Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T02:44:17.579Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Who Are These Belligerent Democratizers? Reassessing the Impact of Democratization on War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2009

Vipin Narang  and
Rebecca M. Nelson
Vipin Narang
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, E-mail: [email protected]
Rebecca M. Nelson
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

In a key finding in the democratic peace literature, Mansfield and Snyder argue that states with weak institutions undergoing incomplete transitions to democracy are more likely to initiate an external war than other types of states. We show that the empirical data do not support this claim. We find a dearth of observations where incomplete democratizers with weak institutions participated in war. Additionally, we find that the statistical relationship between incomplete democratization and war is entirely dependent on the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire prior to World War I. We also find that the case selection in Mansfield and Snyder rarely involved incomplete democratizers with weak institutions. We therefore conclude that the finding that incomplete democratizers with weak institutions are more likely to initiate or participate in war is not supported by the empirical data.

Type
Research Note
Information
International Organization , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 357 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bachman, David. 2000. China's Democratization: What Difference Would It Make for U.S.-China Relations? In What If China Doesn't Democratize? Implications for War and Peace, edited by Friedman, Edward and McCormick, Barrett L., 195–223. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H. 2008. State Failure. Annual Review of Political Science 11:1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biddle, Stephen. 2006. Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon. Foreign Affairs 85 (2):2–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braumoeller, Bear F. 2004. Hypothesis Testing and Multiplicative Interaction Terms. International Organization 58 (4):807–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Morrow, James D., Siverson, Randolph M., and Smith, Alastair. 1999. An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace. American Political Science Review 93 (4):791–807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupuy, R. Ernest, and Dupuy, Trevor N.. 1993. The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the Present. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Enterline, Andrew J. 1996. Driving While Democratizing (DWD). International Security 20 (4):183–96.Google Scholar
Erickson, Edward J. 2003. Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–13. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flintoff, Corey. 2006. Study Contradicts Bush Rationale on Democracy. National Public Radio broadcast, 27 January. Available at ⟨http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5174376⟩. Accessed 7 January 2009.Google Scholar
Fravel, M. Taylor. 2008. The Limits of Diversion: Rethinking Internal and External Conflict. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Jack A., Bates, Robert H., Gurr, Ted Robert, Lustik, Michael, Marshall, Monty G., Ulfelder, Jay, and Woodward, Mark. 2005. A Global Forecasting Model of Political Instability. Paper presented at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Political Science AssociationSeptemberWashington, D.C.Google Scholar
Hegre, Håvard, Ellingsen, Tanja, Gates, Scott, and Gleditsch, Nils Petter. 2001. Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War 1816–1992. American Political Science Review 95 (1):33–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Richard. 2001. The Oxford Companion to Military History. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Fred. 2005. Elections Aren't Enough: Seeing Iraqis Vote Is Wonderful but You Can't Rush Democracy. Slate. 15 December 2005. Available at ⟨http://www.slate.com/id/2132506/⟩. Accessed 7 January 2009.Google Scholar
King, Gary, and Zeng, Langche. 2001. Improving Forecasts of State Failure. World Politics 53 (4):623–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, and Zeng, Langche. 2007. When Can History Be Our Guide? The Pitfalls of Counterfactual Inference. International Studies Quarterly 51 (1):183–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder, Jack L.. 1995a. Democratization and the Danger of War. International Security 20 (1):5–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder, Jack L.. 1995b. Democratization and War. Foreign Affairs 74 (3):79–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder, Jack L.. 1996. The Effects of Democratization on War (The Authors Reply). International Security 20 (4):196–207.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder, Jack L.. 2002. Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and War. International Organization 56 (2):297–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder, Jack L.. 2005. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder, Jack L.. 2005/2006. Prone to Violence: The Paradox of the Democratic Peace. National Interest 82 (Winter):39–45.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder, Jack L.. 2007. The Sequencing “Fallacy.” Journal of Democracy 18 (3):5–9.Google Scholar
Marshall, Monty G., and Jaggers, Keith. 2007. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2006. Dataset Users' Manual. Center for Systemic Peace. Available at ⟨http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/p4manualv2006.pdf⟩. Accessed 7 January 2009.Google Scholar
McFaul, Michael. 2007. Are New Democracies War-Prone? Journal of Democracy 18 (2):160–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oneal, John R., and Russett, Bruce. 1997. The Classic Liberals Were Right: Democracy, Interdependence, and Conflict, 1950–1985. International Studies Quarterly 41 (2):267–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sater, William F. 2007. Andean Tragedy: Fighting the War of the Pacific 1879–1884. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, Jack. 2004. One World, Rival Theories. Foreign Policy 145:52–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, William R., and Tucker, Richard M.. 1997. A Tale of Two Democratic Peace Critiques. Journal of Conflict Resolution 41 (3):428–54.Google Scholar
Wang, Jianwei. 2008. Time for ‘New’ Thinking on Taiwan. China Security 4 (1):113–29.Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., and Gleditsch, Kristian S.. 1998. Democratizing for Peace. American Political Science Review 92 (1):51–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weede, Eric. 1996. Correspondence: Democratization and War. International Security 20 (4):180–83.Google Scholar
Wolf, Reinhold. 1996. Correspondence: Democratization and War. International Security 20 (4):176–80.Google Scholar