Force and ambiguity: evaluating sources for cross-national research – the case of military interventions

Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín and Andrea González Peña

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper discusses the analytical problems associated with the increasing use of numerical databases in quantitative cross-national research. The authors highlight the need for a better understanding of the way these databases are constructed and their inherent ambiguities and they examine the existing critical literature. The paper makes a case study of data on military interventions and analyses the problems of classification that the authors identified in several well-known databases. The paper concludes that more attention should be given to modelling uncertainty rather than attempting to achieve clear-cut precision.

JEL-codes: C1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2009-06
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:28494

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