How Smart and Tough are Democracies? Reassessing Theories of Democratic Victory in War

Abstract

Proponents of the selection effects argument claim that because democratic leaders run a higher risk of losing office than autocratic leaders if they fail to win wars, they are more careful than their authoritarian counterparts in choosing which wars to initiate. The robust marketplace of ideas in democracies also weeds out self-serving or ill-conceived policies and allows democratic leaders to better estimate the chances of victory. Democracies, according to this logic, tend to pick on weak or vulnerable opponents and thus win a disproportionate number of the wars they start. Both quantitative and qualitative evidence, however, challenges this conclusion. The statistical correlation between democracy and victory is not robust to reasonable alternative choices for analyzing the data. In particular, including draws as a war outcome renders statistically insignificant the finding that democratic initiators and targets are more likely to win. In addition, democratic leaders who initiate wars should be optimistic that they will win, but process tracing of the decision by Lyndon Johnson's administration to escalate the Vietnam War (one of these omitted draws) reveals that top officials knew at the time that escalation promised a costly, protracted stalemate, yet they chose to fight anyway. Moreover, domestic politics, if anything, contributed to Johnson's decision to fight in Vietnam despite the poor odds of victory because he believed that pulling out would spark a backlash and destroy his Great Society legislative program. The results of this combined analysis raise doubts about the democracy and victory thesis, and should prompt interest in other explanatory variables for military effectiveness.

Do Democracies Engage Less in Coup-Proofing? On the Relationship between Regime Type and Civil-Military Relations1

“…Reiter and Stam (2009:195), for example, summarize that democratic regimes won 93% of the wars they initiated (65% when draws are considered) and 63% of the ones in which they were targeted (52% when draws are considered) between 1816 and 1990. These findings are robust across many subsequent studies with not a single work being able to find a negative relationship between democracy and war success (see Desch 2002, 2008; Rasler and Thompson 2005; Downes 2009).…”

The Army You Have: The Determinants of Military Mechanization, 1979-2001

“…First, regime type has occupied a central role in the literature on military behavior, with scholars debating whether democratic institutions are a help (Reiter and Stam 2002), a hindrance (Merom 2003), or irrelevant (Desch 2008; Downes 2009; Lyall 2010) when fighting wars. Scholars in this tradition have posited at least two mechanisms linking democratic governance with force structure and mechanization.…”

After Liberalism?

“…Undermining the claim that democratic voters need a liberal ideology to underpin their security policy would damage the neoconservative case, but many realists assume this to be the case as well (Mearsheimer, 2001: 42). Alexander Downes (2009) finds that regime type makes little difference in wartime performance, although he does not focus on neoconservative arguments that democracies are less adept at fighting rather than more. More directly, Alexander Downes and Jonathan Monten (2013) cast doubt on the advisability of foreign imposed regime change.…”