Location, Location, Location…Identifying Hot spots of International Conflict

Abstract This article introduces new variables summarizing the geographic location of Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) and “hot spots” of these locations for the years 1816 to 2001. Three exercises are detailed: (1) the specification and collection of geographic location data for each MID onset; (2) the generation of static map representations of these data; and (3) the application of spatial cluster analysis techniques to examine their geographic distribution. Initially, I address the protocol followed while carrying out the first two of these steps - offering thoughts on the coding procedures and examples of the mapped representations of the data. I then detail the techniques used to conduct spatial cluster analysis. The results of these analyses confirm the apparent evidence of the mapped presentations of the data, offering evidence in support of the a priori expectation that dispute onsets are clustered in space and time; revealing apparent “hot spots” of conflict across most regions of the world. I conclude with a discussion of potential applications of this new MID location dataset.