Moyer, J., Meisel, C., Szymanski-Burgos, A., Scott, A., Casiraghi, M., Kurkul, A., Hughes, M., Kettlun, W., McKee, K., Matthews, A., (2025, March 17). When heads of government and state (HOGS) fly: Introducing the country and organizational leader travel (COLT) dataset measuring foreign travel by HOGS. International Studies Quarterly, Volume 69, Issue 2, June 2025, sqaf013, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf013

Despite representing a crucial day-to-day diplomatic tool, travel by heads of government and state (HOGS) has remained an under-investigated topic in international relations, inhibiting our ability to better understand how these visits change foreign aid, interstate conflict, diplomatic affinities, and more. Here, we fill that gap by introducing the first global dataset on the foreign visits of state leaders, the Country and Organizational Leader Travel (COLT) dataset, which allows us to present descriptive analysis and assess the monadic and dyadic drivers of foreign travel by HOGS. We find evidence consistent with previous literature explaining the motives of leader travel: development, trade, conflict, institutional co-membership, and regime type. In addition, we show a potential further application of the dataset, presenting original results on the relation between diplomatic visits and international trade. Overall, these data represent a unique indicator of international interaction that cuts across levels of analysis.

Meisel, C., Moyer, J. D., Matthews, A. S., Kaplan, O., Byrnes, R., Benjumea, K., Cribb, P., & Van Son, C. (2024, August 20). Bearing witness: Introducing the Perceived Mass Atrocities Dataset (PMAD). Journal of Peace Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241249333

Led by Pardee's Associate Director of Geopolitical Analysis, Collin Meisel, and commissioned by the US State Department to support the Elie Weisel Act, this coding framework is a prime example of the Institute's goal to bridge the gap between academic work and policy-making communities. Congratulations to all of the hard-working Korbel students who contributed to this impressive research and all the co-authors on this outstanding accomplishment.

Abstract:

The risk factors and consequences of atrocities are deeply interconnected with questions of intra- and interstate stability and conflict, economic development, colonialism, and gender equality, as well as atrocity crime monitoring and prevention. However, there is no globally comparable measure of lethal and less-lethal atrocities. The Perceived Mass Atrocities Dataset (PMAD) is a country-year measure of atrocities with accompanying narratives. Built to support the US Congress’s Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, PMAD enables the systematic comparison of the occurrence and magnitude of seven atrocity types, in addition to group-perpetrated violence against women and LGBTQIA+ groups, with aggregate atrocities indices for 196 countries from 2018 to 2022. PMAD offers a foundation for quantitative studies of atrocities as well as more qualitative, process-focused research of lethal and less-lethal violence with its single, divisible framework. The PMAD data highlight several regions where analysis of atrocities using data on only lethal atrocities would be inadequate, especially Central and Eastern Asia. The data can also facilitate research into the relationships between mass atrocities and gender discrimination, neopatrimonialism, and political polarization.

Moyer, J. D., Matthews, A. S., Evans, J., McPhee, J., & Kettlun, W. (2023, November 27). Do safety expectations affect the location strategies of large service delivery INGOs? International Interactions, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2023.2279616

Large service-delivery international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) help shape the lives of millions worldwide, contributing significantly to the betterment of global health, development, education, and more. However, these organizations operate on limited financial resources and must deliver services on-the-ground, requiring them to make calculated decisions about their location strategies for operations. Although these INGOs should aim to maximize their efforts by operating in countries with the greatest need, sometimes they may face challenges from political conditions in these environments. Do safety expectations in countries affect the assistance allocation decisions of large service delivery INGOs? We explore this question using new data on the location and operational-intensity of country-level projects across 90 of the largest service delivery INGOs worldwide between 1990 and 2015. We find that these INGOs do send greater operational resources to countries demonstrating need and that INGOs are not necessarily afraid to operate in countries with safety risks. However, large INGOs do send far fewer service operations to autocracies, suggesting that political factors affect their location strategies as well.

By: Jonathan D. Moyer, Collin J. Meisel & Austin S. Matthews (2023) Measuring and Forecasting the Rise of China: Reality over Image, Journal of Contemporary China, 32:140, 191-206, DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2022.2071879

In this article published in the Journal of Contemporary China, Assistant Professor and Pardee Center Director Dr. Jonathan Moyer, Pardee Center senior research associate Collin Meisel, and former Pardee Center research scientist Dr. Austin Matthews find that Chinese capabilities surpass the United States in 26 scenarios before 2060, with the most frequent period of power transition being the early 2040s. This analysis offers an opportunity for leaders to reconcile national images with reality, potentially reducing the risk of conflict associated with great power transition.

Moyer, Jonathan D., Collin J. Meisel, Austin S. Matthews, David K. Bohl, and Mathew J. Burrows. 2021.

"China-US Competition: Measuring Global Influence." Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures. Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs. Report for Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center.

Beyond measuring US and Chinese influence capacity, the FBIC Index can be used to analyze changing influence capacity dynamics for more than 200 countries and between more than 20,000 country pairs from 1960 through 2020. Data include a summary measure of influence capacity as well as its primary components—bandwidth and dependence—and their political, economic, and security subcomponents.

Matthews, Austin S., Mathew J. Burrows, David K. Bohl, Taylor L. Hanna, Brendan R. Mapes, Collin J. Meisel, Jonathan D. Moyer, Kanishka Narayan, and Kumail Wasif. 2019.

“Forecasting Changing American Trade Scenarios and Relational Power Shifts Across Regions.” International Studies Association ISSS-IS Conference.

Authors: Austin S. Matthews, Mathew J. Burrows, David K. Bohl, Taylor L. Hanna, Brendan R. Mapes, Collin J. Meisel, Jonathan D. Moyer, Kanishka Narayan, and Kumail Wasif

2019. Matthews, Austin S., Jonathan D. Moyer, David K. Bohl, and Collin J. Meisel. “Intergovernmental Organizations: Forecasting Dyadic Membership.” American Political Science Association Conference.