Lucrecia GarcÃa Iommi
ISA 2005Annual Conference
19
explanations, and the fifth includes all of them.
In order to avoid the problem of
underestimating the standard errors, connected with time-series cross sectional methods
with a database of country-year observations, I used the Prais-Winsten regression with
panel corrected standard errors, and the models work under the assumption of a first-order
autoregressive error process.
In measuring the alternative explanations, the relation between the variables strength of
Rivals/ Allies and BB comes as non-significant, and so does the GNP. On the other hand,
the results obtained are consistent with the primary hypothesis: Balancing behavior
decreases as the domestic political organization of the challenger becomes more similar to
that of the liberal hegemon.
All through the five models the domestic political alikeness retains its predictive power. In
model V, where all variables are included, we can see that a point increase in the ratio
between the liberal democratic organization of a potential challenger and the liberal
democratic organization of the US, is associated, causes, a 6.45% decrease in the balancing
behavior (as military expenditure) of the potential challengers. The highest value that the
coefficient for domestic political alikeness reaches is 6.9, in Model II (Allies strength
excluded), and the lowest is 4.6 in Model III (Interdependence excluded), where it also
decreases the level of significance of the coefficient to p = 0.15.
The coefficients for DA are negative as expected, and consistently significant across the
models. Moreover, they are much higher than those achieved by the alternative explanation
that appears to be significant. Indeed, the coefficients for the interdependence argument are
also significant, making it difficult to reject that alternative explanation. In model II (Allies
excluded), the level of interdependence is associated with a -.229% decrease in the
balancing behavior (as military expenditure) of the potential challengers. Also, in model V,