The Democratic Peace

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THEORY AND PRACTICE(Course number MSFS 510-02)

Russett and Oneal: Triangulating peace – From WikiSummary, the Free Social Science Summary Database.

Schultz, Kenneth A. 1999. Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War. International Organization 53 (2):233-266.

Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, James D. Morrow, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alastair Smith. 1999. An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace. American Political Science Review 93(4):791-808.

Instructor: James Raymond Vreeland

From last time, economic models of US elections do well…

Today's plan

1. Triangulating peace

2. The BDM2S2 story

3. Schultz and backwards induction

4. Selection problems

5. Quantitative analysis

6. WEEKS!

The Democratic Peace

Democracy

International OrganizationsInternational Trade

PeaceWar

Vocab Question

• What is the difference between “dyadic effects” & “systemic effects”?

– Ask a randomly selected student time!

– What would a “monadic” effect be?

• Using technology– Google: monadic dyadic systemic

– Google-scholar it?

BDM2S2 begin with 8 empirical regularities:

1. Democracies do not fight wars against each other (dyadic)

2. Democracies do fight wars with non-democracies (dyadic)

3. Democracies win a disproportionate share of the wars they fight (monadic)

4. When disputes do emerge, democratic dyads choose more peaceful processes of dispute settlement than do other pairings of states (dyadic)

5. Democracies are more likely to initiate wars against autocracies than are autocracies against democracies (dyadic)

6. In wars they initiate, democracies pay fewer costs in terms of human life and fight shorter wars than nondemocratic states (monadic)

7. Transitional democracies appear more likely to fight than stable regimes (monadic)

8. Larger democracies seem more constrained to avoid war than smaller democracies (monadic)

BDM2S2 conception of regime

• Aristotelian– The key has to do with the number of rulers – or more

specifically, the number of people who choose the rulers

• S– “selectorate”– Enfranchised people who have a say in who rules

• W– “winning coalition”– Those people whose support is requires to– keep the incumbent in office

• Survival is the key• And institutions shape the effective strategies for survival

Hazard Rate over Time for Democracies (Solid Line) & Dictatorships (Dotted Line) – Time in years

2015105

0.625

0.5

0.375

0.25

Time (years)

Hazard Rate

Time (years)

Hazard Rate

Schultz

The complete info game…

Working backwards… if –a<w1, game reduces to:

Working backwards… if –a<w1, game reduces to:

Working backwards… if –a>w1, game reduces to:

Working backwards… if –a>w1, game reduces to:

Summarizing

• S1 plays [CH, SF] if –a<w1– highly negative audience costs (democracies)

successfully challenge

• S1 plays [SQ, BD] if –a>w1– weakly negative audience costs (autocracies) don’t

challenge

• S2 plays CD if –a<w1 – both democracies and autocracies concede to

challengers with highly negative audience costs (democracies)

• S2 plays RS if –a>w1– both democracies and autocracies resist challengers with

weakly negative audience costs (autocracies)

Complete info version

• Complete: w1 & w2 are “common knowledge”– Explain

• Solve the game through backwards induction– Last node (S1): If –a<wi, then “stand firm”, else “back down”– S2:

• If –a<wi (threat), “concede” (because w2<0)• If –a>wi (bluff), “resist” (because 0<1)

– 1st node (S1):• If –a<wi, then “challenge” (because 1>0)• If –a>wi, then “status quo” (because –a<0)

Incomplete info version

• Bluffing occurs

• S2 resists only if its expected value from war, w2, is is sufficiently high to make the gamble (that S1 is just bluffing) worthwhile

• The probability that a challenge is “resisted” thus depends on the value of w2

Schultz

Accountability/competition storyVs

Informational/transparency story

Explain each

What is the prediction of each of how a democracy will react when challenged by another democracy?

Accountability/competition story

• Costs of war are higher for democracies

• In the model, draw w2 from a different distribution (increase d1)

Informational/transparency story

• Audience costs are higher for democracies

• In the model, assign different values of a according to regime

Hypotheses

Tests

Probability of reciprocating:

Pr( )'' '

x f e dit

x x

it

it itit1

2

2

2

Usually written:

nnxxxxwherexF ...),( 22110'

“Excel” command is just=NORMSDIST(“B’x”)

Selection problem? BDM2S2 p802:

Thank youWE ARE GLOBAL GEORGETOWN!