Suchergebnisse

Coercion through air power has been and continues to be an important tool of foreign policy. Multivariate probit analysis is used to test three hypotheses on all instances of air power coercion from 1917 to 1999: (1) air power coercion attempts are more likely to work if they exploit military rather than civilian vulnerabilities, (2) the regime type of the target affects the chances of success, and (3) success is less likely if the attacker demands that the target change its leadership. Results show that coercion is more likely to work if the target's military vulnerability is higher, but higher levels of civilian vulnerability have no effect on the chances of coercion success; that target regime type has no effect; and that success is less likely when the attacker demands the target change its leadership.

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.

Why do democracies win wars? This is a critical question in the study of international relations, as a traditional view--expressed most famously by Alexis de Tocqueville--has been that democracies are inferior in crafting foreign policy and fighting wars. In Democracies at War, the first major study of its kind, Dan Reiter and Allan Stam come to a very different conclusion. Democracies tend to win the wars they fight--specifically, about eighty percent of the time. Complementing their wide-ranging case-study analysis, the authors apply innovative statistical tests and new hypot