Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David L. Rousseau is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Aus dem Klappentext

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Democracy and War

Stanford University Press

Contents

List of Tables and Figures...................................................................................................xiiiAcknowledgments..............................................................................................................xvii1. Introduction: Domestic Institutions, Political Norms, and the Evolution of International Conflict.........................1Central Questions............................................................................................................4Methodology..................................................................................................................11Overview of the Book.........................................................................................................13Significance of the Project..................................................................................................14Notes........................................................................................................................152. The Impact of Institutions and Norms in International Crises..............................................................18Structural Explanations of the Democratic Peace..............................................................................20Normative Explanations of the Democratic Peace...............................................................................27Testing the Arguments........................................................................................................29Case Studies.................................................................................................................48Conclusions..................................................................................................................79Appendix 2.1: Dropping the Aggressive Leader Assumption......................................................................80Appendix 2.2: Crisis Data Set: 337 Conflict Dyads in 301 International Crises................................................83Appendix 2.3: Crises from the ICB Data Set That Have Been Deleted or Merged..................................................89Appendix 2.4: Sensitivity Analysis...........................................................................................91Notes........................................................................................................................923. International Disputes and the Evolution of Conflict......................................................................100The Dispute Data Set.........................................................................................................103Hypotheses and Analysis......................................................................................................105Case Studies.................................................................................................................116Conclusions..................................................................................................................129Appendix 3.1: Dispute Data Set-223 International Conflicts...................................................................130Appendix 3.2: Sensitivity Analysis Displaying Results with the Inclusion of Additional Control Variables.....................133Notes........................................................................................................................1334. Institutional Constraint Versus Regime Type...............................................................................139The Institutional Constraint Model...........................................................................................140Case Studies.................................................................................................................157Conclusions..................................................................................................................191Appendix 4.1: Nested Versus Nonnested Models of the Democratic Peace.........................................................193Notes........................................................................................................................1945. Political Norms Versus Institutional Structures...........................................................................201A Typology of Norms..........................................................................................................206Test 1: New Political Norms Variables for the Statistical Model..............................................................208Test 2: Testing Political Norms with a Logit Model...........................................................................214Test 3: A Laboratory Experiment..............................................................................................219Case Studies.................................................................................................................232Conclusions..................................................................................................................256Appendix 5.1: Scenario Wording by Dimension..................................................................................257Appendix 5.2: Experimental Survey Instrument.................................................................................259Notes........................................................................................................................2606. Democratization and International Conflict................................................................................268Mansfield and Snyder's Theoretical Argument..................................................................................268Regime Change, Norms, and Structures.........................................................................................272Conceptualizing Regime Change................................................................................................274Case Studies.................................................................................................................281Conclusions..................................................................................................................300Notes........................................................................................................................3017. The Evolution of Conflicts, Institutions, and Norms: An Agent-Based Simulation............................................306Strengths and Weaknesses of Agent-Based Computer Simulations.................................................................307Cederman's Agent-Based Model.................................................................................................309Conclusions..................................................................................................................326Appendix 7.1: DomGeoSim Parameter Dictionary and Comparison of Parameters with GeoSim........................................328Notes........................................................................................................................3378. Conclusions...............................................................................................................339Synthesizing Across Cases: The Breakdown of Structural and Normative Constraints.............................................341Future Research..............................................................................................................347Notes........................................................................................................................349Bibliography.................................................................................................................351Index........................................................................................................................375

Chapter One

DO DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS and political norms influence foreign policy decisions? This book examines this question by focusing on one of the most important decisions a political leader will make: whether or not to use military force to resolve inter-state conflicts. When facing conflicts such as territorial disputes, treaty violations, or threats to nationals abroad, political leaders must determine if military force is an appropriate response to the external challenge. Leaders must carefully weigh the probability of success associated with a military solution with the potential domestic and international costs of the policy. Domestic political institutions and norms can influence this decision process in a number of ways. Over the long term, institutions socialize current and future political leaders regarding acceptable means for resolving political conflicts both at home and abroad. More immediately, political institutions determine which members of the political elite participate in the decision regarding the use of force. After a use of force, institutions can facilitate the punishment of leaders who choose to use force and fail to achieve foreign policy objectives, succeed but at a socially unacceptable cost, or violate social standards in pursuit of victory.

More broadly, one can ask whether political institutions influence public policy in general; the answer to this question seems to be an obvious yes. It is common knowledge that the choice of a voting rule for elections, such as proportional representation versus "first-past-the-post," can have a decisive influence on subsequent policy choices (Lijphart 1977). Similarly, institutional theorists have shown that the structure of the decision-making process in the legislature can induce equilibrium despite the potential for voting cycles (Shepsle and Weingast 1981). Research has also demonstrated that institutional structures can affect problem definition, agenda formation, information flows, participation, and policy implementation (Kingdon 1984; Krehbiel 1992). As far as domestic policy decisions are concerned, then, it seems obvious that institutions matter.

When discussion turns to the field of international affairs, however, the situation becomes more muddled. Traditionally, security issues have been viewed as categorically different from domestic policy issues. In part, this difference stems from the importance of the issue at hand; if the very existence of the state is at stake, domestic political conflicts must be suppressed in the interest of national security. The difference is also due to the dominance of the executive in foreign policy decision making. Typically, the complex nature of the costs and benefits to be evaluated coupled with the rapidly changing external environment leads to a centralization of decisionmaking power within the executive. Legislators and even cabinet members are often excluded from the decision-making process; case studies have demonstrated that during intense crises most key decisions are made by a handful of individuals regardless of the state's institutional structure (Elman 1997b; Mendelson 1993). Finally, most noncrisis security issues are typically seen as overly abstract and essentially irrelevant from the perspective of the average citizen. With the exception of international trade issues, only a narrow segment of the attentive public actively follows foreign policy debates. This indifference tends to leave foreign policy in the hands of the chief executive.

For these reasons, many theorists have argued that domestic politics and institutional structures are irrelevant to the foreign policy decision-making process (Gowa 1999). Political realists have long argued that power politics drive inter-state relations; the balance of military and economic power between the two adversaries is believed to determine the dynamics of a conflict and its ultimate outcome (Mearsheimer 2001). For political realists, the internal structure of the state is largely irrelevant because when the security of a state is threatened, all decision makers will behave in a similar manner. Democrats, dictators, monarchs, and oligarchs will all seek to maximize a state's ability to meet the external threat. Failure to do so would result in their elimination from the system in the long run (Waltz 1979).

Criticism of the realist claim that institutions are irrelevant has come from both within and outside the realist camp. One realist faction has argued that although internal factors should not influence foreign policy, domestic politics often do creep into the policy process with unfortunate, if not disastrous, consequences (Gulick 1955; Machiavelli 1950). For these individuals, realism is a normative theory rather than an accurate description of behavior in the modern world; the realist tenets are goals to be strived for rather than an inevitable result of systemic forces. Many individuals who adhere to this vein of criticism have argued that democratic institutions are a hindrance to the development and implementation of coherent foreign policies. Implicitly or explicitly, these observers contend that polities with centralized and unchallenged authority have greater capacity for making sound foreign policy decisions over the long term. Machiavelli (1950) argued that democratic regimes were inherently expansionary or imperialist. Hintze ([1906] 1975) concluded that democratic institutions clashed with military efficiency. Lippmann (1922, 1925) believed that the volatility of domestic public opinion undermined the president's ability to design a coherent foreign policy.

From outside the realist camp, a school of thought has rejected both the irrelevance and the hindrance arguments. Idealists, at least since the days of Immanuel Kant, have argued that democratic institutions improve decision making within states and that democracies in general serve as a positive force for peace in the international arena. Rather than hindering foreign policy formation, the democratic process encourages broad participation in the setting of foreign policy goals, ensuring that state policy serves the interests of the entire state rather than those of an individual or interest group. Reiter and Stam (2002) argue that this broad support helps democracies fight harder on the battlefield, contributing to the outstanding win-lose record of democratic polities.

Kant ([1795] 1971), writing in an era in which a single republic existed, argued that the spread of the republican form of government would lead to a decline in international violence. Kant claimed that the autocratic monarchs of his day chose a policy of war because they reaped the benefits of war without having to pay any of its costs. Plunder, monopoly trade links, and new revenue-producing land increased the wealth, power, and prestige of monarchs; human and financial costs were borne by mercenaries, unfortunates, and the taxpaying public. Kant argued that expanding the accountability of monarchs to a legislature would decrease the incentive for war by reintegrating the cost variable into the decision-making process.

Early empirical research did not support the Kantian hypothesis (Wright [1942] 1965; Small and Singer 1976). However, subsequent research found that although democracies are not particularly pacific overall, they seem to avoid large-scale conflict with other democracies (Doyle 1983, 1986; Maoz and Abdolali 1989; Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman 1992; Bremer 1992, 1993; Maoz and Russett 1993; Russett 1993; Rousseau et al. 1996; Huth and Allee 2002; Russett and Oneal 2001; Dixon and Senese 2002; Peceny et al. 2002; Rasler and Thompson 2001; Bennett and Stam 2004). This "joint democracy" or "dyadic" finding has become the cornerstone of the democratic peace literature.

Central Questions

This book refines and extends research on the relationship between domestic political institutions and foreign policy decisions by examining six specific questions, presented sequentially in chapters 2 through 7. First, are more democratic states less likely to initiate violence regardless of the regime type of their opponent, or are democracies more pacific only when dealing with other democracies? This monadic versus dyadic effect of democratic institutions has been the central question in the debate on the relationship between regime type and international conflict. Although the vast majority of studies have produced strong support for the dyadic argument, research with respect to the monadic argument has produced mixed results. Whereas several studies have rejected the monadic argument (Wright [1942] 1965; Small and Singer 1976; Chan 1984; Weede 1984; Maoz and Abdolali 1989; Dassel and Reinhardt 1999), others have found support for the argument either directly or indirectly (Rummel 1983; Bremer 1992; Schweller 1992; Dixon 1993; Benoit 1996; Rioux 1998; Schultz 1999, 2001; Ireland and Gartner 2001; Russett and Oneal 2001; Huth and Allee 2002; Bennett and Stam 2000, 2004).

Supporters of the monadic argument propose that leaders of democratic states are less likely to resort to military force to resolve an international conflict due to political norms or institutional structures (or some combination of the two). The political norms variant argues that democratic leaders are less likely to initiate violence because they are socialized to accept compromise and to use nonviolent means of conflict resolution. The institutional structure variant contends that democratic leaders are reluctant to use force because opposition groups in society can punish leaders for failures or costly mistakes. According to either variant, democratic polities should be less likely to resort to military force regardless of the regime type of the opposition.

Proponents of the dyadic argument begin with similar building blocks: peaceful norms of conflict resolution and constraining institutional structures. However, the dyadic argument adds a critical assumption that makes the behavior of democracies conditional (or interactive). The dyadic model assumes that democratic leaders expect that their nondemocratic opponents will quickly resort to force and/or will refuse to negotiate in good faith. This expectation leads democratic decision makers to adopt more coercive foreign policies when facing nondemocracies, including the willingness to use force first.

Although the "monadic" versus "dyadic" hypotheses have been tested in the literature, research design flaws ranging from theoretically inappropriate dependent variables to unsuitable units of observation render findings from previous research inconclusive. The empirical tests in Chapter 2 represent a unique contribution to the growing body of literature by employing the most recent version of the International Crisis Behavior data set (1918-2001), using dependent variables that measure the number of regular and irregular troops used in operations, focusing on conflict initiation rather than involvement, employing a directed dyad data structure, and testing competing explanations such as the selectorate model of Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues (2003).

Second, has the literature, which has focused almost exclusively on wars and militarized crises, underestimated the importance of institutions by neglecting the fact that democratic institutions may inhibit the escalation of a nonmilitarized dispute into a war or militarized crisis? Most of the democratic peace literature neglects the fact that political conflicts evolve over time. Examining this evolutionary process is important because norms and structures could have different influences at different stages of the conflict. In this book, a dispute is defined as a political-security conflict between two independent states. Disputes can be triggered by a variety of issues, ranging from disagreements over territorial boundaries to clashes over ideology. As Figure 1.1 depicts, disputes can evolve in a number of ways. A dispute can be permanently resolved through negotiation or third-party mediation. Alternatively, a dispute can be ongoing in the sense that the underlying conflict is never resolved to the liking of both parties, yet neither party chooses to escalate the dispute. Finally, a dispute can escalate into a crisis, defined as a confrontation in which at least one party actively contemplates using military force to resolve the dispute. Some crises are resolved without either party resorting to force; in others, one or both sides might use low or high levels of force with the aim of permanently and favorably resolving the dispute.

It is quite likely that selection effects have a powerful impact on the relationship between regime type and the use of external violence. Selection effects occur when individuals, such as foreign policy leaders, can choose whether or not to be in a sample. Whether or not to enter a dispute or escalate a dispute into a crisis is a choice. If democratic leaders systematically choose not to escalate disputes, then an analysis of a "crisis" data set that does not control for the self-selection process can lead to a misinterpretation of the relationship between regime type and the use of force. For example, we could conceivably discover a strong monadic effect at the dispute level but only a dyadic effect at the crisis level. An analysis of crises would incorrectly conclude there is no monadic effect of institutions. Conversely, we may find that norms and structures have powerful effects at the dispute level, but only structural concerns remain at the crisis level.

The empirical tests in Chapter 3 fill an important gap in the literature by employing a unique data set of international disputes. Unlike other research that has focused on a single-issue area (for example, the class of territorial disputes explored by Hensel [2001] or Huth and Allee [2002]), this data set contains disputes from a broad range of issue areas, including antiregime and ethnic conflict disputes. Moreover, broader data sets such as "all dyads" or "politically relevant dyads" (for example, Reed [2000]) cannot shed light on the central issue addressed in Chapter 3: why do some disputes escalate to military conflict whereas others do not?

Third, has the almost exclusive focus on regime type led to a neglect of how domestic institutions can either constrain or encourage armed conflict? Critics of the democratic peace contend that regime type and institutional constraint are not perfectly correlated because the level of constraint can vary widely in both democracies and autocracies. Elman (2000) argues that prime ministers leading a coalition in a parliamentary democracy face greater ex ante and ex post constraints than either the leaders of presidential systems or a parliamentarian system dominated by a majority party. Prime ministers in coalition governments typically must obtain approval in the cabinet prior to commencing hostilities; in addition, after the commencement or conclusion of the operation, the government can be toppled in a vote of no confidence. Similarly, Peterson (1996) argues that the distribution of decisionmaking power in the executive can constrain leaders. She contends that opposition within the Politburo in the post-Stalin years constrained leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev because the opposition could threaten to punish Khrushchev for failures or costly successes.

In addition to neglecting variance within regime types, most studies of the democratic peace that have gone beyond the use of a dummy variable to measure regime type (that is, democracy or not) have relied on a single source of data on institutional constraint: the Polity data sets developed by Ted Robert Gurr and his colleagues. This dependency raises the issue of robustness with respect to the results. I address the institutional structure versus regime type debate in Chapter 4 by developing entirely new measures of institutional constraint. I examine how the existence of collective decisionmaking bodies in the executive, opposition parties in the legislature, and rival factions in the ruling party influence decisions to use military force to resolve international disputes.

The institutional constraint model developed and tested in Chapter 4 represents an important contribution to the literature because the analysis employs the new dispute data set, examines constraint in both democracies and autocracies, probes the impact of informal factions in both political parties and the executive branch, and measures political opposition in the legislature more precisely than have most previous studies.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Democracy and Warby DAVID L. ROUSSEAU Copyright © 2005 by Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.