IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/joupea/v57y2020i2p221-234.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Statistical sightings of better angels: Analysing the distribution of battle-deaths in interstate conflict over time

Author

Listed:
  • Céline Cunen

    (Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo)

  • Nils Lid Hjort

    (Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo)

  • HÃ¥vard Mokleiv NygÃ¥rd

    (Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO))

Abstract

Have great wars become less violent over time, and is there something we might identify as the long peace ? We investigate statistical versions of such questions, by examining the number of battle-deaths in the Correlates of War dataset, with 95 interstate wars from 1816 to 2007. Previous research has found this series of wars to be stationary, with no apparent change over time. We develop a framework to find and assess a change-point in this battle-deaths series. Our change-point methodology takes into consideration the power law distribution of the data, models the full battle-deaths distribution, as opposed to focusing merely on the extreme tail, and evaluates the uncertainty in the estimation. Using this framework, we find evidence that the series has not been as stationary as past research has indicated. Our statistical sightings of better angels indicate that 1950 represents the most likely change-point in the battle-deaths series – the point in time where the battle-deaths distribution might have changed for the better.

Suggested Citation

  • Céline Cunen & Nils Lid Hjort & HÃ¥vard Mokleiv NygÃ¥rd, 2020. "Statistical sightings of better angels: Analysing the distribution of battle-deaths in interstate conflict over time," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(2), pages 221-234, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:57:y:2020:i:2:p:221-234
    DOI: 10.1177/0022343319896843
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343319896843
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022343319896843?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. Mark Harrison & Nikolaus Wolf, 2014. "The Frequency of Wars," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: THE ECONOMICS OF COERCION AND CONFLICT, chapter 5, pages 121-149, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Cederman, Lars-Erik & Warren, T. Camber & Sornette, Didier, 2011. "Testing Clausewitz: Nationalism, Mass Mobilization, and the Severity of War," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 605-638, October.
    3. Blackwell, Matthew, 2018. "Game Changers: Detecting Shifts in Overdispersed Count Data," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 230-239, April.
    4. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Steve Pickering, 2014. "Wars are becoming less frequent: a response to Harrison and Wolf," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(1), pages 214-230, February.
    5. Western, Bruce & Kleykamp, Meredith, 2004. "A Bayesian Change Point Model for Historical Time Series Analysis," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 354-374.
    6. Cirillo, Pasquale & Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, 2016. "On the statistical properties and tail risk of violent conflicts," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 452(C), pages 29-45.
    7. Maoz, Zeev & Russett, Bruce, 1993. "Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946–1986," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 624-638, September.
    8. Michael Spagat & Stijn van Weezel, 2018. "On the decline of war," Working Papers 201815, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    9. Spirling, Arthur, 2007. "Bayesian Approaches for Limited Dependent Variable Change Point Problems," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 387-405.
    10. Cederman, Lars-Erik, 2003. "Modeling the Size of Wars: From Billiard Balls to Sandpiles," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 135-150, February.
    11. Maoz, Zeev & Russett, Bruce, 1993. "Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946–1986," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 624-638, September.
    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. Céline Cunen & Nils Lid Hjort, 2022. "Combining information across diverse sources: The II‐CC‐FF paradigm," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 49(2), pages 625-656, June.

    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. William R. Thompson & Richard Tucker, 1997. "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(3), pages 462-477, June.
    2. Choong-Nam Kang, 2017. "Capability revisited: Ally’s capability and dispute initiation1," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(5), pages 546-571, September.
    3. William R. Thompson & Richard Tucker, 1997. "A Tale of Two Democratic Peace Critiques," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(3), pages 428-454, June.
    4. William Reed, 2003. "Information and Economic Interdependence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 47(1), pages 54-71, February.
    5. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Khalid Sekkat, 2016. "A time to throw stones, a time to reap: How long does it take for democratic transitions to improve institutional outcomes?," Working Papers CEB 16-016, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Vanessa Alexandra Boese & Matthew Charles Wilson, 2023. "Contestation and participation: Concepts, measurement, and inference," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 89-106, June.
    7. Mark Harrison & Nikolaus Wolf, 2014. "The frequency of wars: reply to Gleditsch and Pickering," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(1), pages 231-239, February.
    8. Walter Riker, 2009. "The Democratic Peace is Not Democratic: On Behalf of Rawls’ Decent Societies," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 57(3), pages 617-638, October.
    9. Sara McLaughlin & Scott Gates & HÃ¥vard Hegre & Ranveig Gissinger & Nils Petter Gleditsch, 1998. "Timing the Changes in Political Structures," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 42(2), pages 231-242, April.
    10. Sidartha Gordon & Alessandro Riboni, 2015. "Doubts and Dogmatism in Conflict Behaviour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(589), pages 1790-1817, December.
    11. Jo Jakobsen & Thomas Halvorsen, 2019. "Geographical and temporal patterns of interstate security competition: Global and regional evidence," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 226-246, September.
    12. David H. Clark & Patrick M. Regan, 2003. "Opportunities to Fight," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 47(1), pages 94-115, February.
    13. Brennen T. Fagan & Marina I. Knight & Niall J. MacKay & A. Jamie Wood, 2020. "Change point analysis of historical battle deaths," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(3), pages 909-933, June.
    14. Andrew P. Owsiak, 2019. "Foundations for integrating the democratic and territorial peace arguments," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(1), pages 63-87, January.
    15. Brian Lai, 2004. "The Effects of Different Types of Military Mobilization on the Outcome of International Crises," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(2), pages 211-229, April.
    16. Jamie Levin & Joseph MacKay & Anne Spencer Jamison & Abouzar Nasirzadeh & Anthony Sealey, 2021. "A test of the democratic peacekeeping hypothesis: Coups, democracy, and foreign military deployments," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 355-367, May.
    17. Nils Petter Gleditsch & HÃ…vard Hegre, 1997. "Peace and Democracy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(2), pages 283-310, April.
    18. Nam Kyu Kim, 2020. "Territorial disputes and individual willingness to fight," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(3), pages 406-421, May.
    19. Zeev Maoz, 2009. "The Effects of Strategic and Economic Interdependence on International Conflict Across Levels of Analysis," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 223-240, January.
    20. Alexandra Guisinger & Alastair Smith, 2002. "Honest Threats," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(2), pages 175-200, April.

    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:joupea:v:57:y:2020:i:2:p:221-234. 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://www.prio.no/ .

    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.