The Democratic Peace and Rivalries

In: The journal of politics: JOP, Band 62, Heft 4, S. 1173-1188

Abstract

This article reexamines the democratic peace in a longitudinal fashion. We extend the democratic peace proposition beyond isolated militarized disputes or wars to longer-term interstate rivalries. Rivalries of all types are rare among democratic dyads; there is only one case of enduring rivalry between consistently democratic states, & most conflictual relationships between democracies remain confined to isolated conflict. Second, we assess the effect of regime change on rivalry behavior when a regime change precipitates or ends a jointly democratic dyad. Enduring rivalries that include both joint democratic & nondemocratic periods exhibit significantly lower dispute propensities while both rivals are democratic, although proto-rivalries show much smaller differences. Importantly, the pacifying effect of democracy appears to strengthen over time after the transition to joint democracy, which is consistent with the onset & deepening of democratic norms. Both proto & enduring rivalries show a decreasing propensity for militarized conflict within a year of the transition to joint democracy, & this propensity decreases almost to zero within five years. Our results generally confirm & extend the robust effects of the democratic peace. 4 Tables, 23 References. Adapted from the source document.