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There is a widespread belief, among both political scientists and government policymakers, that "democracies don't fight each other." Here Joanne Gowa challenges that belief. In a thorough, systematic critique, she shows that, while democracies were less likely than other states to engage each other in armed conflicts between 1945 and 1980, they were just as likely to do so as were other states before 1914. Thus, no reason exists to believe that a democratic peace will survive the end of the Cold War. Since U.S. foreign policy is currently directed toward promoting democracy abroad, Gowa's fi

Cover page -- Half-title page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication page -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter One: Introduction -- Chapter Two: Hegemonic Stability Theory: A Critical Review -- Chapter Three: Allies, Adversaries, and Free Trade -- Chapter Four: Alliances and Trade: An Empirical Analysis -- Chapter Five: The Anglo-French Entente -- Chapter Six: Extensions and Qualifications -- Chapter Seven: Conclusion -- Appendix A: List of Alliances -- Appendix B: British Import Duties, 1910-11 -- Bibliography -- Primary Sources -- Secondary Sources -- Index.

Political scientists and policy-makers agree that democratic states were less likely to engage each other in militarized disputes than were other states during the Cold War. Most among them attribute this to their domestic political structures. Some, however, believe that the common and conflicting interests that the East-West conflict induced explain the relatively low democratic-dispute rate. Evidence from the post-Cold War world can help to arbitrate between these very different claims, as the collapse of the Soviet Union destroyed the bipolar system, precipitated a sharp rise in the number of democracies, and shifted dispute-rate patterns. The analyses in this paper show that dyadic dispute rates converge after the Cold War, casting doubt on the existence of a democratic peace. Adapted from the source document.

Der Artikel untersucht die Auswirkungen der amerikanischen Parteipolitik und des Wahlzyklus (Präsidentschaftswahlen) auf die militärischen Aktionen der USA im Ausland und versucht somit, einen Zusammenhang herzustellen zwischen der innenpolitischen Situation und außenpolitischer Maßnahmen.Im konkreten Fall analysiert der Autor die amerikanische Beteiligung an bewaffneten Konflikten zwischen den Jahren 1870 - 1992 und kommt zu dem Ergebnis, daß in keinem Fall innenpolitische Probleme der Auslöser waren, sondern einerseits ein Wechsel in der machtpolitischen Stellung der USA und andererseits die Ausbrüche beider Weltkriege (SWP-Drh)

This article examines the effects of party politics and presidential election cycles on U.S. recourse to force abroad. I analyze a game-theoretic model to generate predictions about these effects. In the unique time-consistent equilibrium outcome of the one-shot game, policy varies across political parties. In a subgame–perfect equilibrium outcome of the repeated game, the use of force is invariant to the partisan composition of government. In neither case does policy respond to the electoral cycle.An empirical analysis supports the predictions of the repeated game. Between 1870 and 1992, U.S. recourse to force abroad responds neither to partisan politics nor to the domestic political calendar. It responds only to changes in U.S. power status and to the advent of general wars.

A growing literature in international relations concludes that democratic states pursue distinctive foreign policies. Specifically, democracies do not engage each other in war and only rarely engage each other in serious disputes short of war. Scholars have offered three basic explanations to support these findings. Each of the three invokes a different explanatory variable: norms, checks and balances, and trade. None of the three, however, provides a convincing explanation of the peace that is said to prevail between democratic polities: the distinction between norms and interests is unclear; substitutes for checks and balances exists in nondemocracies; and trade can deter conflict only under restrictive conditions.

Recent literature typically attributes the relative scarcity of open international markets to the prisoner's dilemma structure of state preferences with respect to trade. I argue that the prisoner's dilemma representation does not reflect the most critical aspect of free trade agreements in an anarchic international system: security externalities. Explicit consideration of these effects suggests that a bipolar international political system has an advantage relative to its multipolar counterpart with respect to the opening of markets among states. Less credible exit threats and stronger incentives to engage in altruism within its alliances explain the advantage of a two-power system.

In defining international free trade as a public good, "hegemonic stability theory" posited early in the 1970s that its reliable supply depended upon a distribution of international power analogous to that within a privileged group. More recently, however, critics have challenged three assumptions fundamental to hegemonic theory: its premises of free trade, public goods, and privileged groups. They have concluded that hegemony is not necessary for, and indeed may be antithetical to, a stable world economy based on market exchange.The author argues that the critics overstate their case. The assumptions they attack allow hegemonic theory to represent analytically several critically important barriers to free trade among states. Among these are the existence of strategic interdependence among the actors and the prevalence of informational asymmetries. The most significant flaw in hegemonic theory is its neglect of the essence of the domain to which it applies: the politics of inter-state trade in an anarchic world.