Democracy, Territory, and Armed Conflict, 1919-1995

Abstract

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.

Authoritarian Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

“…22. Choi 2016Dafoe 2011;Dafoe, Oneal, and Russett 2013;Hegre 2014;Oneal and Russett 2001;Park 2013;Park and James 2015. 23. Johns and Davies 2012;Rousseau 2005;Tomz andWeeks 2013.…”

Safe Across the Border: The Continued Significance of the Democratic Peace When Controlling for Stable Borders

“…In contrast, the democratic peace remains robust when controlling for stable borders. In other work, we do find that territorial disputes themselves, as coded by Huth and Allee () are a significant predictor of armed conflict, although these spatial claims also do not obviate the effect of democracy on peace (Park and James ). Therefore, we suggest that future research should focus on deepening our understanding both of the territorial causes of war as well as the domestic political determinants of bellicosity.…”

“…The findings in James, Park, and Choi () lend some credence to this inference since they find an inconsistent effect for democracy on pacifying territorial disputes in the Western Hemisphere, although more recent work in Park and James () shows a more consistent pacifying effect for democracies within territorial disputes.…”

The Cart and the Horse Redux: The Timing of Border Settlement and Joint Democracy

“… 6 Park and Colaresi 2014; Park and James 2015; Owsiak 2016. For additional debates on the democratic peace, see Gartzke and Weisiger (2013) and Dafoe, Oneal, and Russett (2013), as well as Gowa (2011) and Park (2013).…”

“… 38 There is limited evidence on how joint democracies handle their territorial disputes. See Huth and Allee 2002; Park and James 2015.…”