--- title: "Usage example: modeling revolutionary onset" output: rmarkdown::html_vignette vignette: > %\VignetteIndexEntry{Usage example: modeling revolutionary onset} %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown} %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8} --- ```{r setup, include = FALSE} knitr::opts_chunk$set(collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>") has_deps <- requireNamespace("vdemdata", quietly = TRUE) && requireNamespace("brglm2", quietly = TRUE) && requireNamespace("ggplot2", quietly = TRUE) ``` ```{r eval = !has_deps, echo = FALSE, results = "asis"} cat( "This article needs the `vdemdata`, `brglm2`, and `ggplot2` packages, ", "which are not all installed. Install them and rebuild the vignette to ", "see the full walkthrough.", sep = "" ) ``` This walks through a complete workflow with `contentiousR`: construct a country-year panel from several sources, check its coverage, and estimate a rare-events logit of revolutionary onset. It is rather a demonstration of package mechanics than a substantive research claim — the model below is illustrative and has not been vetted as a serious specification. ## Construct the panel ```{r eval = has_deps} library(contentiousR) library(dplyr) panel <- build_states_panel(1900, 2010, coding_system = "cow") |> add_gdp(dataset = "fariss") |> add_population(dataset = "wpp") |> add_vdem(vars = c("v2x_polyarchy", "v2x_libdem", "v2x_execorr")) |> add_leader_data(dataset = "archigos") |> add_military_expenditure(dataset = "nmc") |> add_conflict(dataset = "beissinger", aggregate = TRUE) |> select( cow, year, country, fariss_gdppc, wpp_pop, nmc_milex, v2x_polyarchy, v2x_execorr, leader_tenure, beissinger_onset ) |> mutate(across(starts_with("beissinger_"), ~ tidyr::replace_na(.x, 0))) |> # fill non-onsets with zeros add_spell_duration() |> add_lag( vars = c( "fariss_gdppc", "wpp_pop", "v2x_polyarchy", "v2x_execorr", "leader_tenure", "nmc_milex" ), n = 1 ) dim(panel) ```
```{r eval = has_deps} head(panel) |> mutate(across(where(is.numeric), ~ round(.x, 2))) |> knitr::kable() ```
`add_conflict(dataset = "beissinger", aggregate = TRUE)` is used rather than `aggregate = FALSE`: Revolutionary Episodes Dataset is an episode dataset, and a handful of country-years have more than one recorded episode (e.g. Germany in 1918). Left unaggregated, those country-years would produce duplicate `cow`-`year` rows. `replace_na(0)` treats "not covered" as "no onset" so that `add_spell_duration()` (which cannot span `NA`) can compute a peace-years counter (`beissinger_spell`) across the whole panel. This is a modeling choice, not a neutral default. ## Check coverage ```{r eval = has_deps, fig.width = 7, fig.height = 6} plot_coverage(panel, "beissinger_onset", drop_empty = TRUE) ``` ## Model onset Onsets are rare, which biases a regular logit model. The model below uses `brglm2`'s Jeffreys-prior penalized likelihood (`method = "brglmFit"`, `type = "MPL_Jeffreys"`) instead (see Kosmidis and Firth 2009), with a natural spline on `beissinger_spell` to flexibly control for time since the last episode and year fixed effects. One-year lagged controls are included in the estimation. ```{r eval = has_deps} library(brglm2) model <- glm( beissinger_onset ~ log(fariss_gdppc_l + 0.1) + wpp_pop_l + v2x_polyarchy_l + I(v2x_polyarchy_l^2) + v2x_execorr_l + leader_tenure_l + I(leader_tenure_l^2) + nmc_milex_l + splines::bs(beissinger_spell, 3) + as.factor(year), family = binomial("logit"), method = "brglmFit", type = "MPL_Jeffreys", data = panel ) co <- summary(model)$coefficients co[!grepl("factor\\(year\\)", rownames(co)), ] ``` Year fixed effects are omitted from the printed table above for readability. ## Reference Kosmidis, I., and D. Firth. 2009. “Bias Reduction in Exponential Family Nonlinear Models.” Biometrika 96 (4): 793–804. [https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/asp055](https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/asp055).