Dyadic Effects, Relevance, and the Empirical Assessment of the Kantian Peace

Dyadic effects to a large extent account for the difficulty of explaining and predicting international conflict. In this study, I derive a statistical model to estimate unobserved dyadic effects in the dyadic analysis of conflict. The proposed model employs a hierarchical modeling approach to estimate dyadic effects, thereby avoiding the problems caused by the use of fixed effects models. Furthermore, it simultaneously addresses the important sample selection issue of identifying relevant dyads. I show that the estimation of dyadic effects significantly improves the model fit and generates several interesting findings. Substantively, this study makes an important contribution to the empirical evaluation of the Kantian peace. It argues that international organizations increase the likelihood of conflict of interest between member states but reduce the probability of militarized conflict. I demonstrate that the positive coefficient of international organizations in Oneal and Russett (1999) is biased in the positive direction. When the proposed statistical model is used, international organizations, together with trade and democracy, reduce the probability of conflict.双边效应（dyadic effects）在很大程度上构成了国际冲突难以解释与预测的核心原因。本研究构建了一款统计模型，用于在冲突双边分析框架下估算未被观测到的双边效应。该模型采用层级建模方法估算双边效应，从而规避了固定效应模型（fixed effects models）应用时所引发的各类问题。此外，该模型同时解决了识别有效双边样本时存在的关键样本选择偏差问题。研究证实，双边效应的估算能够显著提升模型拟合度，并得到多项颇具学术价值的研究发现。从实质研究维度而言，本研究为康德和平假说（Kantian peace）的实证检验提供了重要贡献。研究提出，国际组织会提升成员国间利益冲突的发生概率，但会降低军事化冲突（militarized conflict）的爆发可能。本研究证实，Oneal与Russett（1999）中国际组织的正向系数存在正向偏误。当采用本文提出的统计模型时，国际组织与贸易、民主一道，能够降低冲突发生的概率。