Ostrom and Job (1986) found that domestic, political factors are more influential on the president's decision to use military force than characteristics of the international environment. These results pose a serious challenge to realists' assumptions regarding the motives of states and the separability of domestic and foreign policy. This article reexamines Ostrom and Job's arguments and introduces a new indicator, a measure of the severity of ongoing international crises, to provide a better assessment of the relative effect of the international environment on presidential decision making. This severity index is significantly associated with the use of force by the United States from 1949 through 1976, and proves to be more influential than the international indicators used by Ostrom and Job. Nevertheless, domestic political factors remain most consequential in the president's decision to use force short of war.

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Democracy and territory are two of the most important factors that affect conflict and war. Yet no research design looks directly at a possible interaction between these two variables to influence occurrence of armed conflict. This study seeks to answer the following question: “How do two democracies behave when a contentious issue such as territory arises as the source of conflict between them?” Results based on Militarized Interstate Dispute data from 1920 to 1996 produce the conclusion that the pacifying effect of democracy stands up for both territorial dyads and non‐territorial ones in spite of the imperatives toward militarization created by territorial conflict. However, territory of high salience still appears to increase the likelihood of armed conflict between two democracies.

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