Project Proposal


Viewing Conflict Attributes from a World-Systems Perspective



CW Dillon

for Conflict Models, CSS739

Fall 2014

George Mason University

Getting More from War Data

  • Correlates of War (COW) data is some of the most comprehensive data about conflicts
    • curated, reviewed, validated
    • covers the period 1820-current
  • Analysis of COW data has been mostly via regression models

World-Systems Analysis

  • Quantitative approach to world history
  • Divides the international political economy worlds:
    • core ( $1{st}$ world)
    • semi-periphery ( $2{nd}$ world)
    • periphery ( $3{rd}$ world)
  • Often applied in conjunction with ``dependence theory'' to explain differing development rates around the world

World-Systems and Conflict

  • Dependence theory interprets world-systems analysis as evidence of global class struggles, ala Marx
    • core exploits the periphery
    • chains of economic development
  • Root cause of conflict is undefended wealth

Scholarship

  • Immanuel Wallerstein
    • First published on world-systems analysis in 1974
    • Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century
    • multi-cultural territorial division of labor
  • Frank & Gills
    • anthropoligists
    • widened concept to study development patterns back to Mesopotamia

Data

  • COW data easily had
  • COW Trade data is incomplete, several inconsistencies
  • No (current) world-system network data
    • Norbum 1900-1960
    • Text of Michael Haas 1968 World Hierarchies data
    • Gravity data for war-trade relationships (Ward, et al 2013)

World Trade Data

  • Cross-National Time Series Data Archive: CNTS (Banks 1968)
  • Maddison Historical Statistics (Maddison 2013)
  • Other incomplete sets:
    • World Trade Organization
    • Economics Web Institute

Project

  • Build on the structural interpretation of world-systems analyis
    • Haas
    • Russett
  • Review previous methods of analysing conflict
    • Richardson
    • Cioffi-Revilla
  • Expand the utility of COW
    • Spatial
    • Structural

Status

  • Still building annual networks 1870-2009
    • Chase-Dunn openness measure: ${imports} / {per capita GDP}$
    • Barbieri (COW) trade + Maddison per capita GDP
    • MPP imputation for Maddison data
  • Undecided on some metrics
    • UCINET/SNA core-periphery vs igraph ``coreness''
    • 3 x 3 (core, semi-per, periphery) vs 2 x 2