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The Balance of Power: Analysis of Interstate Wars and Peaceful Resolutions of Conflict, 1000-2000 AD

Research Project

Project/Area Number 22K01533
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Section一般
Review Section Basic Section 07050:Public economics and labor economics-related
Research InstitutionThe University of Tokyo

Principal Investigator

Weese Eric  東京大学, 社会科学研究所, 准教授 (50777844)

Project Period (FY) 2022-04-01 – 2025-03-31
Project Status Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
Budget Amount *help
¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥520,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥120,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥520,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥120,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
KeywordsWar / National boundaries / Political economics / UN Security Council / United Nations / Elections / Boundary changes / Europe / Balance of power / Coalition formation / Dyadic regression
Outline of Research at the Start

This project aims to examine the determinants of war over the past 1000 years. We propose matching a new dataset of all European national boundary changes during 1000-2000 AD to existing data on wars. Why were some boundary changes accompanied by war, while others were peaceful? Do certain great power configurations tend to lead to military conflict? Our aim is to improve on the existing literature by explicitly comparing observed wars to cases where there was a peaceful transfer of territory, and by including coalition wars in our analysis.

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

This project consists of joint research with David Schonholzer at Stockholm University. Our major achievement this year is that we received a "revise & resubmit" request from the Review of Economic Studies for one of our papers from this project. The revisions requested appear feasible and we hope to complete them in the next few months.
Our other major achievement is that we have completed the data processing stage of our analysis of war and its relationship to boundary changes in Europe. A preliminary analysis has suggested that most boundary changes during this period were peaceful (about 80%). This is somewhat at odds with our intuition, which had been that boundary changes during this period were mostly associated with violent conflict.
One possibility is that the peaceful transfers are made mostly "in the shadow of conflict", where it is obvious which side would win a war and so there is a territorial transfer without a war ever being necessary. To analyze this we believe it is first important to determine the coalition structures of wars that actually occur. We observe at least 100 wars with more than 2 participants. We have attempted to analyze the determinants of which countries choose to ally with which other countries in these 3+ country wars, with the aim of eventually developing a simple model of how countries choose to go to war during this period. A difficulty here is that we have been as yet unable to identify particular characteristics of these alliances.

Current Status of Research Progress
Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

We have an R&R from a top 5 journal, which I consider to be acceptable progress.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

For the remainder of this grant we hope to produce an early draft of our analysis of the relationship between war and changes in political boundaries in Europe during the 1000-1850 period.

Report

(2 results)
  • 2023 Research-status Report
  • 2022 Research-status Report
  • Research Products

    (2 results)

All 2023

All Journal Article (2 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 1 results,  Peer Reviewed: 1 results,  Open Access: 1 results)

  • [Journal Article] UN Security Council Elections as an Incentive for Compliance2023

    • Author(s)
      Caro-Burnett Johann、Weese Eric
    • Journal Title

      Journal of Conflict Resolution

      Volume: 67 Issue: 10 Pages: 1959-1992

    • DOI

      10.1177/00220027231153575

    • Related Report
      2023 Research-status Report 2022 Research-status Report
    • Peer Reviewed / Int'l Joint Research
  • [Journal Article] European Political Boundaries as the Outcome of a Self-Organizing Process2023

    • Author(s)
      Eric Weese
    • Journal Title

      社会科学研究

      Volume: 74 Pages: 21-43

    • Related Report
      2022 Research-status Report
    • Open Access

URL: 

Published: 2022-04-19   Modified: 2024-12-25  

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