Democracy, Political Similarity, and International Alliances, 1816-1992

Brian Lai and Dan Reiter
Additional contact information
Dan Reiter: Department of Political Science, Emory University

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2000, vol. 44, issue 2, 203-227

Abstract: The connection between domestic politics and international cooperation, specifically the relationship between regime type and alliance behavior, is examined to test two central hypotheses: democracies are more likely to ally with each other, and states of any similar regime type are more likely to ally with each other. These hypotheses emerge from three theories: constructivism, economic interdependence, and credible commitments. The authors use a data set of all pairs of states from 1816 to 1992. Results show that states with similar regime type are more likely to ally with each other after 1945, although two democracies are not more likely to ally than two autocracies during this period, and distance, learning, threat, and common culture affect alliance behavior, but trade does not. Results indicate sharp limits to the connection between democracy and international cooperation.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002700044002003 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:44:y:2000:i:2:p:203-227

DOI: 10.1177/0022002700044002003

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().