Studies in measurement of the relations among sovereign states

Abstract

This article describes the application of three psychometric methods to the problem of measurement of the friendly or hostile relations among states of the world today. To secure judgments, schedules were sent to students of international affairs at several times during the last five years. The method of equal-appearing intervals was used to determine the relative probability of war for 88 pairs of states in January, 1937; the method of “triadic combinations” to determine relative friendliness among the Great Powers in November, 1938; and the method of “multidimensional” or group rank order to measure the attitudes of important states toward the Great Powers in March and April, 1939; June, 1940; and June, 1941. A chart of scale values for the pairs of Great Powers shows the changing trends since 1937. The last two methods were used to depict the Great Powers in multidimensional space according to their mutual friendliness, thus permitting the application of a type of factor analysis. The reliability of the methods employed was high, and various types of evidence support the general validity of the results.