The academic study of defense cooperation focuses heavily on formal military alliances. Yet, governments rarely sign new alliances, and the global alliance structure has remained relatively static for decades. By contrast, governments are increasingly active in defense cooperation agreements (DCAs). These bilateral framework treaties institutionalize their signatories’ day-to-day defense relations, facilitating such wide-ranging activities as defense policy coordination, joint research and development, weapons production and arms trade, joint military exercises, training and exchange programs, peacekeeping, and information exchange. Nearly 2,000 DCAs have been signed since 1980. Preliminary evidence suggests that DCAs impact numerous security, military, and defense outcomes and that governments increasingly incorporate DCAs as core elements of their security strategies. This article introduces the new DCA Dataset (DCAD). I provide a brief historical background on DCAs and compare them to other commonly studied forms of defense cooperation. I then explain coding standards and describe the data set in detail. Finally, I illustrate applications of DCAD to militarized interstate disputes and arms trade.
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