Replication data for: Domestic Strife and the Initiation of Violence at Home and Abroad

But the extensive empirical literature on the topic has generated mostly negative or mixed support for the diversionary war argument. We argue that the results have been unsupportive primarily because the literature has neglected to distinguish among different forms of domestic strife.

Not all conflict at home generates conflict abroad. Further, we argue, conflict at home can motivate domestic repression as well as foreign aggression: diversionary war must be seen as a special case of a larger theory of violence. We accordingly specify the particular form of domestic strife, the contestation of political institutions, most likely to spur leaders to violence.