Evaluating Conflict Research on the Diffusion of War

Abstract

In reviewing empirical studies on the causes of war, scholars claim to find evidence of progress. Most reviewers, however, do not present a set of explicitly defined criteria and when they do, their criteria are oftentimes ambiguous and vague. The objective of this study is to provide a set of criteria that are clearly defined and then to apply them in a systematic and objective way to one area of conflict studies: the diffusion of war. To do this, I draw upon criteria taken from the works of Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos and Laudan and re-evaluate the progressiveness of empirical studies addressing war diffusion. The criteria I apply include generality, simplicity, precision, predicting novel information, anticipating results and solving both empirical and conceptual problems. My analysis indicates that there is little evidence of progress on most of these criteria. I suggest that perhaps one reason for declining interest in this area is due to the failure of scholars to view the war diffusion research program as progressive. I also argue that social scientists be more explicit and clear in identifying their evaluative criteria so that their resulting evaluations are more objective and rigorous.

Issue indivisibility and territorial claims*

“…4. There is a large literature that finds a positive empirical relationship between contiguity and militarized conflict (see Most et al, 1989;Simowitz, 1998;Starr and Siverson, 1998;and Vasquez, 1995). 5.…”

Explaining Variance; Or, Stuck in a Moment We Can't Get Out Of

“…See Simowitz (1998) for a thorough summary and assessment of this literature. More elaborate models are necessary for multivariate count data, such as vote counts; Katz and King (1999), Jackson (2002), and Tomz, Tucker, and Wittenberg (2002) introduce vote-count models that permit overdispersion, and Mebane and Sekhon (2004) offer a robust estimator, the hyperbolic tangent estimator, that provides accurate parameter estimates even in the face of very substantial over-or underdispersion.…”

The ConflictSpace of Cataclysm: The International System and the Spread of War 1914-1917

“…Scholarly work on conflict diffusion has concentrated on two different foci: documenting the diffusion phenomenon and seeking to explain “when, where, why, and how” wars spread (Simowitz 1998). Nonetheless, diffusion has not been as prominent a research topic in international conflict research over the last two decades as it had been in earlier periods.…”