Democracies in international crisis

J. Joseph Hewitt and Jonathan Wilkenfeld

International Interactions, 1996, vol. 22, issue 2, 123-142

Abstract: One of the most widely researched theoretical perspectives in international politics in recent years has been the so‐called theory of democratic peace. Although democracies may be no less prone than non‐democracies to engage in violence in pursuit of their interests, they rarely employ war as a means for resolving conflicts with other democracies. We extend the well‐known argument and propose that for nations locked in international crises, the presence or absence of democratic norms of conflict resolution will dictate whether or not such crises are likely to escalate to violence. Using data on international crises in the twentieth century, an indicator of democratic composition is proposed which is sensitive to both the coalitional proportion and overall proportion of democracies in crisis. We posit that as the prevalence of democracies in a crisis increases, the likelihood of escalation of military hostilities decreases, while the likelihood of involvement and effectiveness of international organizations increases. The findings confirm the dampening effect of democratic composition on the escalation of violence, while democratic composition impacts only marginally on the involvement and effectiveness of international organizations.

Date: 1996
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DOI: 10.1080/03050629608434885

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