The Democratic Peace Through the Lens of Culture, 1820–1989

This article examines the extent to which cultural similarity vitiates the relationship between joint democracy and the incidence of interstate war. Previous empirical findings which suggest that cultural/normative explanations of the democratic peace are more robust than institutional/structural ones invite an analysis of the impact of broader cultural factors on the relationship between joint democracy and war involvement. The author suggests several ways that cultural factors might mitigate the democratic peace phenomenon and conducts a multivariate logistic analysis of state dyads from 1820 to 1989 to test the main query. Of the cultural variables, religious similarity within dyads is associated with a decreased likelihood of war onset, while both ethnic and linguistic similarity have the opposite effect. Democratic dyads, on average, have higher religious similarity levels than nondemocratic dyads, which, ostensibly, might play a role in reducing conflict within democratic dyads. However, the findings clearly demonstrate that although cultural factors are significant correlates of war they do not vitiate the impact of joint democracy on war. It appears that where a pair of states share a common democratic political culture it exerts a conflict dampening impact that overrides ethnic, linguistic, or religious factors.     

The Probability of War, 1816–1992

What factors increase the probability that a pair of states might go to war is the focus of this study. Six hypotheses, derived from the steps to war explanation, are tested by comparing pairs of states that go to war with each other at least once in their history (from 1816 to 1992) with those that do not. It is found that as two states take the various steps to war that have been posited, the higher their probability of going to war. States whose relations are dominated by territorial disputes have a higher probability of having had a war if both sides have had outside allies, have had recurring territorial disputes, have been engaged in an enduring rivalry, and have had an arms race. As each of these factors becomes present, the probability of war progressively increases. Pairs of states whose relations are dominated by nonterritorial disputes also have their probability of war increased if these factors are present, but at a lower level. Of the various factors that increase the probability of war, outside politically relevant alliances seem to have the weakest impact.     

Moving beyond rethinking the ‘state of the state’: to the challenge of reshaping international contributions to peace operations

The need for an accurate understanding of the environment into which peace- and capacity-building missions are deployed cannot be overstated. Suppositions about the mission environment inform every facet of an intervention's design and implementation, in addition to expectations surrounding success. Yet this critical element continues to be misunderstood by those most in need of an accurate grasp, a condition which severely undermines the war to peace transition. Rather than continuing to assume that recipient ‘states’ are states in the Western sense of the term, we must instead focus our energies on how best to enable sustainable peace in the hybrid political orders which do in fact constitute these troubled places. After setting out the largely unrecognised characteristics of recipient societies, the article explores alternative forms of assistance with promise to complement such realities.     

State repression and post-conflict peace failure

This paper provides evidence that state repression is a strong predictor of peace failure following civil war. Existing literature fails to examine the possibility that more repressive states are even less likely than their counterparts to escape the ‘conflict trap’. We argue that when states use repressive tactics to achieve their objectives, it signals to the broader population that the state cannot be trusted; and the regime does not believe their rule is to be questioned. These signals polarise citizens into new or existing rebel factions thereby increasing the risk of another civil war. We test our theory using event history analysis. Our results are robust to a series of statistical models and demonstrate that in the tenuous post-conflict environment states that use repression to police their populous experience shorter periods of peace.     

Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence

Over half of all civil wars that began and ended between 1944 and 1997 were followed by at least one if not more episodes of civil war. We present a model to explain which characteristics of a civil war and the post-war environment make civil war more or less likely to recur. We test this model with data on civil wars that began and ended between 1944 and 1997. Findings suggest that civil wars are less likely to recur following rebel victories and peace agreements supported by peacekeeping forces. Post-war economic development also reduces the probability of civil war recurrence, and the longer the peace can be sustained, the less likely civil war is to recur. These effects hold regardless of whether the previous war was ethnically based or not, and whether it was secessionist or revolutionary.     

“So,the Killings Continued”: Wartime Mobilization and Post-War Violence in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Many post-war states experience continuous low-intensity violence for years after the formal end of the conflict. Existing theories often focus on country-level explanations of post-war violence, such as the presence of spoilers or the nature of the peace agreement. Yet, post-war violence does not affect all communities equally; whereas some remain entrenched in violence, others escape the perpetuation of violent conflict. We argue that communities where wartime mobilization at the local level is based on the formation of alliances between armed groups and local elites are more likely to experience post-war violence, than communities where armed groups generate civilian support based on grassroots backing of the group’s political objectives. We explore this argument in a comparison of three communities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which have experienced different levels of post-war violence. The analysis supports the main argument and contributes to the research on the microdynamics of civil war by outlining the implications of certain strategies of wartime mobilization and how these may generate localized legacies.     

Arab national security in the 1980's. Threats and strategies

Scholars increasingly are accepting the empirical generalization that democracies almost never go to war with each other, and infrequently even engage in militarized disputes with each other. It has not been clear, however, whether the rarity of conflict between democracies is caused by some aspect of being democratic, or whether it is caused by some other variable or variables that may be correlated with democracy. Using data on all independent states for the period 1946–1986, we examine the effects of political system type, distance, wealth, economic growth, alliances, and political stability. The results suggest that, although most of the other variables do have an effect, as hypothesized, there still seems to be an independent effect of political system type: democracies engage in militarized disputes with each other less than would be expected by chance. The effect may be enhanced by political stability; that is, states which can be perceived as stable democracies are less likely to be involved in disputes with other democracies.     

‘Peace-building as state-building’? Rethinking liberal interventionism in contexts of emerging states

Contemporary policy-making guided by the ‘liberal peace’ holds that peace is necessary for states to emerge, and that peace-building and state-building do not only go in tandem, but are mutually reinforcing. Yet, in view of both the historical record of state-making and empirical evidence provided by liberal interventionism, this proposition appears questionable. While scholars have shown that state-making has, historically, been as much associated with war than with peace, cases from Afghanistan to Somalia suggest that state-making is inherently conflictive, frequently upsetting nascent peace. In order to shed light on the reasons underpinning the relationship between prevailing peace-building practices and the fundamental exigencies of state-making, this article pursues a theoretical argument. It proposes that while peace-building is principally about creating a situation of non-violent co-existence despite prevailing differences and, thus, essentially geared at accepting and enshrining institutional and identity pluralism, state-making is vitally aimed at replacing institutional and identity multiplicity with greater degrees of rule hegemony and standardisation. Applying the prism of ‘rule standardisation’ to the nexus of peace-building and state-making, this paper seeks to advance existing debates on this delicate relationship.     

Editors' Note

Examining the relationship between regime type and defense effort provides evidence for reformulating theories of democratic peace. Consistent with liberal theories, regime type has substantively and statistically significant effects. In times of peace, democracies bear lower defense burdens than other states and keep proportionately fewer soldiers under arms. During times of war, however, democracies try harder and exert greater defense effort than non-democracies. Contrary to the results of some recent studies, all other things being equal, the arsenal of democracy appears to out-gun its opponents when it counts. Examining three components of democracy separately indicates that a largely overlooked factor, political competition, tends to drive these outcomes. Executive constraints are also associated with increased defense effort during war. But there is little evidence that wide participation or large winning coalitions have the predicted effects on defense effort. The results point to the flexible quality of defense effort in democracies, which is theoretically and empirically accounted for by the competitive political environment rather than institutional factors favored by existing theories.     

Borrowing Trouble: Sovereign Credit,Military Regimes,and Conflict

Changes in relative military power in the international system are seen as an impediment to peace. This article will focus on one particular avenue for states to increase their relative military power: sovereign borrowing. States’ ability to borrow inexpensive credit can undermine credible commitments in international relations, but only for those states that habitually use credit for military purposes. I argue that military regimes are more likely to use fiscal resources such as sovereign credit toward military spending, which leads to sudden increases in military power. As a result, adversarial states have incentives to use preventive action against military regimes before these regimes use credit for military purposes. To test this argument, I examine target behavior in militarized disputes as a function of expected borrowing costs credit and regime type. The empirical analysis demonstrates that military regimes, expected to have improved borrowing costs, are more likely to be the target of militarized disputes.     

Labour markets,employment, and the transformation of war economies

Although many different analyses in some ways acknowledge the relevance of labour markets to the political economy of violent conflict and of war to peace transitions, there has been little sustained or systematic exploration of this dimension of war economies and post-conflict reconstruction. This paper highlights the empirical and analytical gaps and suggests that a framework departing from the assumptions of the liberal interpretation of war allows for a richer analysis of labour market issues and policies. This is illustrated by the history of rural Mozambique through the war economy and into the first post-war decade.     

Intergovernmental Organization Memberships: Examining Political Community and the Attributes of International Organizations

Why are states jointly members in certain intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) but not others? Despite the proliferation of IGOs and renewed interest in this topic, we lack systematic research to answer this question. Our theory of political community explains why dyads of states are likely to be common members in particular types of IGOs. We analyze and compare functionalist and Deutschian communitarian perspectives about IGO memberships. We test our theory using newly available data on IGO mandates and institutional structure, which allows us to make specific predictions about the types of IGO to which dyads become members. We show that dyads that are economically dependent, and/or democratic and enjoying enduring peace, are more likely to join those IGOs that possess high levels of institutional structure. Militarized interstate conflicts reduce the likelihood of states sharing membership in common IGO, but not substantially, whereas development and alliances also increase IGO memberships between states. Trade ties, however, are the most important determinant of joint membership between states in the most institutionalized IGOs, which is congruent with security communities.     

Corruption and conflict: connections and consequences in war-torn Sri Lanka

In the transition from war to peace, one key challenge is to ensure that those who gained something from the war can be convinced to support the peace. At the same time, however, it is crucial to avoid reproducing corrupt practices and inequalities that fuelled the conflict. The problem of corruption during post-war peace-building has gained considerable attention recently, academically as well as in policy-making circles. This exploratory case study of Sri Lanka traces and problematises the complex linkages between corruption and conflict at the shift from war to peace, building on field research in Sri Lanka before and after the end of the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. The article illustrates how global resource flows and politics have enabled conflict-fuelling corruption in Sri Lanka, and how local experiences of corruption feed into the popular grievances which have both caused and kept the conflict going. The end of the war has not presented a break with the corruption-conflict links of the wartime—and these connections will have implications for reconstruction and reconciliation in the country.     

Civil War Settlements,Size of Governing Coalition,and Durability of Peace in Post–Civil War States

We examine the ways in which the size of the governing coalition in a post–civil war state affects the durability of the peace. Previous studies relate the durability of the peace to the outcome of the civil war, the extent and forms of power-sharing arrangements, and the role of third-party security guarantors. We argue that the way conflict terminates and the power-sharing agreements between former protagonists structure the composition of governing coalition in the post–civil war state. Any settlement to civil war that broadens the size of the governing coalition should increase actors' incentives to sustain the peace rather than renew the armed conflict. Peace is more likely to fail where the governing coalition is smaller because those excluded from the governing coalition have little to lose from resuming armed rebellion. To test these propositions, we analyze data on post–civil war peace spells from 1946–2005.     

Towards a more peaceful world? A critical view

Contemporary scholars do not agree on whether there is a declining prospect of war and armed conflict. A substantial number of authors of quantitative studies have concluded that the current worldwide trend is towards peace. I argue that this conclusion builds on insufficient evidence and possibly on misleading categorisations. The complacent view on the contemporary international system is based on inadequate awareness of the changing patterns of violence. The so-called new wars are not played out on the traditional battlefield. Valid conclusions about present trends would require a reconsideration of definitions, empirical evidence, and coding rules. Moreover, the current wave of democratisation and the increasing number of international interventions probably do not make the world more peaceful. Therefore, the conclusions in some of the most extensive recent analyses of war and peace, that the world is becoming more peaceful, are flawed.     

Democracy and civil war: A note on the democratic peace proposition

Democracies may not fight each other, but do they fight themselves? Despite the need to better understand internal wars, empirical investigations of the democratic peace have focused on international war between democracies. We test the effect of regime type on civil wars, a class of events that is widely overlooked in the study of conflict. We find that regime type strongly affects civil war participation.     

Threats at Home,Threats Abroad: Bargaining and War in the Shadow of Coups and Revolutions

I analyze a two-level game in which a leader bargains over the spoils of international bargaining with a domestic opposition that can threaten her with a coup or revolution. While fighting an international war shrinks the domestic pie, it also alters the distribution of domestic power. This has three main implications. First, if war will undermine the opposition, fighting may be so attractive that leaders demand more for peace than foreign states are willing to give, leading to war. Second, if war will bolster the opposition, leaders accept harsh terms to avoid fighting—strategic selection that has implications for the observed relationship between war and political survival. Finally, prospective shifts in the distribution of domestic power caused by war can reduce the effects of international asymmetric information, though the result may be to increase or decrease the chances of war.     

Wars of Succession

I analyze a model of bargaining, war, and endogenous leadership turnover in which (1) leader attributes affect war outcomes and (2) war can insulate settlements from renegotiation. Shifts in bargaining power caused by leadership turnover are endogenous and discontinuous, but sufficiently decisive war outcomes can solve the associated commitment problem. In contrast to other models where the shadow cast by a hawkish successor encourages moderation toward a dovish incumbent, the foreign state attacks instead—despite a dovish incumbent’s known preference for peace—using war to lock in a settlement that would otherwise be lost to future leadership turnover. I discuss the theory’s implications for widening the empirical scope of the commitment problem explanation for war to limited wars over relatively lower stakes and for integrating the politics of leadership turnover with the study of strategic rivalries.     

Democracy through War?

This article brings together three strands of democracy research which have thus far seldom been informed by one another: the empirical research associated with the ‘democratic peace’ thesis, the juridical-normative questions of legality, and moral-philosophical reasoning about just war. Linking the statistical analysis of the democratic peace to the findings of comparative research on democratization and to the normative debates occurring in law and philosophy on just and legitimized wars, there is an inescapable conclusion that: jus ad bellum and jus post bellum criteria must be closely tied. The protection of people threatened by mass murder and brutal violations of human rights requires not only a short-term military intervention, but also the intensive support to establish sustainable rule of law and democracy. External actors intervening for humanitarian reasons equally have a duty to contribute to long-term sustainable state- and democracy-building. Forced regime change and an international trusteeship protectorate can become legitimate and necessary means to guarantee justice after war and to reconcile jus ad bellum principles with duties post bellum. A premature withdrawal of intervening forces, for example in Afghanistan or in Iraq, would amount to a flagrant violation of external actors' post-war duties.     

Post-civil war democratization: promotion of democracy in post-civil war states, 1946–2005

Post-civil war democratization is a critical element of building sustainable peace in post-civil war states. Yet studies of democratic transition and survival suggest that the post-civil war environment is not hospitable to either the transition toward or the survival of democracy. This inhospitality may be due to the fact that post-civil war environments are contentious. After a civil war, the former protagonists fear for their security and also want to protect their political and economic interests. The central argument of this study is that former rivals can agree to a transition toward democracy to the extent that a stable balance of power exists between the government and rebel groups; a balance that eliminates the sort of security dilemma that would encourage one or both parties to resume armed conflict. Such a balance should ensure access to political power and economic resources. This study identifies factors that contribute to the establishment of a balance of power between former protagonists and factors that affect its stability. The presence of these factors should affect the decision of former protagonists on whether or not they can achieve their political and economic interests if they agree to a transition toward democracy once the civil war ends. Based on this theoretical argument, I have derived empirically testable hypotheses. In the survival analysis performed, I find support for the theoretical arguments. The findings of this study have some policy implications.