Imperialism as a Level of Analysis in Correlates-of-War Research

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Abstract
It is argued that correlates-of-war research could benefit from paying more attention to imperialism. Imperialism can be thought of as a level of analysis co-equal to the individual, national, global, and other analytic levels. The imperial level of analysis has implications for concept formation, selection of explanatory variables, and the formulation of hypotheses in correlates-of-war research and has, therefore, important implications for the development of a theory of war and peace. The argument is buttressed by an empirical investigation which shows that imperial leader nations become more peaceful after they lose their imperial system. The empirical part of this investigation thus reinforces the contention that correlates-of-war research at the imperial level is meaningful and worthwhile.

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