IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/compsc/v37y2020i2p232-256.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Introducing ν-CLEAR: a latent variable approach to measuring nuclear proficiency

Author

Listed:
  • Bradley C. Smith

    (Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University, USA)

  • William Spaniel

    (Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, USA)

Abstract

The causes and consequences of nuclear proficiency are central to important questions in international relations. At present, researchers tend to use observable characteristics as a proxy. However, aggregation is a problem: existing measures implicitly assume that each indicator is equally informative and that measurement error is not a concern. We overcome these issues by applying a statistical measurement model to directly estimate nuclear proficiency from observed indicators. The resulting estimates form a new dataset on nuclear proficiency which we call ν -CLEAR. We demonstrate that these estimates are consistent with known patterns of nuclear proficiency while also uncovering more nuance than existing measures. Additionally, we demonstrate how scholars can use these estimates to account for measurement error by revisiting existing results with our measure.

Suggested Citation

  • Bradley C. Smith & William Spaniel, 2020. "Introducing ν-CLEAR: a latent variable approach to measuring nuclear proficiency," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(2), pages 232-256, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:37:y:2020:i:2:p:232-256
    DOI: 10.1177/0738894217741619
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894217741619
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0738894217741619?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Fuhrmann, 2012. "Splitting Atoms: Why Do Countries Build Nuclear Power Plants?," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 29-57, January.
    2. William Spaniel, 2015. "Arms Negotiation, War Exhaustion, and the Credibility of Preventive War," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 832-856, October.
    3. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2013. "The 'Out of Africa' Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 1-46, February.
    4. Pemstein, Daniel & Meserve, Stephen A. & Melton, James, 2010. "Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 426-449.
    5. Shawn Treier & Simon Jackman, 2008. "Democracy as a Latent Variable," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 201-217, January.
    6. Bas, Muhammet A. & Coe, Andrew J., 2016. "A Dynamic Theory of Nuclear Proliferation and Preventive War," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(4), pages 655-685, October.
    7. Martin, Andrew D. & Quinn, Kevin M., 2002. "Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 134-153, April.
    8. Debs, Alexandre & Monteiro, Nuno P., 2014. "Known Unknowns: Power Shifts, Uncertainty, and War," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 1-31, January.
    9. Eleonora Mattiacci & Benjamin T. Jones, 2016. "(Nuclear) Change of Plans: What Explains Nuclear Reversals?," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 530-558, May.
    10. Schnakenberg, Keith E. & Fariss, Christopher J., 2014. "Dynamic Patterns of Human Rights Practices," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-31, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William Spaniel, 2022. "Scientific intelligence, nuclear assistance, and bargaining," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 447-469, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jule Krüger & Ragnhild Nordås, 2020. "A latent variable approach to measuring wartime sexual violence," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(6), pages 728-739, November.
    2. Christopher J Fariss & James Lo, 2020. "Innovations in concepts and measurement for the study of peace and conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(6), pages 669-678, November.
    3. Nuno Garoupa & Rok Spruk, 2024. "Measuring Political Institutions in the Long Run: A Latent Variable Analysis of Political Regimes, 1810–2018," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 867-914, July.
    4. Brett V. Benson & Joshua D. Clinton, 2016. "Assessing the Variation of Formal Military Alliances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 60(5), pages 866-898, August.
    5. Rok Spruk, 2019. "The rise and fall of Argentina," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-40, December.
    6. Scott J. LaCombe, 2021. "Measuring Institutional Design in U.S. States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1511-1533, July.
    7. Paola Annoni & Nicholas Charron, 2019. "Measurement Assessment in Cross-Country Comparative Analysis: Rasch Modelling on a Measure of Institutional Quality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 31-60, January.
    8. F. Swen Kuh & Grace S. Chiu & Anton H. Westveld, 2019. "Modeling National Latent Socioeconomic Health and Examination of Policy Effects via Causal Inference," Papers 1911.00512, arXiv.org.
    9. Pavel S. Pronin, 2020. "International Trade And Democracy: How Trade Partners Affect Regime Change And Persistence," HSE Working papers WP BRP 75/PS/2020, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    10. Lerner, Joshua Y. & McCubbins, Mathew D. & Renberg, Kristen M., 2021. "The efficacy of measuring judicial ideal points: The mis-analogy of IRTs," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    11. Marzagão, Thiago, 2017. "Automated Democracy Scores," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 37(1), May.
    12. Heiko Giebler & Saskia P. Ruth & Dag Tanneberg, 2018. "Why Choice Matters: Revisiting and Comparing Measures of Democracy," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(1), pages 1-10.
    13. Zhanna Terechshenko, 2020. "Hot under the collar: A latent measure of interstate hostility," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(6), pages 764-776, November.
    14. Mario Quaranta, 2018. "The Meaning of Democracy to Citizens Across European Countries and the Factors Involved," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 859-880, April.
    15. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2022. "Should we care (more) about data aggregation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    16. Swen Kuh & Grace S. Chiu & Anton H. Westveld, 2020. "Latent Causal Socioeconomic Health Index," Papers 2009.12217, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    17. Matthew Fuhrmann & Benjamin Tkach, 2015. "Almost nuclear: Introducing the Nuclear Latency dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(4), pages 443-461, September.
    18. Vanessa A Boese, 2019. "How (not) to measure democracy," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 95-127, June.
    19. William Spaniel, 2022. "Scientific intelligence, nuclear assistance, and bargaining," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 447-469, July.
    20. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2016. "Democracy and growth: Evidence from a machine learning indicator," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 85-107.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:37:y:2020:i:2:p:232-256. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.