IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v28y1984i1p51-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Outbreaks of War Follow a Poisson-Process?

Author

Listed:
  • H. W. Houweling
  • J. B. Kuné

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

Richardson's finding that the distribution of war outbreaks in time conforms to the Poisson distribution has been repeated over and over again. In this article, we argue that the close correspondence between the two distributions does not imply that the mechanism generating the data is the Poisson process. Because the time sequence is broken down in Richardson's analysis, his finding does not imply that war outbreaks follow a distinct pattern in time. The Parzen test on arrival times revealed that war outbreaks are not generated by a Poisson random process.

Suggested Citation

  • H. W. Houweling & J. B. Kuné, 1984. "Do Outbreaks of War Follow a Poisson-Process?," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(1), pages 51-61, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:28:y:1984:i:1:p:51-61
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002784028001003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002784028001003
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002784028001003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McGowan, Patrick J. & Rood, Robert M., 1975. "Alliance Behavior in Balance of Power Systems: Applying a Poisson Model to Nineteenth-Century Europe," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 859-870, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael W. Simon & Erik Gartzke, 1996. "Political System Similarity And The Choice of Allies," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 40(4), pages 617-635, December.
    2. Harvey Starr, 1991. "Democratic Dominoes," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(2), pages 356-381, June.
    3. Henry S. Farber & Joanne Gowa, 1995. "Common Interests or Common Polities? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace," NBER Working Papers 5005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. G. D. Hess, 1995. "An Introduction To Lewis Fry Richardson and His Mathematical Theory of War and Peace," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 14(1), pages 77-113, February.
    5. Richard J. Stoll, 1984. "Bloc Concentration and the Balance of Power," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(1), pages 25-50, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:28:y:1984:i:1:p:51-61. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.