This article uses a laboratory experiment to explore how groups’ internal rules for leader selection affect how leaders select into and fight conflicts. The findings reveal that, counter to expectations, leaders of democratic groups were more likely than leaders of autocratic groups to select into a conflict rather than accept a negotiated settlement. Conditional on conflict occurring, democratic leaders did not mobilize more resources for war than autocratic leaders. However, democratic leaders were less likely to accept a settlement once a war was underway and they expended more effort in the last round of conflict, suggesting once they entered a war they fought for a decisive victory. Domestically, democratic leaders were punished for losing wars more often than autocratic leaders, while winning wars did not benefit democratic leaders significantly.
AndersonS.SouvaM.. 2010. “The Accountability Effects of Political Institutions and Capitalism on Interstate Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution54 (4): 543–65.
2.
AradA.RubinsteinA.. 2012. “Multi-dimensional Iterative Reasoning in Action: The Case of the Colonel Blotto Game.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization84 (2): 571–85.
3.
BakD.PalmerG.. 2011. “Looking for Careless Dictators: Target Selection and Regime Type.” Working Paper. Accessed January 19, 2015. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1900613.
4.
BauschA. W.2014. “An Experimental Test of Selectorate Theory.” International Interactions40 (4): 533–53.
BauschA. W.2015. “Democracy, War Effort, and the Systemic Democratic Peace.” Journal of Peace Research52 (4): 435–447.
7.
BornsteinG.1992. “The Free-rider Problem in Intergroup Conflicts over Step-level and Continuous Public Goods.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology62 (4): 597–606.
8.
BornsteinG.Ben-YossefM.. 1994. “Cooperation in Intergroup and Single-group Social Dilemmas.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology30 (1): 52–67.
9.
BornsteinG.ErevI.RosenO.. 1990. “Intergroup Competition as a Structural Solution to Social Dilemmas.” Social Behavior5 (4): 247–60.
10.
BornsteinG.GneezyU.NagelR.. 2002. “The Effect of Intergroup Competition on Group Coordination: An Experimental Study.” Games and Economic Behavior41 (1): 1–25.
11.
Bueno de MesquitaB.MorrowJ.SiversonR.SmithA.. 1999a. “An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace.” The American Political Science Review93 (4): 791–807.
12.
Bueno de MesquitaB.MorrowJ.SiversonR.SmithA.. 1999b. “Policy Failure and Political Survival: The Contribution of Political Institutions.” Journal of Conflict Resolution43:147–61.
13.
Bueno de MesquitaB.MorrowJ.SiversonR.SmithA.. 2004. “Testing Novel Implications from the Selectorate Theory of War.” World Politics56 (3): 363–88.
14.
Bueno de MesquitaB.SiversonR.. 1995. “War and the Survival of Political Leaders: A Comparative Study of Regime Types and Political Accountability.” American Political Science Review89 (4): 841–55.
15.
Bueno de MesquitaB.SmithA.SiversonR.MorrowJ.. 2005. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
16.
ClarkD.ReedW.. 2003. “A Unified Model of War Onset and Outcome.” Journal of Politics65 (1): 69–91.
17.
CrocoS.2011. “The Decider’s Dilemma: Leader Culpability, War Outcomes, and Domestic Punishment.” American Political Science Review105 (3): 457–77.
18.
DechenauxE.KovenockD.SheremetaR. M.. 2014. “A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments.” Experimental Economics, DOI: 10.1007/s10683-014-9421-0.
19.
DeckC.SheremetaR. M.. 2012. “Fight or Flight? Defending against Sequential Attacks in the Game of Siege.” Journal of Conflict Resolution56 (6): 1069–88.
20.
DeschM.2002. “Democracy and Victory: Why Regime Type Hardly Matters.” International Security27 (2): 5–47.
21.
DeschM.2003. “Democracy and Victory: Fair Fights or Food Fights?” International Security28 (1): 180–94.
22.
DownesA.2009. “How Smart and Tough Are Democracies? Reassessing Theories of Democratic Victory in War.” International Security33 (4): 9–51.
23.
DurhamY.HirshleiferJ.SmithV.. 1998. “Do the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Poorer? Experimental Tests of a Model of Power.” American Economic Review88 (4): 970–83.
24.
ErevI.BornsteinG.GaliliR.. 1993. “Constructive Intergroup Competition as a Solution to the Free Rider Problem: A Field Experiment.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology29 (6): 463–78.
GelpiC.GriesdorfM.. 2001. “Winners or Losers? Democracies in International Crisis, 1918–94.” American Political Science Review95 (3): 633–47.
27.
GoemansH. E.2008. “Which Way Out? The Manner and Consequences of Losing Office.” Journal of Conflict Resolution52 (6): 771–94.
28.
GoldsmithB.2007. “Defense Effort and Institutional Theories of Democratic Peace and Victory Why Try Harder?” Security Studies16 (2): 189–222.
29.
GolmanR.PageS. E.. 2009. “General Blotto: Games of Allocative Strategic Mismatch.” Public Choice138 (3-4): 279–99.
30.
GorenH.BornsteinG.. 2000. “The Effects of Intragroup Communication on Intergroup Cooperation in the Repeated Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) Game.” Journal of Conflict Resolution44 (5): 700–19.
31.
GunnthorsdottirA.RapoportA.. 2006. “Embedding Social Dilemmas in Intergroup Competition Reduces Free-riding.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes101 (2): 184–99.
32.
Hafner-BurtonE. M.LeVeckB. L.VictorD. G.FowlerJ. H.. 2012. “Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation.” International Organization68 (4): 845–76.
33.
HalevyN.BornsteinG.SagivL.. 2008. “In-group Love and Out-group Hate as Motives for Individual Participation in Intergroup Conflict.” Psychological Science19 (4): 405.
34.
IrfanogluB.MagoS. D.SheremetaR. M.. 2011. “Sequential Versus Simultaneous Election Contests: An Experimental Study.” Working Paper. Accessed January 19, 2015. http://www.krannert.purdue.edu/centers/vseel/papers.
35.
JohnsonD.McDermottR.BarrettE.CowdenJ.WranghamR.McIntyreM.Peter RosenS.. 2006. “Overconfidence in Wargames: Experimental Evidence on Expectations, Aggression, Gender and Testosterone.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences273 (1600): 2513.
36.
KlumppT.PolbornM. K.. 2006. “Primaries and the New Hampshire Effect.” Journal of Public Economics90 (6): 1073–114.
37.
KonradK.KovenockD.. 2006. “Equilibrium and Efficiency in the Tug-of-war.” Working Paper. Accessed January 19, 2015. http://ssrn.com/abstract=844644.
KonradK. A.KovenockD.. 2009. “Multi-battle Contests.” Games and Economic Behavior66 (1): 256–74.
40.
KvasovD.2007. “Contests with Limited Resources.” Journal of Economic Theory136 (1): 738–48.
41.
LakeD.1992. “Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War.” The American Political Science Review86 (1): 24–37.
42.
LakeD.2003. “Fair Fights? Evaluating Theories of Democracy and Victory.” International Security28 (1): 154–67.
43.
MagoS.SheremetaR.. 2012. “Multi-battle Contests: An Experimental Study.” Working Paper. Accessed January 19, 2015. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2027172.
44.
McDermottR.CowdenJ.KoopmanC.. 2002. “Framing, Uncertainty, and Hostile Communications in a Crisis Experiment.” Political Psychology23 (1): 133–49.
45.
McGillivrayF.SmithA.. 2008. Punishing the Prince: A Theory of Interstate Relations, Political Institutions, and Leader Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
46.
MintzA.GevaN.. 1993. “Why Don’t Democracies Fight Each Other?” Journal of Conflict Resolution37 (3): 484–503.
47.
MintzA.ReddS.VedlitzA.. 2006. “Can We Generalize from Student Experiments to the Real World in Political Science, Military Affairs, and International Relations?” Journal of Conflict Resolution50 (5): 757–76.
48.
MonteroM.PossajennikovA.SeftonM.TurocyT. L.. 2014. “Majoritarian Blotto Contests with Asymmetric Battlefields: An Experiment on Apex Games.” Working Paper. Accessed January 19, 2015. http://www.gambit-project.org/turocy/papers/mpst-20140809.pdf.
49.
MorrowJ.Bueno de MesquitaB.SiversonR.SmithA.. 2008. “Retesting Selectorate Theory: Separating the Effects of W from Other Elements of Democracy.” American Political Science Review102 (3): 393–400.
50.
MortonR. B.WilliamsK.. 2010. Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
51.
ReiterD.StamA.. 1998. “Democracy, War Initiation, and Victory.” The American Political Science Review92 (2): 377–89.
52.
ReiterD.StamA.. 2002. Democracies at War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
53.
ReiterD.StamA.. 2003. “Understanding Victory: Why Political Institutions Matter.” International Security28 (1): 168–79.
54.
ReiterD.StamA.. 2009. “Another Skirmish in the Battle over Democracies and War.” International Security34 (2): 194–204.
55.
RobersonB.2006. “The Colonel Blotto Game.” Economic Theory29 (1): 1–24.
RousseauD.2005. Democracy and War: Institutions, Norms, and the Evolution of International Conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
58.
TangeråsT. P.2009. “Democracy, Autocracy and the Likelihood of International Conflict.” Economics of Governance10 (2): 99–117.
59.
TingleyD.WalterB.. 2011a. “Can Cheap Talk Deter? An Experimental Analysis.” Journal of Conflict Resolution55 (6): 994–1018.
60.
TingleyD.WalterB.. 2011b. “The Effect of Repeated Play on Reputation Building: An Experimental Approach.” International Organization65 (2): 343–65.
61.
TomzM.2007. “Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations: An Experimental Approach.” International Organization61 (4): 821.
62.
ValentinoB.HuthP.CrocoS.. 2010. “Bear Any Burden? How Democracies Minimize the Costs of War.” Journal of Politics72 (2): 528–44.
63.
WeinsteinJ.2012. “Two Notes on the Blotto Game.” The BE Journal of Theoretical Economics12 (1): 1–13.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
