Home  About us  Contact
 

Interstate Disputes (interstate + dispute)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

The (Ir)Relevance of Militarized Interstate Disputes for International Trade

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2002
Quan Li
Do military disputes between two states suppress trade between their firms? Both liberals and realists suggest that conflict occurrence reduces bilateral trade. However, using a rational expectation argument, Morrow (1999) proposes that conflict occurrence and trade should be uncorrelated statistically. Empirical evidence to date both supports expectations and appears contradictory and inconclusive. We offer a theory that reconciles, encompasses, and extends the competing arguments, explaining the empirical inconsistency. By incorporating rational expectations and uncertainty into the profit calculus of trading firms, the theory identifies the conditions under which various properties of a conflict (onset, duration, and severity) should and should not reduce bilateral trade ex ante and ex post. We test the ex post effects in two datasets that cover either a wider range of countries or a longer time period than previous quantitative studies. Both an unexpected MID onset and the unexpectedness of a MID onset reduce bilateral trade substantially ex post. Preliminary tests suggest that MID duration and severity also affect bilateral trade ex post. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research. [source]

In the Nick of Time: Conflict Management, Mediation Timing, and the Duration of Interstate Disputes

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2000
Patrick M. Regan
This paper develops a theoretical argument linking time and the timing of conflict management efforts to dispute duration. We test competing hypotheses on conflict data drawn from disputes in the post-1945 period. Our analysis demonstrates that the effects of mediation vary substantially over the course of a dispute. Specifically, we note that mediation has a curvilinear relationship with time and the ending of disputes. Mediation efforts that occur soon after disputes begin have the best chance of reducing expected future dispute duration. Following this initial period, subsequent mediation efforts lead to longer rather than shorter disputes. After a long period, mediation again leads to shorter rather than longer disputes. We also find that there should be consistency in the mediators used to manage a conflict rather than shifting personnel to interject new ideas. [source]

An Empirical Examination of Religion and Conflict in the Middle East, 1950,1992

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2006
BRIAN LAI
This article examines the influence of religion on conflict in the Middle East. It develops a more refined approach to studying the effects of religion by examining intra-Islamic differences as well as the effects of domestic politics and religion on conflict. It tests these hypotheses on all Middle Eastern dyads from 1950 to 1992, including appropriate control variables. This article finds that religious identity does matter but only when its relationship with conflict is more clearly specified. Religious differences between the leaders of states influence the likelihood of militarized disputes, but not religious differences between the populations of two states. Ethnic differences and power politics also influence the likelihood of an militarized interstate dispute. [source]

The Joint Democracy,Dyadic Conflict Nexus: A Simultaneous Equations Model

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2003
Rafael Reuveny
Many statistical studies in international relations investigate the claim that democracies do not fight one another. Virtually all of these studies employ a single-equation design, where the dependent variable measures the presence or absence of a dyadic militarized interstate dispute (MID). A separate group of studies argues that conflict affects democracy and that its effect could be positive or negative. By and large, these two bodies of literature have not incorporated one another's insights. We argue that democracy and dyadic conflict affect each other significantly and that statistical models that ignore the reciprocal nature of these effects may make incorrect inferences. To test this argument, we develop a simultaneous equations model of democracy and dyadic conflict. Our sample includes all the politically relevant dyads from 1950 to 1992. We find that dyadic military disputes reduce joint democracy and joint democracy reduces the probability of MIDs. Compared with the single-equation estimates in the literature, the absolute effect of joint democracy in our paper is smaller while in relative terms, the effect is similar in size. The effect of joint democracy on MID involvement is considerably smaller for noncontiguous countries than for contiguous ones. The effects of a number of control variables in the MID equation are also found to differ from those reported previously in single- equation,based studies. [source]

The Interdependence of U.S. Troop Deployments and Trade in the Developing World

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 3 2009
Glen Biglaiser
The relationship between political conflict and trade has contributed to a riveting discussion in international relations about whether trade produces conflict, or whether conflict itself reduces trade. Most studies proxy "the flag" using militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). However, extensions of "the flag" might well obtain in environments short of MIDs. A more general way to proxy the flag is troop deployments. The deployment of military troops is an essential element of foreign policy. Using panel data for 126 developing countries from 1965 to 2002 and a two-stage least square approach, this essay investigates the relationship between trade and United States troop deployments. We find that trade and troops have a nonrecursive relationship: trade follows the flag and troops follow trade. Given the increased insecurity in the world today, the results are timely and reinforce previous research about the reciprocal relationship between the flag and trade. [source]

Congress, Presidential Approval, and U.S. Dispute Initiation

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 4 2008
David J. Brulé
Do presidents initiate disputes in response to low public approval ratings? Although research on the diversionary use of force finds links between poor economic conditions and military disputes, findings evaluating the effect of presidential approval ratings typically fail to support the diversionary hypothesis. But this research tends to neglect the role of presidential-congressional relations in the president's foreign policy making processes. This paper applies the policy availability argument to the puzzle: legislative constraints on presidential action during periods of low public approval compel the president to pursue alternatives that he can implement largely on his own in order to display his leadership skills,including the use of military force abroad. The argument is tested by examining the interactive effects of congressional support for the president and presidential approval ratings on the propensity to initiate militarized interstate disputes from 1949 to 2000. The results indicate that the president is more likely to use force in response to low presidential approval when faced with low congressional support. [source]

Preferences and the Democratic Peace

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2000
Erik Gartzke
A debate exists over whether (and to what degree) the democratic peace is explained by joint democracy or by a lack of motives for conflict between states that happen to be democratic. Gartzke (1998) applies expected utility theory to the democratic peace and shows that an index of states' preference similarity based on United Nations General Assembly roll-call votes (affinity) accounts for much of the lack of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) between democracies. Oneal and Russett (1997b, 1998, 1999) respond by arguing that UN voting is itself a function of regime type,that democracy ,causes'affinity. Oneal and Russett seek to demonstrate their thesis by regressing affinity on democracy and other variables from a standard model of the democratic peace. I replicate results reported by Oneal and Russett and then extend the analysis in several ways. I find that the residuals from Oneal and Russett's regression of affinity remain highly significant as a predictor of the absence of MIDs. Further, significance for democracy is shown to be fragile and subject to variable construction, model specification, and the choice of estimation procedure. [source]