Political Science 379
Problems in International Relations:
Conducting Empirical Research in International Relations
Spring 2005
Assignment 7. Due: Friday, April 15th.
In Blainey, chapter 8 (The Abacus of Power) he argues that after decisive wars,
an "orderly ladder of power" ermged among the European majors powers. In this
exercise,you will explore a related question.
You will examine whether after wars involving major powers against one another,
an orderly ladder of power is created among all major powers.
To do this assignment, you will need capability scores for all the major
powers. These are available in this Excel spreadsheet.
If you would like more information on these data, go to
The Correlates of War Project
website. You will also need to know the dates of major power wars. The
following is a list of wars (and their start and end years) that involved at
least one major power on each side:
| War |
Years |
| Crimean |
1853-1956 |
| Italian Unification |
1859-1859 |
| Seven Weeks |
1866-1866 |
| Franco-Prussian |
1870-1871 |
| Russo-Japanese |
1904-1905 |
| World War I |
1914-1918 |
| Changkufeng |
1938-1938 |
| Nomonhan |
1939-1939 |
| World War II |
1939-1945 |
| Korean |
1950-1953 |
If you look at the table, you will see that in several cases, wars occur very
close together in time. This makes it difficult (or impossible) to look
at the impact of separate wars. As with many of the problems we encounter in
conducting research, there is no clearly "best" solution. In this assignment,
adopt the following rule: if wars occur three years apart or less (if one war
ends and another begins within three years), treat the wars as a single war.
What to Do
- Using the "three year rule" discussed above, determine the years in
which major power wars took place.
- For each of the two years prior to the start of a war, calculate the
standard deviation of the major power capability scores.
- Take the average of these two standard deviations. This is your pre-war
standard deviation.
- For each of the two years after the end of a war, calculate the
standard deviation of the major power capability scores.
- Take the average of these two standard deviations. This is your post-war
standard deviation.
- Compare the pre-war and post-war standard deviations. You must make a
decision as to whether the post-war standard deviation is significantly
larger than the pre-war standard deviation.
What to Turn In.
Turn in the following information. This is probably easiest if you use some
kind of a table, with each row of the table having the following entries:
- The name of the war (or wars if you group them).
- The years of the war(s).
- The standard deviations for each of the two years before the war(s).
- The average of these two standard deviations.
- The standard deviations for each of the two years after the war(s).
- The average of these two standard deviations.
- Your judgment as to whether the the post-war standard deviation is
significantly larger that the pre-war standard deviation.
Extra Credit
Like all the assignments in the course, this one takes a simple approach to
examining the hypothesis. If you were doing this in a paper, you would have
to add a number of additional elements to your analysis. For those of you who
want a bit of an extra challenge (for extra credit), try this:
One possible complication is that the standard deviation of the major power
capability scores was increasing anyway. Consequently, it would have been larger
in the post-war years even if there had been no war. Devise a way to examine
this possibility, and indicate whether this changes you conclusion about the
change between the pre-war and post-war standard deviations.
This extra credit (if you receive all the points) is worth an additional 50
percent on your assignment grade.
Honor Code. The assignment is pledged. Do not consult with anyone in the
class about it.