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Expected Utility Model of War×Militarized Interstate Dispute Analysis×
FieldInternational RelationsInternational Relations
FamilyMCDMProcess / pipeline
Year of origin19811996
OriginatorBruce Bueno de MesquitaDaniel Jones, Stuart Bremer & J. David Singer (Correlates of War project)
TypeFormal rational-choice model of conflict initiationCoding and statistical analysis of interstate militarized confrontations
Seminal sourceBueno de Mesquita, B. (1981). The War Trap. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. link ↗Jones, D. M., Bremer, S. A., & Singer, J. D. (1996). Militarized interstate disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, coding rules, and empirical patterns. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 15(2), 163–213. DOI ↗
AliasesExpected Utility Theory of War, The War Trap Model, Rational Choice Model of War Initiation, Expected-Utility Conflict ModelMID Analysis, Militarized Dispute Coding, Correlates of War Dispute Analysis, Dyadic Conflict Onset Analysis
Related33
SummaryThe expected utility model of war, introduced by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita in The War Trap (1981), treats the decision to initiate international conflict as a rational gamble. A leader is modeled as comparing the utility of the outcome they could win against the utility of the outcome they could lose, each weighted by the probability of winning or losing, and is predicted to challenge another state only when this expected utility is positive. It was among the first attempts to derive testable predictions about war initiation from explicit assumptions of rational, utility-maximizing decision making.Militarized interstate dispute (MID) analysis is the coding and quantitative study of confrontations in which one state threatens, displays, or uses military force against another. Built on the Correlates of War project's MID dataset and the coding rules codified by Jones, Bremer, and Singer (1996), it provides the standard observational measure of interstate conflict short of and including war, structured as dyad-years so that the onset, escalation, and outcomes of disputes can be modeled statistically across two centuries of the international system.
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ScholarGateCompare methods: Expected Utility Model of War · Militarized Interstate Dispute Analysis. Retrieved 2026-06-24 from https://scholargate.app/en/compare