Foreign policy substitutability and internal economic problems in enduringrivalries

The authors advance a general perspective on how to incorporate the notion of foreign policy substitutability in probabilistic models of international politics. They suggest that substitutability may be dealt with in one of t wo ways, namely, (1) through better specification or (2) through the use of multinomial legit analysis techniques. Their solution is applied to the su bstantive problem of how internal economic conditions affect the behavior o f states in enduring rivalries. States in rivalries might react to worsenin g economic problems by either (1) escalating conflict within the rivalry to gain the benefits of a diversionary conflict or (2) seeking to settle the rivalry to free up resources that can be directed toward dealing with econo mic problems. The possibility that seemingly contradictory policies may be undertaken requires the use of a model for analysis that takes into account substitutability. The authors perform empirical analysis to determine how economic conditions may simultaneously affect the probabilities of dispute initiation and rivalry termination.