External threat and the limits of democratic pacifism

Abstract

Scholars widely recognize that democratic dyads are associated with lower hazards of armed conflict and more efficient conflict resolution. Many attempts have been made to challenge the notion of democratic pacifism, but perhaps the most significant is the argument that the Democratic Peace is epiphenomenal to territorial issues, specifically the external threats that they pose. The presence of an external threat might be the mechanism by which democratic dyads, owing to audience costs and resolve, fail to decide contentious issues non-violently. This study seeks to answer the question: “Under what conditions do democratic dyads lower the likelihood of armed conflict?” To do this we propose a hard test of the Democratic Peace. Using an updated global sample of cases, we model joint democracy’s ability to lower the likelihood of armed conflict in the presence of direct external threats in the form of strategic rivalry and territorial contention. The empirical evidence we uncover systematically shows the Democratic Peace to be more limited than previously observed. When we control for each external threat with a simple right-hand-side variable, joint democracy continues to reduce conflict propensities. But when democracies face external threats (i.e. the interaction of democracy and threat), the pacifying effect of democracy is less visible.