Getting to the Root of the Issue(s): Expanding the Study of Issues in MIDs (the MID-Issue Dataset, Version 1.0)

Abstract

Because existing issue classification schemes omit prominent issues (e.g., domestic armed conflict) or contain significant within-category heterogeneity, theorizing about the role of issues in international conflict processes has stagnated. Our project jump-starts it again, by independently—and systematically—reconceptualizing and gathering data on five issues connected to dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) during the period 1900–2010: land (borders), maritime (borders), islands, civil conflict, and coups. After conceptually introducing these issues and embedding them within a larger framework, we describe and apply our MID-Issue data. These efforts show that (i) the MID dataset’s issue classification scheme does not systematically capture our issues, (ii) events in 37.58% of dyadic MIDs connect to domestic armed conflict—a prevalence not on the field’s radar, (iii) some factors promote issue-based international conflict, but only via indirect channels, and (iv) significant value even derives from a further conceptualization of “territorial issues” (broadly defined).