The Interwar Period International Trade in Arms: A New Dataset

Marius Mehrl and Paul W. Thurner

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2025, vol. 69, issue 2-3, 518-539

Abstract: International weapons transfers send military capabilities, make arms production economically feasible, and construct security relations. They influence buyers’ and sellers’ foreign policies, domestic politics, and military spending behavior. However, data availability has limited their study to the bipolar Cold War and unipolar post-Cold War periods. We thus introduce the Interwar Period International Trade in Arms (IPITA) data, covering dyadic transfers of small arms, light weapons, ammunition, explosives, and major conventional weapons in the years 1920–1939. The IPITA data will offer new avenues to study the drivers, dynamics, and consequences of arms transfers, both in past and future multipolar systems.

Keywords: arms trade; network data; historical data; military capabilities; international relations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00220027241228189 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:69:y:2025:i:2-3:p:518-539

DOI: 10.1177/00220027241228189

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().