This project test theories of international cooperation and reciprocity, drawn from neoliberal institutionalism, against the major cases of regional conflict in the post-Cold War era. Neoliberal theories emerged in the subfield of international political economy, therefore their extension to international security affairs is an important test. Yet such efforts in the past focused primarily on Cold War great power relations, while today the international security subfield has taken a much greater interest in questions of regional conflicts and great-power management of such conflicts. This investigation tests whether neoliberal theories of cooperation apply to the behaviors and outcomes found in contemporary regional conflicts. Time series statistical methods are used to test hypotheses about patterns of response among the various actors in regional conflicts (including great powers). Such theoretical constructs as reciprocity, bullying, and triangular response translate into statistical tests on time series representing the fluctuating levels of cooperation/conflict among the different actors. These time series are constructed by machine-coding the Reuters World Service to create events data for each regional conflict. Analysis of the first conflict - - Bosnia - - has already been completed by the investigator. The data construction methods produced time series of cooperation-conflict levels that appear to capture the main phases and events in the war; and the statistical analysis found several significant hypothesized relationships including bilateral reciprocity and triangular `bullying.` This investigation should enhance our understanding of the topic and create a useful dataset for other scholars.
