You Can’t Win If You Don’t Fight

Anna Getmansky ()
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Anna Getmansky: Social and Decision Sciences Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2013, vol. 57, issue 4, 709-734

Abstract: What effect, if any, does democracy have on outcomes of counterinsurgency wars? Previous studies have provided inconclusive answers mainly because of the challenges involved in testing the question empirically: First, insurgencies are not accidental and the anticipated outcomes also affect whether they break out in the first place. Second, regimes are non-random and their determinants can also affect insurgency incidence and its outcomes. Moreover, different aspects of democracy can have opposite effects on the government's chances of winning. I address these challenges by conducting a critical test to distinguish between different causal mechanisms. I find that domestic institutions that are associated with public goods provision make insurgency onsets less likely. I also show that once we control for this selection effect, domestic political institutions do not influence insurgency outcomes.

Keywords: counterinsurgency; democracy; domestic politics; victory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:57:y:2013:i:4:p:709-734

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