What is Escalation? Measuring Crisis Dynamics in International Relations with Human and LLM Generated Event Data
Journal: arXiv (Cornell University)
Year: 2024

When a dangerous international crisis begins, leaders need to know whether their next move is going to resolve the dispute or amplify it out of control. Theories of conflict have mainly served to deepen the confusion, revealing fighting, bargaining, and signaling to be high-dimensional and subtle equilibrium behaviors with deeply contextual consequences. Should a leader communicate resolve through aggressive acts, avoid spirals through accommodation, or focus on ensuring the possibility of a bar