Annual Presidential Address Is EUGene a Collective Bad?

The EUGene software program has become widely used in quantitative international relations. Originally planned to develop expected utility data, over time it has become a general-purpose tool for constructing data sets for use in the study of international conflict, particularly data sets with the dyad-year as the unit of analysis. However, the way in which EUGene has made data set construction easier has also led to some criticism of the program. In this article, I address some of these criticisms and argue that EUGene is still a valuable tool. I also present data suggesting that the use of statistical methods in quantitative studies of international relations has changed, with the use of more, and more sophisticated, methods in published articles over time. The use of more sophisticated methods make tools such as EUGene particularly valuable, as they make it quicker to perform routine data preparation tasks, leaving more time for analysis and data interpretation.