A Tale of Two Democratic Peace Critiques

Of approximately 100 empirical democratic peace articles published in journals and papers presented at conferences over the last 10 years, none identifies a positive and statistically significant relationship between democratic dyads and militarized conflict. Therefore, many international relations researchers have reached the conclusion that widespread democratization will lead to a more peaceful world. Nevertheless, two different attacks on these fundamental premises have been advanced recently. One argues that the pacificity of democratic dyads is restricted to the post-World War II era. The other argues that democratizing states, as opposed to states experiencing regime changes, have a greater propensity to engage in war. The present authors find that neither the arguments nor the evidence hold up well to closer scrutiny. First, when controlling for changes in specific predominant rivalry structures, pre-1914 democratic dyads are less likely to engage in militarized conflict. Second, democratic transitions do not produce a window of heightened vulnerability to war participation.