Collaborative Research: What Do Leaders Want?: Collecting and Coding Issue Positions and Demands in the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) Data, 1816-2010

本研究探讨了国际冲突研究中一个奇怪的悖论。 大多数理论解释国际冲突的分歧问题或跨问题的立场，但很少真正研究特定类型的问题导致国家的战斗。 这主要是由于缺乏关于各国争论的问题类型的良好数据。 这项工作将通过收集1816年至2010年期间参与军事化冲突的所有行为体的所有突出问题的数据来缓解这一问题。 对于每个争论中的问题，团队将在每个参与者的争议开始时对问题的状态进行编码，每个参与者对问题的初始立场，以及这些立场如何随着冲突的持续而变化。 这些数据将使决策者和学者能够更准确地概括国际冲突的原因和后果，研究最有可能导致冲突的具体问题，以及随着国家展示其战斗能力和意愿，问题立场如何演变。谈判模式为军事化冲突的发生和演变提供了理论路线图。然而，领土冲突学者通常将导致国家战斗的指标与国家为什么战斗的指标混为一谈。与此同时，讨价还价理论丰富的正式模型实际上无法测试，因为不存在适当的数据问题的立场。当前的军事化州际争端（MID）数据集只为我们提供了广泛的概括性衡量标准，没有其他数据集可用于记录战斗人员随着时间的推移和整个国际体系的问题立场。该项目通过建立在该团队以前收集和分析军事化国家间争端源数据的项目上来解决这个问题。该团队将收集、编码和分析1816年至2010年所有争议中的问题位置和问题位置变化数据。生成的相应数据集将提供关于争端各方最初要求的信息，并将记录这些要求在争端期间的演变情况。这些数据是谈判模型假设的核心，即国家对能力和决心的展示做出反应，对于那些认为领土威胁难以解决的人来说，具体问题很重要。这个广泛的编码项目还将为众多研究生和本科生研究人员提供第一手经验。

General AbstractThis research investigates a strange paradox that persists in the study of international conflict. Most theories explain international conflict in terms of differences over issues or across issue positions, but few actually examine the particular types of issues lead states to fight. This is due primarily to the lack of good data on the types of issues over which states contend. This work will alleviate this problem by collecting data on all salient issues for all actors involved in militarized conflicts from 1816 to 2010. For each issue in contention the team will code the status of the issue at the beginning of the dispute for each actor, each actor's initial position on the issue, and how those positions change as the conflict persists. The data will provide policymakers and scholars the ability to generalize about the causes and consequences of international conflict with a greater level of precision, examining the specific issues most likely to lead to conflict and how issue positions evolve as states demonstrate their capabilities and willingness to fight.Technical AbstractInternational conflict scholars know territorial issues are war-prone while bargaining models provide a theoretical roadmap to the onset and evolution of militarized conflict. However, territorial conflict scholarship routinely conflates indicators over what leads states fight with indicators of why states are fighting. Meanwhile, bargaining theory's rich formal models cannot actually be tested because the appropriate data on issue positions does not exist. The current Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID) dataset gives us only broad summary measures, and no other data set is available to document issue positions of combatants over time and across the international system. This project addresses this by building on the team's previous projects that gathered and analyzed source data on militarized interstate disputes. The team will collect, code, and analyze issue positions and issue position change data within all disputes from 1816 to 2010. The corresponding data set generate will provide information about initial demands from disputants and will chronicle the evolution of these demands over the duration of the dispute. These data are central for bargaining model assumptions that states respond to demonstrations of capabilities and resolve, and specific issues are important for those arguing threats to territory are difficult to settle. This extensive coding project will also provide firsthand experience for numerous graduate and undergraduate student researchers.