Correlates of War Analysis

Correlates of War (COW) analysis is the systematic, data-driven study of interstate and intrastate war pioneered by J. David Singer and Melvin Small. The COW project assembled standardized, transparently coded datasets on the membership of the state system, the wars it has fought, and the material capabilities, alliances, and disputes of its members since 1816. Singer, Bremer, and Stuckey's (1972) study of capability distribution and major-power war exemplifies the approach: combine these building blocks into state-year and dyad-year datasets and analyze, statistically, what conditions correlate with the onset of war.