Showing 1 – 2 of 2 results.
Curated
Improving Quantitative Studies of International Conflict: A Conjecture (ICPSR 1218)
Released/updated on: 2000-05-02
Geographic coverage: Global
In this article, the authors address a well-known but infrequently discussed problem in the quantitative study of international conflict: despite immense data collections, prestigious journals, and sophisticated analyses, empirical findings in the literature on international conflict are often unsatisfying. Many statistical results change from article to article and specification to specification. Accurate forecasts are nonexistent. The authors offer a conjecture about one source of this problem: the causes of conflict, theorized to be important but often found to be small or ephemeral in prior research, are indeed tiny for the vast majority of dyads, but they are large, stable, and replicable wherever the ex ante probability of conflict is large. The authors provide a direct test of their conjecture by formulating a statistical model that includes its critical features. The approach, a version of a "neural network" model, uncovers some structural features of international conflict and also functions as an evaluative measure by forecasting. Moreover, it is easy to evaluate whether the neural network model is a statistical improvement over the simpler models commonly used.
Curated
Statistical Model for Multiparty Electoral Data (ICPSR 1190)
Released/updated on: 1998-12-17
Geographic coverage: United States
In this collection, a comprehensive statistical model for analyzing multiparty, district-level elections is proposed. This model, which provides a tool for comparative politics research analogous to what regression provides in the American two-party context, can be used to explain or predict how geographic distributions of electoral results depend upon economic conditions, neighborhood ethnic compositions, campaign spending, and other features of the election campaign or aggregate areas. Also provided are new graphical representations for data exploration, model evaluation, and substantive interpretation. The authors illustrate the use of this model by attempting to resolve a controversy over the size of and trend in the electoral advantage of incumbency in Britain. Contrary to previous analyses, all based on measures now known to be biased, the research demonstrates that the advantage is small but meaningful, varies substantially across parties, and is not growing. Finally, the authors show how to estimate from which party each other party's advantage is predominantly drawn.