War and Revenge: Explaining Conflict Initiation by Democracies

Abstract

W hile we know much about what differentiates the conflict behavior of democracies from autocracies, we know relatively little about why some democracies are more belligerent than others. In contrast to existing studies, I argue that it is public opinion and not institutions that drives these differences. All democratic leaders have an incentive to take public opinion into account, but public opinion is not the same everywhere. Individuals' attitudes towards war are shaped by core beliefs about revenge, which vary across countries. Leaders with more vengeful populations will be more likely to initiate conflicts because they generate popular support for war more effectively. Using retention of capital punishment as a proxy for broad endorsement of revenge, I find that democracies that have retained the death penalty for longer periods of time are significantly more likely to initiate conflicts. This research has important implications for existing theories of democracy and war.

The ideational foundations of coercion: political culture and policies towards North Korea

“…In his landmark study, Pinker (2011) argues that trends in warfare, in murder rates, and even in the physical punishment of children have common root causes. In a similar vein, studies of elites and public opinion have shown that attitudes towards punishment and retribution domestically correlate with support for hawkish policies internationally (Liberman, 2006;Liberman, 2007;Rathbun, 2007;Liberman, 2013;Stein 2015). While most of these studies examine variation within American society, we demonstrate that there are also important variations across liberal democracies.…”

Moral Hazard: German Public Opinion on the Greek Debt Crisis

“…Retributive individuals punish others for not adhering to reciprocity norms. An “eye for an eye” is one of the oldest moral principles on record, and it plays a prominent role in attitudes toward international security (Liberman, ; Stein, ). Moral psychologists distinguish between this desire to punish transgressors for their bad behavior because they deserve it and the authoritarian desire to punish for societal good (Aharoni & Fridlund, ; Carlsmith & Darley, ).…”

Public support for coercive diplomacy: Exploring public opinion data from ten European countries

“…Previous research has shown that countries with punitive domestic criminal systems are more likely to be confrontationist towards countries breaking international norms (Wagner ; Wagner & Onderco ), and that democracies still exercising the death penalty are more likely to engage in militarised interstate disputes (Stein ). Similarly, support for the death penalty has been associated with higher support for war in Iraq or for the torture of terrorism suspects (Liberman , , ).…”