Crescenzi, Mark J.C. 2007 (forthcoming). "Reputation and Interstate Conflict (Of Friends and Foes)." American Journal of Political Science..
In international politics, states learn from the behavior of other nations, including the reputations states form through their actions in the international system. I develop a model of how states process this information and examine how this learning affects international conflict. The model builds off of cognitive balance theory and foreign policy learning models, and breaks new ground in its ability to provide a contextual assessment of reputation in world politics. I then investigate whether a dyad is more likely to experience conflict if at least one of the states has a reputation for hostility. This hypothesis is tested empirically across all dyads in the international system from 1817-2000. The results indicate that states do engage in this learning behavior, and that the information generated by extra-dyadic interaction of states has a significant bearing upon the likelihood of dyadic conflict.
Crescenzi, Mark, Jacob Kathman and Stephen Long 2007 (forthcoming). "Reputation, History and War." Journal of Peace Research..
This article investigates the role of direct and reputational information in the onset of interstate war. Scholars have recently identified the importance of separating the phenomenon of conflict from the rare event of war. Building on earlier work concerning the role of reputation and history in the onset of militarized interstate, this article argues that states in crises face competing pressures brought on by their history of interactions with their opponents and their opponents' reputations generated through interactions with other states. While historical conflict reveals private information regarding the credibility of state demands, this history also generates constraints upon the ability of governments to seek peaceful resolutions to the current crisis. An empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that both a direct history of conflict within the dyad as well as reputational histories for conflict increase the likelihood of war onset. These results hold for a sample including all dyads 1817--2000 and a sample including political relevant dyads in the same period. The results also suggest that contiguous states are more likely to go to war with each other, as are pairs of major powers, while democracies and pairs of minor powers are less likely to go to war with each other. These results support previous findings on the influence of these factors on the likelihood of war onset.
Crescenzi, Mark J.C. 2005. "Economic Interdependence and Conflict in World Politics." Lexington Books. 65(3).
This book addresses two questions regarding the presence and character of the relationship between international economic interdependence and political conflict. First, what is the role of the market and adaptation in economic interdependence? Second, does interdependence constrain or motivate interstate conflict, and if so, how? Economic interdependence is a function of exit costs, defined by market structure and asset specificity. Using this conceptualization, a strategic model of when and how interdependence influences the occurrence of interstate conflict is developed and examined empirically.
The market imposes structure on political and economic interaction between states. The potential costs states face in the event of exit by economic partners characterize economic interdependence. In turn, these exit costs are a function of the fungibility of the economic relationship. This fungibility delimits the range of economic behavior available to states and influences their pursuit of political and economic gains. A strategic model of economic exit in political bargaining addresses the second question of the existence and character of the relationship between interdependence and conflict. This model examines a bargaining process in which, using the threat of economic exit as leverage, one state seeks to extract demands from another. The analysis of the model suggests that when exit costs exceed an endurance threshold for at least one state, the threat of exit becomes a viable but limited bargaining tool. Exit costs which exceed this cost threshold will result in an increase in low-level conflict as states use economic and diplomatic tools to resolve demands; they also result in a decrease in high-level conflict as states take advantage of more efficient means of dispute resolution.
A multi-method approach provides an empirical examination of the exit model and its predictions. Case histories involving the U.S. and South Africa, China and the U.S., and Great Britain and Argentina illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the exit model as an analytical tool. A more systematic investigation of the model and its predictions regarding how interdependence influences conflict follows using large-n statistical methods. The results provide support for the fundamental predictions of the model.
Crescenzi, Mark J.C. 2003. "Economic Exit, Interdependence, and Conflict: An Empirical Analysis." The Journal of Politics. 65(3).
Article (.pdf, 34 pages, 179 KB)
This article examines the question of whether economic interdependence constrains or motivates interstate conflict. The theoretical model predicts when and how interdependence influences conflict, using exit costs to separate economic interdependence from less binding economic interaction. Analysis of the model suggests that when exit costs exceed an endurance threshold for at least one state, the threat of exit becomes a viable but limited bargaining tool. Exceeding this threshold increases low-level conflict as states use economic and diplomatic tools to resolve demands; but it decreases high-level conflict because states take advantage of more efficient means of dispute resolution. If the stakes are too high, however, exit costs fail to check conflict and the economic relationship becomes an ineffective bargaining arena. Empirical analysis provides support for the hypotheses derived from the model.
Kadera, Kelly M., Mark J.C. Crescenzi, and Megan L. Shannon. 2003. "Democratic Survival, Peace and War in the International System." American Journal of Political Science. 47(2).
Article (.pdf, 22 pages, 128 KB) | Data (.zip, 155 KB) | Mathematica Simulation File (.txt, 661 KB)
Post World War II western foreign policies are often based on the claim that the spread of democracy will result in global peace. Our understanding of how this propagation can bring about peace is limited, and we have little reason to believe that the causal arrow points only in one direction. We tackle these issues by modeling the linkages between states' regime types, interstate conflict, and the strength of the democratic community relative to the autocratic community. Analysis of our model suggests initial increases in the strength of the democratic community increase the level of conflict in a system. Beyond a threshold of democratic strength, however, conflict wanes as the democratic community waxes. Our model also suggests that the survival rate of democracies increases as the material strength of the democratic community increases, and decreases as systemic conflict rises. Empirical analyses offer support for the survival propositions.
Crescenzi, Mark J.C. 2003."Interdependence, and Conflict: When Does Symmetry Matter?" Conflict Management and Peace Science. 20(1).
Article (.pdf, 30 pages, 179 KB)
This article introduces an alternative to the study of economic interdependence and interstate conflict. Typically, scholars have relied upon relative levels of economic activity to characterize symmetry in interdependence. Instead, I argue that the key to understanding the role of symmetry in interdependence and conflict lies in the relationship between a state's exit (opportunity) costs and the costs it is willing to bear in the face of political conflict with another state. Asymmetry with respect to two states' exit costs/threshold relationships can generate bargaining power that constrains the use of force. This approach improves our understanding of the complex relationship between interdependence and conflict. It also suggests that current measurements of economic interdependence may fail to identify situations where interdependence plays a role in conflict.
Crescenzi, Mark J.C. and Andrew J. Enterline. 2001. "Time Remembered: A Dynamic Model of Interstate Interaction." International Studies Quarterly. 45(3).
Article (.pdf, 47 pages, 120KB) | Data (.zip, 2.3 MB) | Customizable STATA .do file and base data (v.1.1) (.zip, 3MB)
Over time, states form relationships. These relationships, mosaics of past interactions, provide political leaders with information about how states are likely to behave in the future. Although intuitive, this claim holds important implications for the manner in which we construct and evaluate empirically our expectations about interstate behavior. Empirical analyses of interstate relations implicitly assume that the units of analysis are independent. Theories of interstate interaction are often cast in the absence of historical context. In the following article we construct a dynamic model of interstate interaction that we believe will assist scholars in empirical and theoretical studies by incorporating a substantively interpretable historical component into their models of interstate relations. Our conceptual model includes both conflictual and cooperative components, and exhibits the basic properties of growth and decay that characterize dyadic relationships. In an empirical exposition, we derive a continuous measure of interstate conflict from the conflictual component of the model. We rely on Oneal and Russett's (1997) analysis of dyadic conflict for the period 1950-85 as a benchmark, and examine whether the inclusion of our measure of interstate conflict significantly improves our ability to predict militarized conflict. We find empirical support for this hypothesis, indicating that our continuous measure of interstate conflict significantly augments a well-known statistical model of dyadic militarized conflict. Our findings reinforce the assertion that historical processes in interstate relationships represent substantively important elements in models of interstate behavior rather than econometric nuisances.
Crescenzi, Mark J.C. 1999. "Violence and Uncertainty in Transitions." Journal of Conflict Resolution. 43(2).
Article (.pdf, 22 pages, 2 MB)
This article develops a model of the strategic interaction between a regime and its domestic opposition. The author builds on the themes developed by O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) and the formalization developed by Przeworski (1991) by exploring formally the strategic nature of the decision to pursue a transition. Specifically, the model incorporates the notion of uncertainty in the sense that the opposition does not know whether hard or soft-liners control the regime. Liberalization then becomes a signal to the opposition, which may or may not convey meaningful information about the regime's type. An important result of the analysis is that in a scenario in which the opposition seeks a transition but wishes to avoid violence, conflict between the opposition and the regime can still occur. The model also provides an explanation for the occurrence of pacted transitions (negotiated transitions without violence) as well as why some transition opportunities do not materialize even when conditions are ripe for a peaceful transition. In addition, the model explains why and under what circumstances regimes liberalize. Empirical analysis of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and pre-transition Brazil during the late 1970s lends support to the model.
Crescenzi, Mark J.C. and Andrew J. Enterline. 1999. "Ripples from the Waves?: A Systemic, Time-series Analysis of the Impact of Regime Changes on Interstate Conflict, 1816-1992." Journal of Peace Research. 36(1).
Article (.pdf, 21 pages, 3.2 MB) | Data (.zip, 6KB) | Appendices (.zip, 92 KB)
Few puzzles in international relations research have received as much attention as the relationship between political regimes and interstate conflict. Here we examine a particular aspect of this puzzle: systemic relationships between democracy, democratization, and interstate conflict. We test hypotheses aimed at exploring three dimensions of this general inquiry: First, that democracy, democratization, and war are endogenous phenomena. Second, that the relationships between these three processes vary across time with respect to their strength and direction. Lastly, that these relationships also vary spatially, and here we pay particular attention to geographic regions. Using time-series techniques with data for the period 1816-1992, we employ Granger causality and vector auto-regression (VAR) techniques to test our hypotheses. Briefly, we find evidence confirming the endogeneity of these processes, though this endogeneity is not as extensive as we anticipated and is conditional on the spatial and temporal sample that we select. Perhaps more importantly, we find evidence suggesting that the statistical strength and sign of the relationships of interest exhibit considerable spatial and temporal heterogeneity. We conclude that the regional-level, rather than the global-level, holds more promise for understanding the interrelationships between systemic democracy, democratization, and interstate conflict.
Diehl, Paul F. and Mark J.C. Crescenzi. 1998. "Reconfiguring the Arms Race-War Debate." Journal of Peace Research. 35(1).
Article (.pdf, 9 pages, 1005 KB)
A recent article by Susan Sample purports to resolve a debate that has generated a great deal of scholarly attention over the past two decades, whether arms races are associated with the escalation of militarized disputes to war. In response, we outline a research agenda designed to reconfigure the arms race-war debate rather than perpetuate the controversy. We argue for better theoretical specification of the arms race-war relationship, and for empirical tests to sort out whether this relationship is direct, indirect, or spurious. We also advocate some methodological changes including more longitudinal studies, a broader spatial domain to include minor powers, less reliance on military expenditure data, and multivariate rather than bivariate tests of the arms race-war relationship.