There exists no consensus as to what indicates state satisfaction with the systemic status quo even though it has been a widely used concept in the empirical literature on conflict. This is surprising because satisfaction is not a new concept in International Relations and has been accorded a central role in many theories of war. In this article, we present a measure of satisfaction based on the cost of money for sovereign borrowers and compare that measure to several leading indicators of satisfaction. We find little correlation among the existing indicators and similar variation in their ability to predict conflict. Overall, our results suggest that the cost of money may serve as a useful indicator of satisfaction as it: (1) best predicts behaviors consistent with satisfied (dissatisfied) states; (2) is least likely to obscure the impact of other common independent variables; and (3) can also be included with measures of dyadic preferences in multivariate models of conflict.

The main questions explored here are whether alliances lead to conflict between member states and non-member states and whether the capability of allies is a source of this effect. Building on the opportunity framework, this study argues that, with more confidence in military success due to support from allies, challenger states are more likely to be emboldened and to initiate disputes. The empirical analyses show that the capability of allies has an increasing effect on dispute initiation of member states against non-member states. This increasing effect becomes stronger as the level of common interests between the allies increases. The test results consistently suggest that alliances embolden member states to initiate disputes against non-member states, and also that alliances are more likely to aggravate, but not mute, dispute initiation against member states.

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