expectations, hand coding full news stories does not lead to significant improvements in the accuracy or depth of actor information compared with machine coding by TABARI using lead sentences. These findings should bolster the confidence of researchers using TABARI coded data, with the caveat that TABARI’s ability to distinguish between actors is dependent upon the detail available in the actor dictionaries.

The reputation trap of NGO accountability

In this paper we examine the role of reputation in the behavior of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Can the pursuit and maintenance of a reputation cause NGOs to change their behavior in meaningful ways ?O r are the norms and institutions that motivate and govern NGOs the sole drivers of behavior? To answer these questions, we focus on the relationship between NGOs and their donors. Our theoretical model reveals that reputation can be a key piece of information in the decision to fund the activities of a non-governmental organization. Indeed, reputation can become so important to the survival of the NGO that it interferes with the long-term policy goals of the organization. The resulting short-term NGO behavior is often misconstrued as incompetent or ine! cient, but it is actually motivated by the structural constraints of the relationship with donors. We illustrate this strategic dynamic here with a focus on three types of NGO activity: international crisis mediation, ameliorating poverty ,a nd water improvement.