IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v47y2003i4p520-548.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Colonial War and the Democratic Peace

Author

Listed:
  • Hilde Ravlo

    (Department of Political Science Vanderbilt University, Nashville)

  • Nils Petter Gleditsch

    (International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO))

  • Han Dorussen

    (Department of Government University of Essex)

Abstract

Proponents of the democratic peace have been criticized for failing to discuss colonial wars. Democratic countries have repeatedly fought such wars, which critics hold to be incompatible with democratic peace theory. Three reasons are suggested to explain why colonial wars do not invalidate the democratic peace argument. First, although democracies rarely, if ever, fight one another, they participate in war as much as nondemocracies. Thus, mixed political dyads have the greatest propensity for war. If nonstate adversaries are commonly perceived to be nondemocratic, democracies should fight colonial wars more frequently. Second, the nature of colonial conflict has changed over time. The relationship between democracy and colonial war is examined in colonial, imperialist, and postcolonial periods. Finally, a correct assessment of the democratic peace argument needs to rely on a multivariate model. With a suitable set of control variables, the positive relationship between war and democracy disappears. We also observe that in the post-World War II period, democracies fight colonial wars less frequently than non-democracies. We surmise that this might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples.

Suggested Citation

  • Hilde Ravlo & Nils Petter Gleditsch & Han Dorussen, 2003. "Colonial War and the Democratic Peace," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 47(4), pages 520-548, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:47:y:2003:i:4:p:520-548
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002703254295
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002703254295
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002703254295?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dixon, William J., 1994. "Democracy and the Peaceful Settlement of International Conflict," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 14-32, March.
    2. Kristian S. Gleditsch & Michael D. Ward, 1999. "A revised list of independent states since the congress of Vienna," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 393-413, October.
    3. Patrick James & Glenn Mitchell, 1995. "Targets of covert pressure: The hidden victims of the democratic peace," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 85-107.
    4. Ward, Michael D. & Gleditsch, Kristian S., 1998. "Democratizing for Peace," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 51-61, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2004. "Conflict as a Part of the Bargaining Process: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 129, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael J. Ireland & Scott Sigmund Gartner, 2001. "Time to Fight," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 45(5), pages 547-568, October.
    2. Johann Park, 2013. "Forward to the future? The democratic peace after the Cold War," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(2), pages 178-194, April.
    3. Ely Ratner, 2009. "Reaping What You Sow," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(3), pages 390-418, June.
    4. Michael Mousseau, 2000. "Market Prosperity, Democratic Consolidation, and Democratic Peace," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 44(4), pages 472-507, August.
    5. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Steve Pickering, 2014. "Wars are becoming less frequent: a response to Harrison and Wolf," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(1), pages 214-230, February.
    6. Joe Eyerman & Robert A. Hart Jr., 1996. "An Empirical Test of The Audience Cost Proposition," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 40(4), pages 597-616, December.
    7. Agustín Goenaga & Oriol Sabaté & Jan Teorell, 2023. "The state does not live by warfare alone: War and revenue in the long nineteenth century," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 393-418, April.
    8. Elisabeth Gilmore & Nils Petter Gleditsch & Päivi Lujala & Jan Ketil Rod, 2005. "Conflict Diamonds: A New Dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 22(3), pages 257-272, July.
    9. Martin Gassebner & Jerg Gutmann & Stefan Voigt, 2016. "When to expect a coup d’état? An extreme bounds analysis of coup determinants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 293-313, December.
    10. Conconi, Paola & Sahuguet, Nicolas & Zanardi, Maurizio, 2018. "Electoral incentives, term limits, and the sustainability of peace," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 15-26.
    11. J. Joseph Hewitt, 2003. "Dyadic Processes and International Crises," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 47(5), pages 669-692, October.
    12. David B Carter, 2017. "History as a double-edged sword," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(4), pages 400-421, November.
    13. James A. Piazza, 2013. "The Cost of Living and Terror: Does Consumer Price Volatility Fuel Terrorism?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 812-831, April.
    14. Sunde, Uwe & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2011. "Democratization and Civil Liberties: The Role of Violence During the Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 8315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Christian Davenport, 1999. "Human Rights and the Democratic Proposition," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 43(1), pages 92-116, February.
    16. Brian Lai & Dan Reiter, 2000. "Democracy, Political Similarity, and International Alliances, 1816-1992," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 44(2), pages 203-227, April.
    17. Bernauer, Thomas & Spilker, Gabriele, 2010. "Escalation dynamics in WTO disputes over environment, health and safety issues," Papers 89, World Trade Institute.
    18. Kimana Zulueta†Fülscher, 2018. "Overcoming the ownership dilemma: Contributing to peace and democracy in El Salvador and the Philippines," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S1), pages 220-246, March.
    19. Michael Mousseau, 2005. "Comparing New Theory with Prior Beliefs: Market Civilization and the Democratic Peace," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 22(1), pages 63-77, February.
    20. Xinyuan Dai, 2006. "The Conditional Nature of Democratic Compliance," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(5), pages 690-713, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:47:y:2003:i:4:p:520-548. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.