Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T11:31:57.902Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Counting the Seven Weeks War: Dyads, Disputes and Balances of Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2005

William Moul
William Moul
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Abstract. The usual quantitative study of inter-state war and peace tallies observations on hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dyads or pairs of states. These observations miss elementary features of inter-state relations that should be examined when testing Realist explanations of war and peace. The way in which three prominent studies (Bremer, 1992; Bueno de Mesquita, 1981; 1985) chose to count the Seven Weeks War dramatically reveals the theoretical difficulties when tallying dyads. Re-analyses of these studies demonstrate the sensitivity of the results to particulars of 1866 Germany and, more importantly, illustrate the merits of analyzing the dispute rather than the state dyad or the state-dyad year.

Résumé. L'étude quantitative des périodes de guerre et de paix entre États comptabilise des observations relatives à des centaines, parfois des milliers de dyades ou paires d'États. Ces observations ne prennent pas en compte certaines caractéristiques élémentaires des relations entre États qui devraient pourtant être examinées lorsque l'on teste les théories réalistes expliquant guerre et paix. La manière dont trois études reconnues (Bremer, 1992; Bueno de Mesquita, 1981; 1985) ont choisi de comptabiliser la guerre des Sept Semaines révèle de manière éclatante les difficultés théoriques dans la comptabilisation des dyades d'états. De nouvelles analyses de ces études ont démontré la sensibilité des résultats aux caractéristiques de l'Allemagne de 1866, mais soulignent surtout les mérites de l'analyse des disputes par rapport à l'analyse des dyades d'États ou des dyades d'États annuelles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 153 - 174
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beck, Nathaniel, Jonathan N. Katz and Richard Tucker. 1998. “Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable.” American Journal of Political Science 42: 1260–1288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, Gary King and Langche Zeng. 2000. “Improving Quantitative Studies of International Conflict: A Conjecture.” American Political Science Review 94: 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, D. Scott and Allan C. Stam. 2000a. “EUGene: A Conceptual Manual.” International Interactions 26: 179–204.Google Scholar
Bennett, D. Scott and Allan C. Stam. 2000b. “Research Design and Estimator Choices in the Analysis of Interstate Dyads: When Decisions Matter.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44: 653–685.Google Scholar
Bled, Jean-Paul. 1992. Franz Joseph. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bremer, Stuart A. 1992. “Dangerous Dyads: Conditions Affecting the Likelihood of Interstate War, 1816–1965.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36: 309–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce. 1981. The War Trap. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce. 1985. “The War Trap Revisited.” American Political Science Review 79: 156–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce. 1990. “Pride of Place: The Origins of German Hegemony.” World Politics 43: 28–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, David Newman and Alvin Rabushka. 1985. Forecasting Political Events: The Future of Hong Kong. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce and David Lalman. 1992. Reason and War. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce and Frans N. Stokman, eds. 1994. European Decision Making: Models, Applications, and Comparison. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Carr, William. 1991. The Origins of the Wars of German Unification. London: Longman.
Clausewitz, Carl von. [1832] 1968. On War, ed. Anatol Rapoport and trans. J. J. Graham. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Crescenzi, M.J.C. and A.J. Enterline. 2001. “Time Remembered: A Dynamic Model of Interstate Interaction.” International Studies Quarterly 45: 409–431.Google Scholar
Diehl, Paul F. 1998. The Dynamics of Enduring Rivalries. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Dixon, William J. 1998. “Dyads, Disputes and the Democratic Peace.” In The Political Economy of War and Peace, ed. Murray Wolfson. Boston: Kluwer Academic Press.
Galton, Francis. 1889. In Discussion following Edward B. Tylor, “On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions; Applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 18: 270.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Nils Petter and Havard Hegre. 1997. “Peace and Democracy: Three Levels of Analysis.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 41: 283–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Donald P., Soo Yeon Kim and David H. Yoon. 2001. “Dirty Pool.” International Organization 55: 441–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, Patrick. 2002. International Relations and Scientific Progress: Structural Realism Reconsidered. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Jones, Daniel M., Stuart A. Bremer and J. David Singer. 1996. “Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, Coding Rules and Empirical Patters.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 15: 163–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kegley, Charles W. Jr. and Richard A. Skinner. 1976. “The Case-for-Analysis Problem.” In In Search of Global Patterns, ed. James N. Rosenau. New York: The Free Press.
King, Gary. 2001. “Proper Nouns and Methodological Propriety: Pooling Dyads in International Relations Data.” International Organization 55: 497–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Sheldon. 1993. “Some Thoughts in Basic Concepts and Future Directions in the Study of Inter-Group Conflict.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 13: 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCullagh, P. and J.A. Nelder. 1989. Generalized Linear Models. 2nd ed. London: Chapman and Hall.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1967. Politics Among Nations. 4th ed. New York: Knopf.
Moul, William B. 1973. “The Level of Analysis Problem Revisited.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 6: 494–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moul, William B. 1988. “Balances of Power and the Escalation to War of Serious Disputes among the European Great Powers, 1815–1939: Some Evidence.” American Journal of Political Science 32: 241–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moul, William B. 2002. “Dangerous Balances 1816–1989: A Simple Theory with Longitudinal Evidence.” Review of International Studies 28: 657–676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moul, William B. 2003. “Power Parity, Preponderance and Great Power versus Great Power War, 1816–1989.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 47: 468–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, James Lee. 2000. “Democracy: On the Level(s), Does Democracy Correlate with Peace.” In What Do We Know about War?, ed. John A. Vasquez. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Ray, James Lee and Yijia Wang. 1998. “Integrating Levels of Analysis in World Politics: Increased Utility or Exercise in Futility?” Paper prepared for annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.
Ray, James Lee. 1990. “Friends as Foes: International Conflict and Wars between Formal Allies.” In Prisoners of War: Nation-States in the Modern Era, ed. Charles S. Gochman and Alan Ned Sabrosky. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.
Signorino, Curtis S. 1999. “Strategic Interaction and Statistical Analysis of International Conflict.” American Political Science Review 93: 279–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Small, Melvin and J. David Singer. 1969. “Formal Alliances, 1816–1965: An Extension of the Basic Data.” Journal of Peace Research 3: 257–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Small, Melvin and J. David Singer. 1982. Resort To Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816–1980. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Thompson, William R. 2001. “Identifying Rivals and Rivalries in World Politics.” International Studies Quarterly 45: 557–586.Google Scholar
Wawro, Geoffrey. 1996. The Austro-Prussian War: Austria's War with Prussia and Italy in 1866. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.