Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War

1999 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Single Observation ◽  
Domestic Political Institutions ◽  
The Way

How do domestic political institutions affect the way states interact in international crises? In the last decade we have witnessed an explosion of interest in this question, thanks largely to the well-known claim that democratic states do not fight wars with one another. Work on the “democratic peace” has generated a number of theoretical arguments about how practices, values, and institutions associated with democracy might generate distinctive outcomes. Although the level of interest in this topic has focused much-needed attention on the interaction between domestic and international politics, the proliferation of competing explanations for a single observation is not entirely desirable. Progress in this area requires that researchers devise tests not only to support different causal stories but also to discriminate between them.

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 791-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita ◽  
James D. Morrow ◽  
Randolph M. Siverson ◽  
Alastair Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Domestic Political Institutions ◽  
Extra Effort ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Empirical Regularities

We examine formally the link between domestic political institutions and policy choices in the context of eight empirical regularities that constitute the democratic peace. We demonstrate that democratic leaders, when faced with war, are more inclined to shift extra resources into the war effort than are autocrats. This follows because the survival of political leaders with larger winning coalitions hinges on successful policy. The extra effort made by democrats provides a military advantage over autocrats. This makes democrats unattractive targets, since their institutional constraints cause them to mobilize resources for the war effort. In addition to trying harder, democrats are more selective in their choice of targets. Because defeat is more likely to lead to domestic replacement for democrats than for autocrats, democrats only initiate wars they expect to win. These two factors lead to the interaction between polities that is often referred to as the democratic peace.

The Southern Slope of Monsalvat: How Spanish Wagnerism Became Catalan

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
Clinton D. Young
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Southern Slope ◽  
Modern Music ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Symphonic Culture ◽  
Similar Dynamic ◽  
The Way

This article examines the development of Wagnerism in late-nineteenth-century Spain, focusing on how it became an integral part of Catalan nationalism. The reception of Wagner's music and ideas in Spain was determined by the country's uneven economic development and the weakness of its musical and political institutions—the same weaknesses that were responsible for the rise of Catalan nationalism. Lack of a symphonic culture in Spain meant that audiences were not prepared to comprehend Wagner's complexity, but that same complexity made Wagner's ideas acceptable to Spanish reformers who saw in the composer an exemplar of the European ideas needed to fix Spanish problems. Thus, when Wagner's operas were first staged in Spain, the Teatro Real de Madrid stressed Wagner's continuity with operas of the past; however, critics and audiences engaged with the works as difficult forms of modern music. The rejection of Wagner in the Spanish capital cleared the way for his ideas to be adopted in Catalonia. A similar dynamic occurred as Spanish composers tried to meld Wagner into their attempts to build a nationalist school of opera composition. The failure of Tomás Bréton's Los amantes de Teruel and Garín cleared the way for Felip Pedrell's more successful theoretical fusion of Wagnerism and nationalism. While Pedrell's opera Els Pirineus was a failure, his explanation of how Wagner's ideals and nationalism could be fused in the treatise Por nuestra música cemented the link between Catalan culture and Wagnerism.

scholarly journals Political Institutions and Coups in Dictatorships

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402199716
Author(s):  
Nam Kyu Kim ◽  
Jun Koga Sudduth
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
The Creation

Does the creation of nominally democratic institutions help dictators stay in power by diminishing the risk of coups? We posit that the effectiveness of political institutions in deterring coups crucially depends on the types of plotters and their political goals. By providing a means to address the ruling coalition’s primary concerns about a dictator’s opportunism or incompetence, institutions reduce the necessity of reshuffling coups, in which the ruling coalition replaces an incumbent leader but keeps the regime intact. However, such institutions do not diminish the risk of regime-changing coups, because the plotters’ goals of overthrowing the entire regime and changing the group of ruling coalition are not achievable via activities within the institutions. Our empirical analysis provides strong empirical support for our expectations. Our findings highlight that the role of “democratic” institutions in deterring coups is rather limited as it only applies to less than 38% of coup attempts.

Are You Experienced? US Ambassadors and International Crises, 1946–2014

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Militarized Disputes ◽  
Political Appointees ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Military ◽  
Sizable Number

Abstract How important are ambassadors in international politics? While a growing body of research stresses the importance of diplomacy in international politics, it remains unclear if individual ambassadors make a significant difference or what attributes make for an effective ambassador. This paper explores these questions through a systematic analysis of 2,730 US ambassadors between 1946 and 2014. The United States is distinctive in that it sends a sizable number of noncareer political appointees to serve as ambassadors. This provides a unique opportunity to examine how an ambassador's experience shapes where they are placed and how they perform. Using various techniques to address selection effects, including matching, I find that the United States is less likely to experience a militarized dispute with a host nation when it is represented by a political ambassador. Moreover, political ambassadors with professional experience in politics or the military, those who are close to the president, and those who are appointed in permissive congressional environments are less likely to experience militarized disputes during their tenure. Individual ambassadors matter, but diplomatic experience alone is not the only attribute that makes for an effective ambassador.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 283-286
Author(s):  
James Lindley Wilson
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Equal Status ◽  
Democratic Practices ◽  
The Way

Democracy and equality are intimately linked. We cannot understand or properly respond to one ideal without the other. Democracy’s value stems in significant part from the way it manifests and sustains citizens’ equal status. Social equality requires democratic institutions and practices, because part of what it is for people to relate as equals is to share authority over what they do together. The design of democratic institutions—and our conduct of democratic practices—should be guided by this egalitarian ideal of sharing authority as civic friends. We ought to orient our efforts to establish and maintain equal relations with the democratic constituents of equality in view. We treat people as equals in part by sharing with them authority over how we treat one another. There is risk in granting authority to others. But a society of equals is a great reward....

The Sea of International Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Slaughter ◽  
Kerry Bystrom
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic World ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Global South ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
South Atlantic ◽  
The South ◽  
Atlantic Rim ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
The Way

Responding to the way the Southern parts of the Atlantic have historically been obscured in conceptions of the Atlantic world and through the critical oceanic studies concepts of fluidity, solvency, and drift, this chapter serves as a critical introduction to the South Atlantic. Beginning with a rereading of the Atlantic Charter, it poses the South Atlantic both as a material geographic region (something along the lines of a South Atlantic Rim) and as a set of largely unfulfilled visions—including those of anti-imperial solidarity and resistance generated through imaginative and political engagement from different parts of the Global South with the Atlantic world. It also reflects on the conditions under which something called the “Global South Atlantic” could come into being and the modes of historical, cultural, and literary comparison by which a multilingual and multinational region might be grasped.

Conclusion

Homelands ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 197-212
Author(s):  
Nadav G. Shelef
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Domestic Political Institutions

This concluding chapter highlights the lessons from the empirical exploration of homelands and their contraction. It reevaluates how one identifies territorial partitions and reassesses the question of whether partitions can be used to resolve conflict. Partitions can succeed in resolving nationalist conflicts where beliefs about the homeland's extent change. While drawing a new border is usually not enough on its own, contexts in which evolutionary dynamics operate on homelands are more likely to experience such transformations. Partitions may therefore be more likely to contribute to peace where the society that lost access to part of its homeland is characterized by long-lasting domestic political contestation. To be successful, in other words, policy makers advocating partitions need to pay as much attention to creating or maintaining domestic political institutions that foster such contestation within the states on either side of the border as to where the particular line is drawn.

The Challenge of Liberal Legitimacy

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-91
Author(s):  
Gina Schouten
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Gender Norm ◽  
Gender Egalitarianism ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
The Way

There are a few “easy fixes” or “work-arounds” that may appear to dispel the tension between the gender-egalitarian political agenda and a commitment to politically liberal legitimacy. First, we might argue that those who oppose gender egalitarianism are unreasonable, and thus fall outside the justificatory community that liberalism is committed to respecting. Second, we might argue that gender-norm-compliant choices are non-voluntary, and so need not be respected within liberal political institutions. Finally, we might argue that the gendered division of labor violates basic liberties, and so can be politically remediated on those grounds, even if the means of remediation are controversial. This chapter addresses each possibility and shows why they are not promising fixes. The main goals are to show that the problem is genuine and cannot be easily dispelled by some tempting quick fixes, and in so doing to clear the way for consideration of more promising solutions.

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