10.7910/DVN/2DACNY Gastinger, Markus Markus Gastinger https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8516-5183 University of Salzburg Schmidtke, Henning Henning Schmidtke https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3496-1649 GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany Harvard Dataverse 2022 Social Sciences International organizations Gastinger, Markus Markus Gastinger University of Salzburg 2022-08-20 2022-09-14 10.1007/S11558-022-09476-Y 2626905 674697 application/zip application/pdf 1.0 Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. <b>Abstract:</b> How can we measure and explain the precision of international organizations’ (IOs) founding treaties? We define precision by its negative – imprecision – as indeterminate language that intentionally leaves a wide margin of interpretation for actors after agreements enter into force. Compiling a “dictionary of imprecision” from almost 500 scholarly contributions and leveraging insight from linguists that a single vague word renders the whole sentence vague, we introduce a dictionary-based measure of imprecision (DIMI) that is replicable, applicable to all written documents, and yields a continuous measure bound between zero and one. To demonstrate that DIMI usefully complements existing approaches and advances the study of (im-)precision, we apply it to a sample of 76 IOs. Our descriptive results show high face validity and closely track previous characterizations of these IOs. Finally, we explore patterns in the data, expecting that imprecision in IO treaties increases with the number of states, power asymmetries, and the delegation of authority, while it decreases with the pooling of authority. In a sample of major IOs, we find robust empirical support for the power asymmetries and delegation propositions. Overall, DIMI provides exciting new avenues to study precision in International Relations and beyond. <br><br> The files uploaded entail the material necessary to replicate the results from the article and Online appendix published in: Gastinger, M. and Schmidtke, H. (2022) ‘Measuring precision precisely: A dictionary-based measure of imprecision’, <i>The Review of International Organizations</i>, available at Doi: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-022-09476-y">10.1007/s11558-022-09476-y</a>. <br><br> Please let us know if you spot any mistakes or if we may be of any further assistance!