7 Network Centrality and International Conflict , 1816-2001 : Does it Pay to Be Important ?

The position of states in the international system has long been a topic of interest in the study of world politics. Previous studies investigating the relationship between status inconsistency and international conflict produced largely mixed results. We apply social network analysis to study the relationship between centrality, status inconsistency and conflict at the national, dyadic, and systemic level of analysis. We derive different indices of network centrality and status inconsistency using data on alliance, trade, IGO, religious, and linguistic networks. We find that centrality has some effect on national conflict involvement, but this relationship is not robust across centrality indices and network types. On the other hand, status inconsistency has a robust effect on dispute and war involvement at the national, dyadic, and systemic levels of analysis. We discuss the implications of these results.

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