The Spatial Diffusion of War: The Case of World War I

Conventional treatments of war diffusion focus extensively on dyadic relationships, whose impact is thought to be immutable over the course of the conflict. This study indicates that such conceptions are at best incomplete, and more likely misleading to explain the spatial diffusion of wars. Using social network analysis, we examine war joining behavior during World War I. By employing social network analysis, we attempted to overcome the dichotomous understanding of geography as space and network in the discipline of conflict studies. Empirically, networked structural elements of state relationships (e.g., rivalry, alliances) have explanatory and predictive value that must be included alongside dyadic considerations in analyzing war joining behavior. In addition, our analysis demonstrates that the diffusion of conflict involves different driving forces over time.