| 1. Domain | 1.1 Scope of the Domain | Boundaries | The range of phenomena the science includes and excludes. | Studies how states, international organizations, non-state actors, and transnational networks interact in a global system. Includes war and peace, diplomacy, alliances, deterrence, international law, trade, globalization, cooperation problems, security dilemmas, balance-of-power dynamics, multilateral governance, and systemic change. Excludes purely domestic politics unless it shapes foreign behavior; excludes individual psychology except as embedded in leadership or bargaining models. |
| | Scale | The spatial, temporal, or organizational level at which the science operates (e.g., quantum, cellular, social, cosmic). | Operates at global, regional, and interstate scales, over time horizons ranging from crises (days/weeks) to long-term systemic shifts (decades/centuries). Captures interactions across continents, institutions, and transnational systems. |
| 1.2 Ontological Commitments | Entities | The kinds of things assumed to exist within the domain (particles, organisms, agents, fields, etc.). | States; governments; militaries; international organizations (UN, WTO, IMF); alliances; non-state actors (NGOs, MNCs, insurgents); norms; treaties; capabilities; interests; international regimes; global markets; territory; borders; security commitments. |
| | Properties | The fundamental attributes these entities possess (mass, charge, genotype, preference, etc.). | Sovereignty; power (material, soft, institutional); credibility; commitment; interdependence; polarity; regime strength; compliance; deterrence capability; vulnerability; legitimacy; risk tolerance; strategic uncertainty; economic openness. |
| | Categories | The basic ontological types used to classify domain elements (substances, processes, relations, structures). | System types (unipolar, bipolar, multipolar); conflict types (interstate war, civil war with external intervention, proxy conflict); cooperation types (treaties, alliances, institutions); actor types (great powers, middle powers, small states, non-state actors); regime types (trade, security, human rights, environment); interaction structures (anarchic, hierarchical, networked). |
| 1.3 State-Variables | Variables | The measurable or definable properties that describe system conditions. | Military capabilities; economic size; alliance ties; trade flows; regime-compliance scores; diplomatic activity; threat/insecurity levels; sanctions intensity; power-projection capacity; international reputation; territory disputes; escalation thresholds; institutional membership. |
| | Parameterization | How variables encode and represent the system’s state. | Encoded via military expenditure, troop deployment numbers, GDP/trade data, alliance treaties, sanctions lists, institutional rules, voting patterns in IOs, reputational metrics, conflict-history variables, geopolitical distance, and regime-compliance indicators. |
| 1.4 Admissible Idealizations | Simplifications | Conceptual reductions used to make the domain tractable (point masses, rational agents, perfect gases). | States as unitary rational actors; perfect information; symmetric capability measures; static preferences; leadership stability; clear alliance commitments; frictionless trade; absence of domestic political constraints; deterministic deterrence; uniform compliance with treaties; zero transaction costs in diplomacy. |
| | Validity Conditions | The limits and contexts in which idealizations hold or break down. | Break down when domestic politics shapes foreign policy; informational asymmetry; misperceptions; alliance ambiguity; state fragmentation; non-state actors exerting major influence; economic shocks; leadership changes; hidden capabilities; hybrid warfare; contested sovereignty. |
| 1.5 Domain Assumptions | Structural Assumptions | Background ontological stances such as determinism, continuity, randomness, discreteness. | The international system is anarchic (no overarching authority); states pursue survival and interests; power shapes outcomes; institutions structure cooperation; credibility matters in deterrence and bargaining; systemic constraints influence state behavior; global governance emerges from negotiated rules and norms. |
| | Implicit Commitments | Unstated but necessary assumptions that shape the field’s conceptual structure. | Assumes states exist as coherent actors; assumes international norms carry some binding force; assumes power can be meaningfully measured; assumes geopolitical regions have stable identities; assumes patterns of conflict and cooperation are generalizable; assumes institutions influence behavior despite anarchy. |
| 1.6 Internal Coherence Requirements | Consistency | The demand that domain concepts do not contradict one another. | Theory must align with systemic constraints (anarchy, distribution of capabilities); state-behavior models must not contradict institutional rules; cooperation models must satisfy incentive compatibility; alliance models must align with deterrence logic; systemic predictions must fit polarity structure; norms must align with observed compliance. |
| | Compatibility | The requirement that entities, variables, and assumptions fit together into a unified descriptive framework. | Requires coherence among realism, institutionalism, constructivism, and other IR frameworks when synthesizing them; must integrate with economic globalization, security studies, legal frameworks, and transnational governance structures without contradiction. |
| 2. Evidence Layer | 2.1 Observable Phenomena | Observables | The aspects of the domain that can produce detectable signals accessible to measurement. | Military mobilizations; treaty formation; alliance behavior; conflict onset and escalation; sanctions implementation; trade flows; IO voting patterns; diplomatic visits and statements; arms transfers; border disputes; cyber operations; humanitarian interventions; peacekeeping deployments; compliance or defection from international agreements. |
| | Detection Limits | The boundaries of what can be resolved or sensed by current instruments or methods. | Covert military activity; secret diplomacy; intelligence asymmetry; hidden capabilities; incomplete reporting from authoritarian states; unobserved cyber operations; informal norms not recorded; clandestine financial flows; misreported conflict casualties; behind-the-scenes alliance bargaining; private leadership preferences. |
| 2.2 Measurement Systems | Units | Standardized quantifications (meters, seconds, volts, decibels, dollars, etc.) necessary for consistent comparison. | Military expenditure (USD); troop numbers; GDP/trade volumes; sanctions severity indices; conflict intensity scores; alliance-depth metrics; IO voting similarity indexes; territorial-dispute severity; power-distribution metrics; reputation scores; diplomatic frequency counts. |
| | Instruments | Devices and tools (microscopes, spectrometers, sensors, surveys, detectors) used to produce measurements. | Defense and trade databases (SIPRI, WTO, IMF, WB); conflict datasets (COW, UCDP); UN voting records; sanctions databases; intelligence and satellite monitoring; diplomatic archives; international treaty repositories; open-source intelligence platforms; cyber-threat reporting systems. |
| 2.3 Operational Definitions | Definitions | Terms defined by specific measurement procedures, ensuring empirical clarity. | War defined via battle-death thresholds; alliances defined via formal treaty commitments; sanctions defined by legal and economic restrictions; compliance defined by fulfillment of treaty obligations; power defined by material or composite indices; polarity defined by distribution of capabilities; regime defined by institutional and normative rule sets. |
| | Procedures | The explicit steps required to perform a measurement in a reproducible way. | Coding conflict events; tracking treaty ratification; recording sanctions announcements; quantifying military expenditures; aggregating trade statistics; computing alliance networks; coding escalation levels; mapping diplomatic interactions; applying reputation or trust models; evaluating compliance reports. |
| 2.4 Data Acquisition | Protocols | Formal processes for gathering data under controlled or standardized conditions. | Annual or quarterly economic/defense reporting; standardized international surveys; automated conflict-event scraping; satellite-imagery verification; treaty and IO-record archival updates; diplomatic-cable releases; cross-national harmonization of indicators; coding protocols for political-events datasets. |
| | Sampling | Rules determining which subset of the domain is measured and how representative it is. | Sampling countries across regime types; sampling conflict zones; sampling bilateral dyads for interactions; sampling regions for geopolitical clusters; sampling IO votes; sampling sanctions episodes; sampling border disputes; sampling treaty participation across time. |
| 2.5 Data Character & Format | Data Types | The form raw evidence takes (time series, spectra, images, counts, qualitative records). | Time-series data (military, economic, diplomatic); cross-sectional country datasets; event logs; network matrices (alliances, trade, IO voting); spatial conflict maps; treaty text corpora; sanctions episodes; escalation timelines; cyber incident reports; satellite-derived indicators. |
| | Resolution | The granularity or precision with which data is captured. | Determined by reporting frequency, transparency of states, quality of conflict monitoring, precision of satellite imagery, granularity of IO votes, availability of real-time cyber data, reliability of national statistical systems, and temporal resolution of crisis reporting. |
| 2.6 Reliability & Calibration | Calibration | Adjustment procedures ensuring instruments produce accurate results. | Cross-validating conflict reports across datasets; reconciling military-expenditure data with satellite observations; validating sanctions effects with trade or financial records; triangulating treaty compliance using multiple monitors; calibrating power indices across measures; comparing IO-voting records with diplomatic statements; adjusting for misreporting or bias in authoritarian data. |
| | Error Characterization | Identification and quantification of noise, uncertainty, bias, and measurement error. | Missing data; deliberate misreporting; covert operations; coding inconsistencies; measurement error in conflict intensity; ambiguous classification of cyber attacks; incomplete sanctions enforcement data; errors in alliance coding; political bias in official statistics; uncertainty around true capabilities or intentions. |
| 3. Structural Layer | 3.1 Patterns & Regularities | Laws / Relations | Stable, repeatable patterns governing how observables behave across conditions. | Balance-of-power formation; security dilemma escalation; deterrence stability conditions; alliance formation under threat; democratic peace patterns; trade interdependence → reduced conflict; hegemonic stability cycles; power transitions driving systemic conflict; sanctions effectiveness scaling with multilateral participation; norm diffusion following network-like adoption curves. |
| | Invariants | Quantities or properties that remain constant under transformations (symmetries, conservation laws). | Sovereignty norms; territorial integrity as baseline expectation; alliance obligations; polarity structure; core institutional rules (UN Charter, WTO); nuclear deterrence logic; persistent capability advantages of major powers; invariant geostrategic chokepoints; recurring patterns of rivalry and cooperation. |
| 3.2 Causal Architecture | Mechanisms | Underlying processes or structures that produce the observed regularities. | Threat perception → arms buildup → counterbalancing; credible commitments → stable alliances; reputational mechanisms shaping escalation decisions; institutional rules reducing transaction costs; economic interdependence raising opportunity costs of conflict; norm internalization constraining state behavior; information asymmetry producing miscalculation; power projection shaping regional order; hegemonic decline enabling challenger aggression. |
| | Pathways | Organized sequences of interactions forming a causal chain or network. | Crisis → signaling → bargaining → escalation/de-escalation; Power shift → fear/uncertainty → arms buildup → alliance reformation; Trade dependence → vulnerability perceptions → policy adjustment; Norm emergence → diffusion through IOs → domestic adoption → stabilized behavior; Sanction regime → economic pressure → concession or resistance; Institutional rule → dispute resolution → compliance or contestation. |
| 3.3 Theoretical Vocabulary | Concepts | Core terms that encode the domain’s structure (force, gene, equilibrium, field). | Sovereignty, anarchy, power, polarity, alliances, deterrence, credibility, signaling, escalation, interdependence, institutions, norms, regimes, hegemony, soft power, balance of power, collective security, international law, governance architecture, great-power competition. |
| | Classifications | Taxonomies, categories, or typologies that organize entities and relations. | System types: unipolar, bipolar, multipolar; Conflict forms: interstate war, proxy war, limited conflict, hybrid war; Cooperation forms: alliances, treaties, IOs, regimes; Actor types: great powers, middle powers, small states, non-state actors; Mechanism classes: coercive, cooperative, economic, institutional, normative; Power types: hard, soft, sharp, institutional. |
| 3.4 Formal Representations | Equations | Mathematical constructs expressing laws, relations, or mechanisms. | Deterrence payoff models; power-transition equations; alliance game matrices; crisis bargaining models (Fearon-type signaling equations); gravity trade equations; institutional compliance probability models; arms-race differential equations; reputation-update functions under repeated interactions; network diffusion equations for norms. |
| | Models | Structured representations—mathematical, computational, or conceptual—used to predict and explain phenomena. | Balance-of-power models; rational-crisis bargaining models; alliance-formation graphs; hegemonic-cycle models; deterrence/stability diagrams; trade–conflict interdependence models; networked-institutional-governance maps; escalation ladders; sanction-effect models. |
| 3.5 Idealized Structures | Simplified Models | Purposeful abstractions that capture essential dynamics while omitting irrelevant detail. | States as unitary rational actors; perfect information; stable preferences; clear red lines; symmetric capabilities; fully credible commitments; frictionless bargaining; deterministic alliance cohesion; equal institutional compliance; no domestic constraints on foreign policy. |
| | Limit Conditions | Regimes where specific models or approximations hold (classical vs. quantum, linear vs. nonlinear). | Break down under misperception, domestic fragmentation, populist swings, covert operations, clandestine alliances, cyber asymmetry, limited rationality, sudden leadership change, opaque capabilities, norm contestation, high uncertainty crises, multiparty conflicts, and nonlinear escalation dynamics. |
| 3.6 Integrative Frameworks | Unifying Theories | Higher-order structures that connect disparate laws or mechanisms under a coherent whole. | Realism unifying power and security; liberal institutionalism unifying interdependence and cooperation; constructivism unifying norms, identity, and legitimacy; English School unifying society-of-states logic; bargaining theory unifying conflict and cooperation; global governance theory integrating IOs, regimes, and transnational networks; long-cycle theory linking systemic change and hegemonic rise/decline. |
| | Interdisciplinary Links | Points where the theory connects to adjacent sciences or larger explanatory systems. | Economics (trade interdependence, sanctions); psychology (misperception, cognitive biases); sociology (norm formation, identity); law (treaty regimes, international courts); geography (territoriality, chokepoints); history (empire cycles, alliances); complexity science (systemic risk, cascades). |
| 4. Method Layer | 4.1 Inquiry Design | Experimental Design | Structured plans for manipulating variables to test causal claims. | Simulating crisis bargaining scenarios; varying information asymmetry in experimental games; altering alliance commitments in lab environments; testing deterrence dynamics via controlled payoff structures; running sanction-effectiveness experiments; using vignettes to study elite decision-making; experimentally manipulating framing of international threats to measure public/opinion response. |
| | Observational Design | Systematic approaches for gathering non-manipulated data (surveys, field studies, natural experiments). | Observing diplomatic behavior, conflict escalation, treaty formation, and alliance dynamics in real-world settings; using natural experiments (e.g., sudden leadership changes, unexpected treaty dissolutions, commodity price shocks); analyzing real-world crises; tracking military mobilizations and sanctions in real time; studying long-run systemic transitions through historical datasets. |
| 4.2 Testing & Validation | Hypothesis Testing | Procedures for evaluating whether evidence supports or contradicts specific claims. | Testing deterrence vs compellence predictions; validating balance-of-power dynamics; evaluating whether alliances deter conflict; testing trade–peace hypotheses; validating institutional compliance predictions; testing theories of hegemonic stability; evaluating sanction effectiveness; validating crisis-bargaining models using event data; testing norm-compliance or norm-erosion theories. |
| | Replication | The requirement that results be independently reproducible under similar conditions. | Re-estimating conflict models on updated datasets; replicating alliance-network analyses; re-running sanctions-effect studies across different periods; duplicating institutional-compliance models across regimes; repeating crisis-coding with alternative coding schemes; reanalyzing trade–conflict models with new data releases. |
| 4.3 Inference & Evaluation | Statistical Inference | Rules for drawing conclusions from noisy or incomplete data. | Estimating causal effects using dyadic or network models; event-history models of conflict onset; structural estimations of bargaining models; VAR/SVAR for geopolitical shocks; machine-learning prediction of conflict or sanctions outcomes; robustness testing across model specifications; uncertainty estimation in crisis forecasting. |
| | Model Comparison | Criteria (fit, simplicity, predictive accuracy, robustness) used to evaluate competing models. | Comparing realist vs liberal vs constructivist predictions; comparing crisis-bargaining models; contrasting balance-of-power vs power-transition models; evaluating trade-interdependence vs democratic-peace models; comparing deterrence models (classical vs psychological); contrasting institutional vs capability-based conflict models. |
| 4.4 Error Management | Error Analysis | Identification and quantification of random and systematic errors. | Detecting biased or incomplete conflict reports; identifying misclassified alliances; correcting for underreported sanctions violations; resolving missing-data issues in authoritarian contexts; separating escalation from signaling events; accounting for latent variables (reputation, resolve); mitigating coding discrepancies across IR datasets. |
| | Bias Control | Methods for minimizing subjective, instrumental, or procedural biases. | Instrumental variables for endogenous alliance formation; matching dyads to control confounders; using placebo tests in natural experiments; triangulating data across independent sources; mitigating researcher bias in event coding; applying robustness checks across definitions of war, threat, or alliance. |
| 4.5 Adjudication & Revision | Peer Scrutiny | Collective evaluation of claims through critique, review, and debate. | Re-evaluating conflict datasets; auditing coding rules; comparing alternative operationalizations of power or polarity; replicating published IR findings; resolving disagreements between theoretical schools; reviewing assumptions behind deterrence or institutional models; revisiting crises with new archival evidence. |
| | Theory Revision | Procedures for modifying, replacing, or discarding models based on new evidence. | Updating deterrence theory with cognitive-bias evidence; revising balance-of-power models to incorporate economic interdependence; modifying institutionalism to explain compliance erosion; integrating cyber power into power-distribution models; refining constructivist theories of norm change; updating bargaining models based on misperception research. |
| 4.6 Integrity Conditions | Transparency | Requirements to disclose methods, data, assumptions, and limitations. | Public release of codebooks, data, and model specifications; clear disclosure of assumptions, coding decisions, robustness thresholds, missing-data handling; documenting uncertainty; explicit justification of operational definitions (e.g., conflict, alliance, norm). |
| | Ethical Standards | Norms ensuring responsible conduct in experimentation, data handling, and publication. | Avoiding misuse of IR findings to justify harmful policies; responsible communication of conflict predictions; protecting sensitive diplomatic information; avoiding bias toward particular states/ideologies; acknowledging limits of forecasting; ensuring academic neutrality in security-sensitive research. |