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Strategic Interaction and the Statistical Analysis of International Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Curtis S. Signorino
Curtis S. Signorino*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Abstract

Although strategic interaction is at the heart of most international relations theory, it has largely been missing from much empirical analysis in the field. Typical applications of logit and probit to theories of international conflict generally do not capture the structure of the strategic interdependence implied by those theories. I demonstrate how to derive statistical discrete choice models of international conflict that directly incorporate the theorized strategic interaction. I show this for a simple crisis interaction model and then use Monte Carlo analysis to show that logit provides estimates with incorrect substantive interpretations as well as fitted values that can be far from the true values. Finally, I reanalyze a well-known game-theoretic model of war, Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman's (1992) international interaction game. My results indicate that there is at best modest empirical support for their model.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 93 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 279 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1999

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