Peaceful dyads: A territorial perspective

Many dyads develop peaceful relationships, avoiding war for long, historical periods. Are such dyads common? How many exist, and why have they never fought? This study provides a territorial perspective on peaceful dyads, defined as those that never fight a war over a given historical period. It compares two explanations for why peaceful dyads exist: the territorial peace and the democratic peace. A series of hypotheses test the relative ability of these two theories to account for peaceful dyads. The tests employ three samples – all dyads, politically relevant dyads, and grievance dyads – from 1816–2001, with an emphasis on the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. Through our analyses, we produce three major findings. First, the absence of territorial conflict – but not democracy – predicts peaceful dyads. Second, the absence of territorial disagreements appears in the vast majority (i.e., 85–96%) of peaceful dyads. Finally, approximately, 93–98% of democratic dyads lack any territorial disagreements. This implies that democratic dyads are peaceful because they face different issues than non-democratic dyads – ones less likely to undermine the development of peaceful, dyadic relationships.