Replication Data for: Unemployment, Central Bank Independence, and Diversionary Conflict

According to the diversionary use of force literature, unemployment as an indicator of poor economy should increase the likelihood of diversionary conflict. I argue, however, leaders do not engage in such conflict unconditionally simply when unemployment is rising. Whether worsening unemployment leads to diversionary conflict depends on the availability of policies that can alleviate the condition. Only when such policy availability is low, will diversionary conflict become more likely as unemployment deteriorates. When ameliorating policies are available, unemployment should reduce the likelihood of diversionary conflict. Focusing on central bank independence (CBI) as a primary mechanism that shapes the availability of policies that tackle unemployment, I expect that high CBI encourages the use of diversionary conflict as unemployment surges. An augmented zero-inflated negative binomial analysis of an updated militarized dispute dataset for the period 1975-2013 lends strong and robust support to this theoretical postulate. The causal mechanism is also empirically validated.