A data set on state performance in inter-state wars. This data is useful for evaluating Valentino et al.'s (2010) "Bear Any Burden" analysis using more current data.
Format
A data frame with the following variables.
micnuma numeric for the confrontation code
ccodea numeric for the Correlates of War state code
stdatea character vector communicating participant start date. See details for more.
enddatea character vector communicating participant start date. See details for more.
mindura numeric vector communicating minimum duration in confrontation. See details for more.
maxdura numeric vector communicating minimum duration in confrontation. See details for more.
sideaa numeric vector communicating whether participant was on side that initiated confrontation
origa numeric vector communicating whether participant was in confrontation on day one
hiacta numeric vector communicating highest action during confrontation
fatalmina numeric vector for minimum estimated fatalities for participant
fatalmaxa numeric vector for maximum estimated fatalities for participant
oppfatalmina numeric vector for minimum estimated fatalities by participant against opponents
oppfatalmaxa numeric vector for maximum estimated fatalities by participant against opponents
milexan estimate of military expenditures (in thousands)
milperan estimate of the size of military personnel (in thousands) for the state
cincThe Composite Index of National Capability ("CINC") score
tpopan estimate of the total population size of the state (in thousands)
v2x_polyarchythe Varieties of Democracy "polyarchy" estimate
polity2the the
polity2score from the Polity projectxm_qudsestan extension of the Unified Democracy Scores (UDS) estimates, made possibly by the QuickUDS package from Xavier Marquez.
wbgdp2011esta numeric vector for the estimated natural log of GDP in 2011 USD (log-transformed)
wbpopesta numeric vector for the estimated population size (log-transformed)
wbgdppc2011esta numeric vector for the estimated GDP per capita (log-transformed)
Details
Start date and end date are in "MM/D(D)/YYYY" format. You can extract this
information into multiple columns with a separate function from the
tidyr package. This is mostly for convenience. Be mindful of two things:
First, dates are dates of first and last action, and not necessarily the
escalation to war, per se. Second, dates can be "missing". These are -9s, and
are commonplace when archival research can't pinpoint an exact day something
happened.
Observations select at the confrontation-level where maximum fatalities are greater than 1,000 and at the participant-level where (1) the participant engaged in at least an attack during this confrontation, (2) there are no instances where a participant dropped in/out on the same side of a multilateral confrontation or switched sides, and (3) the confrontation doesn't have an instance where a participant incurred fatalities while themselves not initiating a use of force. For illustration's sake, the Taiwan Straits Crises saw several appearances by the United States, but only one instance (for six days in Feb. 1953) where the U.S. engaged in an attack. World War II is a classic case of participants switching sides (France did so three times), but it also happened in the War of Latvian Independence as well (MIC#2604). The War of Attrition also saw the Russians reappear twice. Cases like these aren't included, mostly for convenience sake. In total, 41 cases with 1,000 maximum fatalities or more at the confrontation-level are excluded because of this. Of these 41 cases, World War II and the Vietnam War are the most conspicuous by their absence. Data come from version 1.01 of the Militarized Interstate Confrontation data.
Opponent fatalities are strictly dyadic and are derived from the Militarized Interstate Events data.
Capabilities, GDP, and democracy data come from peacesciencer for a forthcoming v. 1.2.0 release. See package for more information, though references are also included below. Variables are mostly lagged to the year prior to the participant observation year. However, there are several cases in the data that are born into war (see: India, Pakistan, North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam). In cases of missing data, information from the observation year is used.
The tpop and wbpopest columns are measuring the same thing but
are derived from two different data sets with two different data-generating
procedures. Use whichever one you like, but be mindful of what you're doing
and for what purpose you're doing it.
References
Anders, Therese, Christopher J. Fariss, and Jonathan N. Markowitz. 2020. "Bread Before Guns or Butter: Introducing Surplus Domestic Product (SDP)" International Studies Quarterly 64(2): 392–405.
Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, M. Steven Fish, Adam Glynn, Allen Hicken, Anna Luhrmann, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Agnes Cornell, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerlow, Valeriya Mechkova, Johannes von Romer, Aksel Sundtrom, Eitan Tzelgov, Luca Uberti, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2020. "V-Dem Codebook v10" Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.
Gibler, Douglas M., and Steven V. Miller. Forthcoming. “The Militarized Interstate Events (MIE) Dataset, 1816–2014.” Conflict Management and Peace Science.
Gibler, Douglas M., and Steven V. Miller. 2023. “The Militarized Interstate Confrontation Dataset, 1816-2014.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 68(2–3): 562–86
Marshall, Monty G., Ted Robert Gurr, and Keith Jaggers. 2017. "Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2017." Center for Systemic Peace.
Marquez, Xavier, "A Quick Method for Extending the Unified Democracy Scores" (March 23, 2016). doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2753830
Miller Steven V. 2022. “peacesciencer: An R Package for Quantitative Peace Science Research.” Conflict Management and Peace Science, 39(6), 755–779.
Pemstein, Daniel, Stephen Meserve, and James Melton. 2010. "Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type." Political Analysis 18(4): 426-449.
Singer, J. David, Stuart Bremer, and John Stuckey. (1972). "Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820-1965." in Bruce Russett (ed) Peace, War, and Numbers, Beverly Hills: Sage, 19-48.
Singer, J. David. 1987. "Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816-1985" International Interactions, 14: 115-32.
Valentino, Benjamin A., Paul K. Huth, and Sarah E. Croco. 2010. "Bear Any Burden? How Democracies Minimize the Costs of War." Journal of Politics 72(2): 528-544