A Partial Model of National Political-Economic Systems: Evaluation By Causal Inference

Abstract

This paper applies a combination of factor analysis and causal inference techniques to refine a partial model of national political systems and international behavior. The model, which is a revision and extension of one used as 'background assumptions' in an Inter-Nation Simulation at Northwestern University (1960), contains such variables as international trade and agreements (both military and economic), national economic and military capabilities, and several political system variables such as the probability of revolution; an earlier version of this model is reported in the Journal of Peace Research, No. 3, 1969. Data for the study are circa 1955-1957, cover 64 nations, and were obtained from the Dimensionality of Nations Project file (now at the University of Hawaii), to which the author contributed. Some twenty- four interlocking causal assumptions are settled upon as sufficient explanation for the matrix of correlations generated by the data.

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References

Blalock, Hubert M., Jr. : Causal Inferences in Nonexperimental Research (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1961).

Chadwick, Richard W. : 'An Empirical Test of Five Assumptions in an Inter-Nation Simulation ', General Systems Yearbook, Vol. XII (1967).

Chadwick, Richard W. : 'An Inductive, Empirical Analysis of Intra- and International Behavior, Aimed at a Partial Extension of Inter-Nation Simulation Theory', Journal of Peace Research, 3 (1969 ).

Guetzkow, Harold : 'Structured Programs and Their Relation to Free Activity within the Inter-Nation Simulation', in Guetzkow, Alger, Brody, Noel, and Snyder, Simulation in International Relations: Developments for Research and Teaching (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963), pp. 103-49.