Measuring the Correlates of War

United in the conviction that effective theoretical inquiry in international relations requires the establishment of valid and reliable indicators, and the comprehensive data sets that derive from them, participants in the COW Project have developed and analyzed research methods of use to scholars in all areas of the social sciences.This collection of essays details the achievements of the COW Project in data generation and the construction of indicators for such elusive but key concepts as power, polarity, and war. The volume begins with an overview of the principles of data generation and measurement in the social sciences. Contributors discuss methodological difficulties and offer evaluation and comparison of key measures in relation to national attributes, systemic attributes, alliances among nations, and militarized disputes.Measuring the Correlates of War presents a broad and clear analysis of the efforts to improve the methodologies of conflict analysis and points the way for the evolution and direction of further research.