This article considers the way in which the likelihood of being observed by others affects a state’s conflict behavior. The analysis examines the effect of potential observation on the probability that a dispute will escalate to violence as well as the duration of war and peace. To analyze escalation, I employ the nonparametric local logit model, which frees estimation from restrictive functional form assumptions. The evidence suggests that outside observation can change states’ behaviors and that observers tend to modify their own actions based on what they learn. These results indicate that the typical assumption that international conflict is unobserved and unaffected by outside actors is empirically untenable.
AndertonCharlesCarterJohn. 2001. “The Impact of War on Trade: An Interrupted Times-Series Study.”Journal of Peace Research38:445–57.
2.
BarbieriKatherineKeshkOmar M. G.PollinsBrian M.. 2009. “Trading Data: Evaluating our Assumptions and Coding Rules.”Conflict Management and Peace Science26 (5): 471–91.
3.
BeckNathanielKingGaryZengLangche. 2000. “Improving Quantitative Studies of International Conflict: A Conjecture.”American Political Science Review94 (1): 21–35.
4.
BennettD. ScottStamAllan C.. 1996. “The Duration of Interstate Wars, 1816-1985.”American Political Science Review90 (2): 239–57.
5.
BennettD. ScottStamAllan C.. 2000. “EUGene: A Conceptual Manual.”International Interactions26:179–204.
6.
BlaineyGeoffrey. 1988. The Causes of War. New York: Free Press.
7.
Box-SteffensmeierJanet M.ReiterDanZornChristopher. 2003. “Nonproportional Hazards and Event History Analysis in International Relations.”Journal of Conflict Resolution47 (1): 33–53.
8.
Bueno de MesquitaBruceLalmanDavid. 1992. War and Reason: Domestic and International Imperatives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
9.
CannonLou. 2000. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. New York: Public Affairs.
10.
ChibaDainaMachainCarla MartinezReedWilliam. 2011. “Major Powers and Militarized Conflict.”University of Maryland Working Paper, Maryland, MD.
11.
ChiozzaGiacomoGoemansHein. 2004. “International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still Ex Post Inefficient?”American Journal of Political Science48:604–19.
12.
ClausewitzCarl von. (1832)1976. On War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
13.
CrescenziMark J. C.2007. “Reputation and Interstate Conflict.”American Journal of Political Science51 (2): 382–96.
14.
CrescenziMarkKathmanJacobLongStephen. 2007. “Reputation, History, and War.”Journal of Peace Research44 (6): 651–67.
15.
DafoeAllanCaugheyDevin M.. 2011. “Honor and War: Using Southern Presidents to Identify Reputational Effects in International Conflict.”University of California, Berkeley Working Paper, Berkeley, CA.
16.
DebsAlexandreGoemansH. E.. 2010. “Regime Type, the Fate of Leaders, and War.”American Political Science Review104 (3): 430–45.
17.
EfronBradley. 1977. “The Efficiency of Cox’s Likelihood Function for Censored Data.”Journal of the American Statistical Association72:557–65.
18.
FanJianqingHeckmanNancy E.WandM. P.. 1995. “Local Polynomial Kernel Regression for Generalized Linear Models and Quasi-Likelihood Functions.”Journal of the American Statistical Association90 (429): 141–150.
19.
FearonJames D.1995. “Rationalist Explanations for War.”International Organization49 (3): 379–414.
20.
FeyMarkRamsayKristopher. 2007. “Mutual Optimism and War.”American Journal of Political Science51 (4): 738–54.
21.
FilsonDarrenWernerSuzanne. 2002. “A Bargaining Model of War and Peace: Anticipating the Onset, Duration, and Outcome of War.”American Journal of Political Science46 (4): 819–38.
22.
FortnaVirginia Page. 2004. Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
23.
FrölichMarkus. 2006. “Non-Parametric Regression for Binary Dependent Variables.”Econometrics Journal9:511–40.
24.
GhosnFatenPalmerGlennBremerStuart. 2004. “The MID3 Data Set, 1993-2001: Procedures, Coding Rules, and Description.”Conflict Management and Peace Science32 (2): 133–54.
25.
GoemansHein. 2000a. “Fighting for Survival: The Fate of Leaders and the Duration of War.”Journal of Conflict Resolution44:555.
26.
GoemansHein. 2000b. War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
27.
GoertzGaryDiehlPaul F.. 1995. “The Initiation and Termination of Enduring Rivalries: The Impact of Political Shocks.”American Journal of Political Science39:30–52.
28.
GoodwinDoris Kearns. 1976. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: Harper & Row.
29.
GriecoJoseph M.2001. “Repetitive Military Challenges and Recurrent International Conflicts, 1918-1994.”International Studies Quarterly45 (2): 295–316.
30.
HeckmanJames J.1979. “Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error.”Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society47:153–61.
31.
KenkelBrentonSignorinoCurtis S.. 2012. “An Alternative Solution to the Heckman Selection Problem: Selection Bias as Functional Form Misspecification.”Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.
32.
KleinJames P.GoertzGaryDiehlPaul F.. 2006. “The New Rivalry Dataset: Procedures and Patterns.”Journal of Peace Research43 (3): 331–48.
33.
KrepsDavidWilsonRobert. 1982. “Reputation and Imperfect Information.”Journal of Economic Theory27 (2): 253–79.
34.
LeventoğluBaharTararAhmer. 2008. “Does Private Information Lead to Delay or War in Crisis Bargaining?”International Studies Quarterly52 (3): 533–53.
35.
MarshallMonty G.JaggersKeith. 2002. “Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2007.” Accessed April 25, 2013. http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm.
36.
MilgromPaulRobertsJohn. 1982. “Predation, Reputation, and Entry Deterrence.”Journal of Economic Theory27 (2): 280–312.
MorganT. CliftonCampbellSally. 1991. “Domestic Structure, Decisional Constraints, and War: So Why Kant Democracies Fight?”Journal of Conflict Resolution35:187–211.
39.
O’ConnorMaureen P.1997. “The Vision of Soldiers: Britain, France, Germany and the United States Observe the Russo-Turkish War.”War in History4 (3): 264.
40.
PowellRobert. 2004. “Bargaining and Learning While Fighting.”American Journal of Political Science48 (2): 344–61.
41.
RacineJeffLiQi. 2004. “Nonparametric Estimation of Regression Functions with Both Categorical and Continuous Data.”Journal of Econometrics119 (1): 99–130.
42.
RansonE.1969. “British Military and Naval Observers in the Spanish-American War.”Journal of American Studies3 (1): 33–56.
43.
ReedWilliam. 2003. “Information and Economic Interdependence.”Journal of Conflict Resolution47:54–71.
44.
ReiterDan. 2003. “Exploring the Bargaining Model of War.”Perspectives on Politics1 (1): 27–43.
45.
SartoriAnne E.2002. “The Might of the Pen: A Reputational Theory of Communication in International Disputes.”International Organization56 (1): 121–49.
46.
SchellingThomas C.1960. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SeltenReinhard. 1978. “The Chain Store Paradox.”Theory and Decision9 (2): 127–59.
49.
SenesePaul D.1999. Geographical Proximity and Issue Salience: Their Effects on the Escalation of Militarized Conflict. In A Road Map to War: Territorial Dimensions of International Conflict, edited by DiehlPaul F., 147–80. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
50.
SignorinoCurtis S.YilmazKuzey. 2003. “Strategic Misspecification in Regression Models.”American Journal of Political Science47:551–66.
51.
SlantchevBranislav. 2003. “The Power to Hurt: Costly Conflict with Completely Informed States.”American Political Science Review97 (1): 123–33.
52.
SlantchevBranislav. 2004. “The Principle of Convergence in Wartime Negotiations.”American Political Science Review97 (4): 621–32.
53.
SlantchevBranislav L.2011. Military Threats: The Costs of Coercion and the Price of Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
54.
SlantchevBranislav L.TararAhmer. 2011. “Mutual Optimism as a Rationalist Cause of War.”American Journal of Political Science55 (1): 135–48.
55.
SmithAlastairStamAllan C.. 2004. “Bargaining and the Nature of War.”Journal of Conflict Resolution48 (6): 783.
56.
StaniswalisJoan G.1989. “The Kernel Estimate of a Regression Function in Likelihood-Based Models.”Journal of the American Statistical Association84 (405): 276–83.
57.
StreinerDavid L.CairneyJohn. 2007. “What’s Under the ROC? An Introduction to Receiver Operating Characteristics Curves.”The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry52: 121–28.
58.
SwansbroughRobert H.2008. Test by Fire: The War Presidency of George W. Bush. New York, NY: Palgrave Macillan.
59.
ThompsonWilliam R.1995. “Principal Rivalries.”Journal of Conflict Resolution39 (2): 195–223.
60.
ThompsonWilliam R.2001. “Identifying Rivals and Rivalries in World Politics.”International Studies Quarterly45 (4): 557–86.
61.
VuongQuang H.1989. “Likelihood Ratio Tests for Model Selection and Non-Nested Hypotheses.”Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society57: 307–33.
62.
WagnerR. Harrison. 2000. “Bargaining and War.”American Journal of Political Science44 (5): 469–84.
63.
WalterBarbara F.2006. “Building Reputation: Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others.”American Journal of Political Science50 (2): 313–30.
64.
WalterBarbara F.2009. “Bargaining Failures and Civil War.”Annual Review of Political Science12 (1): 243–61.
65.
WardMichael D.GleditschKristian Skrede. 2002. “Location, Location, Location: An MCMC Approach to Modeling the Spatial Context of War and Peace.”Political Analysis10 (3): 244–60.
66.
WernerSuzanne. 1999. “Choosing Demands Strategically.”Journal of Conflict Resolution43 (6): 705–26.
67.
WolfordScottReiterDanCarrubbaClifford J.. 2011. “Information, Commitment, and War.”Journal of Conflict Resolution55 (4): 556–79.
68.
ZengLangcheKingGary. 2001. “Improving Forecasts of State Failure.”World Politics53 (4): 623–58.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
