IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Common Interests or Common Polities? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace

Author

Listed:
  • Henry S. Farber
  • Joanne Gowa

Abstract

The central claim of a rapidly growing literature in international relations is that members of pairs of democratic states are much less likely to engage each other in war or in serious disputes short of war than are members of other pairs of states. Our analysis does not support this claim. Instead, we find that the dispute rate between democracies is lower than is that of other country pairs only after World War II. Before 1914 and between the World Wars, there is no difference between the war rates of members of democratic pairs of states and those of members of other pairs of states. We also find that there is a higher incidence of serious disputes short of war between democracies than between nondemocracies before 1914. We attribute this cross-temporal variation in dispute rates to changes in patterns of common and conflicting interests across time. We use alliances as an indicator of common interests to show that cross-temporal variation in dispute rates conforms to variations in interest patterns for two of the three time periods in our sample.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry S. Farber & Joanne Gowa, 1995. "Common Interests or Common Polities? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace," NBER Working Papers 5005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5005
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chae-Han Kim, 1991. "Third-Party Participation in Wars," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(4), pages 659-677, December.
    2. McGowan, Patrick J. & Rood, Robert M., 1975. "Alliance Behavior in Balance of Power Systems: Applying a Poisson Model to Nineteenth-Century Europe," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 859-870, September.
    3. Doyle, Michael W., 1986. "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1151-1169, December.
    4. 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.
    5. Steve Chan, 1984. "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall..," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(4), pages 617-648, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. David Brulé, 2006. "Congressional Opposition, the Economy, and U.S. Dispute Initiation, 1946-2000," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(4), pages 463-483, August.
    2. Michael W. Simon & Erik Gartzke, 1996. "Political System Similarity And The Choice of Allies," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 40(4), pages 617-635, December.
    3. Paola Conconi & Nicolas Sahuguet & Maurizio Zanardi, 2014. "Democratic Peace And Electoral Accountability," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 997-1028, August.
    4. Paul F. Diehl, 1996. "Territorial Dimensions of International Conflict: An Introduction," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 15(1), pages 1-5, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Ely Ratner, 2009. "Reaping What You Sow," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(3), pages 390-418, June.
    7. Sara McLaughlin Mitchell & Scott Gates & HÃ¥vard Hegre, 1999. "Evolution in Democracy-War Dynamics," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 43(6), pages 771-792, December.
    8. Krista E. Wiegand & Emilia Justynia Powell, 2011. "Unexpected Companions," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(3), pages 209-229, July.
    9. Paul K. Huth, 1996. "Enduring Rivalries and Territorial Disputes, 1950-1990," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 15(1), pages 7-41, February.
    10. David Altman & Federico Rojas-de-Galarreta & Francisco Urdinez, 2021. "An interactive model of democratic peace," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 384-398, May.
    11. Håvard Hegre, 2005. "Development and the Liberal Peace," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, pages 17-46.
    12. Kristian S. Gleditsch & Michael D. Ward, 1997. "Double Take," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(3), pages 361-383, June.
    13. Patrick Regan & Russell J. Leng, 2003. "Culture and Negotiation in Militarized Interstate Disputes," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 20(2), pages 111-132, September.
    14. Yakub Halabi, 2016. "Is the Israeli Democracy a Hindrance to Peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority?," International Studies, , vol. 53(2), pages 136-152, April.
    15. Sahuguet, Nicolas & Zanardi, Maurizio & Conconi, Paola, 2008. "Democratic Peace and Electoral Accountability¤," CEPR Discussion Papers 6908, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. 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.
    17. Michael Mousseau, 1998. "Democracy and Compromise in Militarized Interstate Conflicts, 1816-1992," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 42(2), pages 210-230, April.
    18. T. Clifton Morgan & Sally Howard Campbell, 1991. "Domestic Structure, Decisional Constraints, and War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(2), pages 187-211, June.
    19. William J. Dixon & Paul D. Senese, 2002. "Democracy, Disputes, and Negotiated Settlements," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(4), pages 547-571, August.
    20. Beth A. Simmons, 2002. "Capacity, Commitment, and Compliance," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(6), pages 829-856, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order and Integration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:5005. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.