Tracking organizations in the world: The Correlates of War IGO Version 3.0 datasets
| Author | Timothy Nordstrom,Jon CW Pevehouse,Anne Spencer Jamison,Roseanne W McManus |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319881175 |
| Subject Matter | Special Data Features |
Special Data Feature
Tracking organizations in the world:
The Correlates of War IGO Version
3.0 datasets
Jon CW Pevehouse
Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Timothy Nordstrom
Department of Political Science, University of Mississippi
Roseanne W McManus
Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University
Anne Spencer Jamison
Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract
This article summarizes the Correlates of War Intergovernmental Organizations (IGO) Version 3.0 datasets. The
new datasets include information about the population of IGOs in the international system and state participation in
those formal international institutions from 1816 to 2014. Consistent with Versions 2.0 and 2.3, Version 3.0 of the
IGO data comes in three forms: country-year, IGO-year, and joint dyadic membership. This article briefly describes
the data collection process and identifies important changes to the dataset before moving to analyze fundamental
patterns in the data. Most notable among the changes from earlier versions of the data is the inclusion of annual
membership data for the 1815–1964 time period. In addition, we present information about the overall trends in the
institutionalization of cooperation at both the global and regional levels, with the latter focusing on the interesting
membership dynamics in Asia and Africa. We then track and discuss patterns in state memberships and examine how
these changes manifest in the dyadic data. The article concludes with a discussion of how the COW IGO 3.0 data
compare to other prominent datasets on state participation in international institutions and highlights some new
areas of research that will benefit from the release of the updated IGO membership dataset.
Keywords
cooperation, data, international organizations
Introduction
Intergovernmental orga nizations (IGOs) have become
central actors in the study of international relations.
Recent years have seen consistent growth in the volume
of research focusing on international organizations, with
equal amounts of attention focused on IGOs as indepen-
dent and dependent variables. Important research agen-
das such as the liberal peace (Pevehouse & Russett,
2006), network analyses of institutional ties and effects
(Dorussen & Ward, 2008; Hafner-Burton & Montgom-
ery, 2006), regime complexes and the expansion of glo-
bal governance (Orsini, Morin & Young, 2013;
Johnson, 2014), and the rational design of institutions
(Koremenos, Lipson & Snidal, 2001; Copelovitch &
Corresponding author:
tnordstr@olemiss.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2020, Vol. 57(3) 492–503
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319881175
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