To Intervene or Not to Intervene? Democratic Constraints on Third-Party Support in Civil Wars

Abstract

Do democracies and autocracies differ when it comes to whether and how they provide third-party support to warring parties in civil wars? We argue that the political institutions of potential third-party states have important consequences for both questions. We emphasize how three particular institutional characteristics of democratic polities constrain decision-makers. This makes democracies less likely than autocracies to intervene in intra-state conflicts in general, and less likely to provide combat-intensive support specifically. An empirical analysis of incidents of third-party support to actors in civil wars in the period 1975–2009 corroborates the overall argument, although the results regarding support types are less clear. These results have important implications not only for our understanding of civil wars but also for how foreign policy decisions are made across different regime contexts.

Forever wars: Divided government and the termination of interventions in support of civil war governments

“…Yet, these third-party constituents directly bear an intervention's costs, and as such this burden figures into the continued political survival of third-party decision-makers. Moreover, recent research establishes that public casualty-averseness render democratic leaders less likely to intervene in foreign civil wars (Sakstrup and Tolstrup, 2020).…”

Middle East Conflicts with a Comprehensive Approach Toward Stability and Sustainable Cooperation

“…The authors (Sakstrup and Tolstrup, 2020) discuss the role of third parties regarding the Syrian issue. Therein, one of the main findings is that autocratic regimes are more willing to intervene in such conflicts than democratic regimes that have to face their electoral base for each of their decisions.…”