Campus Units
Political Science
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
Democracies are thought to behave differently than other states when cooperating in alliances, organizations, trade, and a host of other international institutions. We contend, however, that these democratic differences largely depend upon geopolitical environments that make cooperation possible. Though studies have demonstrated endogeneity between democracy and peace, few analyze the effects of this joint relationship on democratic differences in cooperative foreign policy behavior. We address this using the alliance literature as an example. We argue that alliances are used to either deter aggression or serve as conduits to advance other goals. Alliances that deter occur in dangerous environments, while those that serve other purposes cluster in peaceful environments. We find that alliances used to deter are particularly unreliable “scraps of paper”, and that the general reliability of alliances is concentrated among those existing in already-peaceful environments, which are unlikely to be invoked. By jointly modeling regime type and political environment using data on alliance termination from 1920–2001, we show that alliance reliability is a function of the latter rather than the former. Our argument has important ramifications for a host of literatures focused on regime type, as well as current debates over the effectiveness of democratic deterrence.
Copyright Owner
The Author(s)
Copyright Date
2019
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Gibler, Douglas M. and Nieman, Mark D., "Peaceful Neighborhoods and Democratic Differences" (2019). Political Science Publications. 71.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/pols_pubs/71
Included in
American Politics Commons, International Relations Commons, Models and Methods Commons, Political Theory Commons
Comments
This is an unpublished paper Gibler, D.M., Nieman, M.D., Peaceful Neighborhoods and Democratic Differences. 2019