The authors advance a general perspective on how to incorporate the notion of foreign policy substitutability in probabilistic models of international politics. They suggest that substitutability may be dealt with in one of two ways, namely, (1) through better specification or (2) through the...

Relevant dyads are pairs of contiguous states or pairs of states including at least one major power. They are argued to be the population of dyads at risk of international conflict and are increasingly commonly used as the cases analyzed by conflict researchers. Does reliance on relevant dyads...

Some scholars argue that once democracies enter wars, they fight more effectively than do their autocratic counterparts. Others suggest that democratic states may win wars because they choose their opponents carefully, predisposing themselves to victory. Both are plausible, and it is possible...

The pacifying effect of economic interdependence on conflict onset can be better understood in the context of "noisy" bargaining. Specifically, trading states bargain under less noisy conditions and, as a result, are unlikely to engage in militarized conflict. Noise is introduced into a generic...

This article attempts to answer the question of why major powers engage in more active foreign policy behaviors than minor powers. It does so by comparing two explanations for the increased conflict propensity of major powers. The first explanation focuses on major powers’ observable...