A Reassessment of Democratic Pacifism at the Monadic Level of Analysis

Charles R. Boehmer
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Charles R. Boehmer: University of Texas at El Paso El Paso, Texas, USA, crboehmer@utep.edu

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2008, vol. 25, issue 1, 81-94

Abstract: Are democracies generally peaceful? Studies have produced mixed evidence, both for and against this proposition. I review and update the literature on this topic and explore reasons why some scholars have come to emphasize those studies showing that democracies are no more or less conflict-prone than other states. This paper re-examines democracy and conflict at the state level of analysis from 1884 to 1999 using a broad sample of states and appropriate statistical estimators. The results show that democracies are less likely to initiate militarized conflicts. I also find that political competition has a stronger pacifying effect than executive constraints when disaggregating the Polity IV democracy index.

Keywords: democracy; militarized disputes; military conflict; war; pacifism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:compsc:v:25:y:2008:i:1:p:81-94

DOI: 10.1080/07388940701860482

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