Assessing the statistical rarity of wars between democracies

J. Joseph Hewitt and Garry Young

International Interactions, 2001, vol. 27, issue 3, 327-351

Abstract: The ‘small numbers objection’ to the democratic peace claims that the relative rarity of militarized conflict between democracies is due to their small numbers coupled with the infrequency of violent interstate conflict, not to an alleged pacifying effect of democracy. This study assesses this objection directly by treating the number of militarized disputes between democracies as a random variable. Since the historical record provides only one observation for this variable, full estimation of its distributional characteristics requires repeated simulation of the process by which dyads are ‘selected’ for conflict We employ Monte Cario techniques to carry out this process. The simulation results indicate no support for the small numbers objection. The results remain stable when important control variables are introduced and when the analysis employs a weaker definition of democracy. Finally, the simulation enables a precise identification of the point within the 1816--1992 temporal domain when the democratic peace moved from an apparent statistical artifact to significant phenomenon.

Date: 2001
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DOI: 10.1080/03050620108434988

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