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Con>ict Emergence and Escalation in Interactive Con>ict Emergence and Escalation in Interactive
International Dyads International Dyads
David Todd Kinsella
Portland State University
Bruce M. Russett
Yale University
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David Todd Kinsella and Bruce M. Russett. Con>ict emergence and escalation in interactive international
dyads. Journal of Politics, 64 (4), November 2002, 1045-1068.
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Conflict Emergence and Escalation
in Interactive International Dyads
David Kinsella
Portland State University
Bruce Russett
Yale University
We examine whether the conditions affecting initial expressions of hostility are similar to those
affecting militarized disputes. Analyzing dyadic interactions during the years 1951–1992, we esti-
mate a model to take into account selection effects and check it against another allowing conjunc-
tive causation. Both provide close approximations to theoretical models of the conflict process and
yield similar results. We confirm Kant’s belief that all states are subject to the realist conditions of
interstate competition that makes disputes likely, but that liberal influences, if present, can con-
strain the escalation of such disputes to war. Several influences on the conflict process have non-
monotonic effects over the range of state behavior. Geopolitical factors affect the opportunity for
conflict more at lower levels of the conflict process, when less information is available regarding
acceptable settlements and actors’ resolve, than at higher levels. Factors affecting willingness gain
importance as the conflict process unfolds because they facilitate the flow of information relevant
to the ongoing dispute. The proposition that democracy and interdependence encourage diplomatic
conflicts as signals of resolve is not supported.
Although militarized conflict between states is rare, diplomatic and other
forms of low-level interstate conflict are not rare, and they have the potential to
escalate to more violent forms of dispute. Consequently, scholars and policy
makers have a great interest in the tools of conflict management and early
warning. It may be that the knowledge we have accumulated about the effects
of liberal political and economic processes, as well as geopolitical factors, on
war and other forms of militarized dispute also holds at the less violent end of
the conflict spectrum. But maybe not. This is important to know, for although
efforts to manage and resolve conflict should be undertaken at all stages of the
conflict process, it is probably the case that the chances of success are im-
We thank the Ford Foundation and the Weatherhead Initiative on Military Conflict as a Public
Health Problem for financial support, and Bear Braumoeller, Paul Huth, John Oneal, Alastair Smith,
Allan Stam, Harvey Starr, and James Vreeland for comments and suggestions. An earlier version
was presented at the Conference on the Political Economy of International Conflict, Yale Univer-
sity, March 23–24, 2001. Our data are available at ^http:00www.yale.edu0unsy0democ0democ1.htm&.
JOPO 062701arfc
THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, Vol+ 64, No+ 4, November 2002, Pp+ 1045–1068
© 2002 Southern Political Science Association
proved when efforts are initiated earlier rather than later. If so, we should focus
on factors that are likely to have maximal impact at that particular phase of an
evolving dispute.
Formal theories of interstate conflict—crises, militarized disputes, all-out war—
conceptualize such events in terms of moves and countermoves and thus at-
tempt to model stages of the conflict process. Bringing our empirical models
closer into line with these formal models for purposes of testing hypotheses
stands as a significant challenge for future conflict research, in terms of both
data collection and analysis. We take one step in this direction by considering
the range of conflictual interstate behavior and examine whether in the context
of a single empirical model, the conditions affecting initial expressions of hos-
tility are similar to those affecting militarized disputes (MIDs), which are not
only more serious but also represent subsequent stages in the conflict process.
Most research undertaken to explain the occurrence of international conflict
has employed additive models to assess the impact of various factors, and it
usually has assumed that the relationships between conflictual behavior and its
correlates are monotonic. Often, however, alternative statistical models can pro-
vide a closer approximation to theory.
The literature suggests a readily identifiable set of influences on inter-
national conflict, influences that might be exercised at multiple points in the
conflict process. There is reason to expect a particular pattern in the relative
weightiness of these influences, with some factors being more important in
earlier stages of an unfolding process and others more important at later stages.
We go on to show that our conceptualization of these different types of influ-
ences is borne out by the empirical evidence. Our analysis takes up a variety of
related issues: the role of low-level conflict and signaling in rational models of
bargaining, especially as they relate to the liberal peace hypothesis; problems
of selection bias; the theoretical and methodological implications of differenti-
ating politically relevant dyads from others; and contingent causation and the
distinction between the opportunity and the willingness to initiate disputes.
Signaling and Selection
In the past decade, the systematic analysis of international conflict has fo-
cused on characteristics of the relations between pairs of nation-states (dyads).
The theoretical literature increasingly has incorporated the notion that conflict
unfolds in stages. This is a natural outgrowth of using sequential strategic choice
models to formalize the logic of crisis interaction and to frame quantitative
empirical testing. A key premise is that fully informed states can generally
resolve their disputes before resorting to force (Fearon 1995). If a settlement
acceptable to both sides is knowable, rational leaders will prefer to reach these
settlements through nonviolent forms of interaction rather than pay the costs of
war to arrive at the same outcome. War and other costly contests can be ex-
plained by states’ lack of information. Each side’s degree of commitment or
1046 David Kinsella and Bruce Russett
resolve in achieving an acceptable outcome matters for arriving at a negotiated
settlement prior to war, but it is private information. States can convey this
information through their actions, but they often have incentives to misrepre-
sent their resolve so as to achieve more favorable settlements.
Information asymmetries can be overcome only if actions intended to convey
private information are credible. Costly actions send credible signals because
only states that are committed to a particular outcome are willing to communi-
cate their resolve in a way that imposes extra costs on them, either now or in
the future. This insight further clarifies some causal mechanisms behind the
“democratic peace.” Diplomatic protests and sanctions, even those falling short
of an explicit or discernible threat to use force, may send signals that a state
will at some point be prepared to use military force to protect its interests.
Such signals may be more believable when sent by democratic states because
elected governments pay steeper domestic “audience costs” when their bluffs
are called by foreign opponents ( Fearon 1994a, Smith 1998a). But the signals
might be less credible if directed against other democracies since the domestic
audience may perceive the use of force against another democracy as a sign of
an incompetent foreign policy (Mintz and Geva 1993). Democracies thus make
fewer idle threats, so the conflictual diplomatic behavior they do engage in
contains credible information about their resolve. A domestic political opposi-
tion can enhance the credibility of such signals when opposition parties echo
the foreign policy commitments of the party in power. Even a silent (but not
suppressed) domestic opposition is conducive to effective signaling since dem-
ocratic governance is transparent and potential foreign opponents assume that
any disunity of purpose will be reflected in a democracy’s domestic political
discourse (Schultz 1998, 1999).
The ability of democratic states to signal resolve should reduce the likeli-
hood that they will become involved in militarized disputes, especially with
other democracies.
1
Their actions tend to reveal private information upon which
peaceful bargains can be struck. Yet the implications for their involvement in
less severe forms of conflict are less clear. A signaling logic suggests that au-
dience costs should dissuade democratic states from engaging in behavior that
misrepresents privately held information and also that the transparency of dem-
ocratic institutions should allow foreign opponents to perceive their resolve
correctly (Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman 1992; Starr 1992), but it says little
about how often democracies or other regime types engage in signaling behav-
ior. One reasonable extension of the argument is that because democracies are
likely to experience fewer challenges to their signals of resolve, they have less
need to reiterate their resolve by sending additional costly signals. Other things
1
Schultz’s argument about the transparency of democratic institutions and the increased likeli-
hood of peaceful outcomes is a monadic claim, but he does say that “we can surmise that . . . the
probability of war [in a democratic dyad] would be lower than in an interaction involving one
democracy or none” (Schultz 1998, 840; also see Schultz 2002).
Conflict Emergence and Escalation 1047
being equal, that implies a lower likelihood of involvement in all forms of
conflictual behavior, for which there is some empirical evidence (e.g., Leeds
and Davis 1999).
There are other views, however. Democratic states treat the inherent credibil-
ity of their signals as an asset to be exploited in their international dealings. If
experience has shown their leaders that diplomatic and other nonmilitary chal-
lenges bring payoffs without a high risk of escalation to violence, they may
actually have more incentive than other regime types to act at the lower end of
the conflict spectrum (Morrow 2000). Because democratic dyads often are eco-
nomically interdependent, their more numerous commercial linkages may also
provide more opportunities to signal resolve below the threshold of the threat
or use of force. Compared to other dyads, then, democratic and interdependent
dyads may well experience more lower level diplomatic and economic disputes
(Gartzke and Jo 2001; Gartzke, Li, and Boehmer 2001).
2
This leads to two
empirical questions: what is the net effect of these divergent tendencies, and
are they manifest to varying degrees at different points along the conflict con-
tinuum (which often correspond to different stages in a sequential conflict
process)?
Since many of the insights on signaling come from the literature on crisis
interaction (e.g., Bueno de Mesquita, Morrow, and Zorick 1997; Morrow 1989),
it may not be surprising that expectations are clearer at the more violent end of
the spectrum. Thus, when at least one state in an interacting dyad is demo-
cratic, the credibility of signals should help to diffuse the conflict process be-
fore it reaches the level of use of force and, very possibly, before the display or
even the threat of force.
3
The latter is the threshold for a MID, so the signaling
logic comports well with the robust empirical finding that jointly democratic
dyads experience fewer MID initiations and the common if less robust finding
that democratic states experience fewer violent disputes with nondemocratic
states (Rummel 1995; Russett and Oneal 2001, chap. 3). It is at lower levels of
conflict that predictions become competing or murky due to the countervailing
tendencies just discussed and the fact that little in the signaling literature pro-
vides more specific hypotheses about diplomatic, economic, and other forms
of nonmilitarized conflict behavior.
If low-level signalling of resolve or interest affects the likelihood of escala-
tion, one must consider how selection effects potentially undermine inferences
about war and peace (Smith 1998b; see also King 1989, chap. 9). If the func-
tioning of democratic institutions increases the probability that democratic dy-
2
Gartzke and Jo (2001) actually distinguish two variants of the signaling argument. “Cheap
talk” signaling—which should really be labeled “credible talk” signaling—refers to the ability of
democracies to communicate resolve using very low-level (i.e., verbal) conflictual behavior. There-
fore, they predict that although democracies will engage more frequently in very low-level con-
flict, they will become involved in fewer conflicts involving more than verbal exchanges.
3
Eyerman and Hart (1996), using the SHERFACS scale that begins with a dispute phase preced-
ing the conflict phase (a threat to use force, but not yet actual use), appear to support this.
1048 David Kinsella and Bruce Russett
