Documenting Energy Flows between States: The Global Energy Relations Dataset (GERD), 1978–2014

Being the most globally traded commodity in terms of monetary value, energy remains one of the important shapers of interstate relations. States’ quest to secure exports and imports of energy resources and the resultant efforts to govern energy flows have created numerous phenomena that have been of immediate interest to international relations (IR) scholars. However, few studies have so far aimed to systematically examine how energy relations shape global politics. One important reason for this paucity relates to the lack of a dataset with wide spatiotemporal coverage that allows for such systematic analysis. The Global Energy Relations Dataset (GERD), featured in this study, aims to facilitate systematic analyses of energy relations in IR. The dataset offers yearly energy flow data for all country-pairs around the globe between 1978 and 2014. The data are compiled from major international and national agencies that offer reliable data on energy trade. Standardized over megajoules, the data are offered in directed-dyadic (exporter-importer) and monadic (country-only) format. The data are further broken down by resource (i.e., coal, oil, gas, and electricity) whenever possible. Preliminary analyses indicate energy relations exhibit considerable variance among pairs of states and over time, and that trade in some energy resources may pacify relations more than others. Correlating this variance with canonical variables used in international relations points to promising areas of research.