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Why is the Democratic Peace literature a "lowlight" of current IR research?
We cover this question in my Quantitative Security course
[THREAD]
We cover this question in my Quantitative Security course
[THREAD]
First, it's important to acknowledge that the Democratic Peace has been a highly influential idea. I mean, just read 👇
foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review…
foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review…
Second, the Democratic Peace is an empirical claim. As Jack Levy famously remarked in a The Journal of Interdisciplinary History piece: 
As an empirical claim, it requires sound empirics.
Namely, we need to know:
1) when countries fight wars
2) who participated in those wars
3) which of those participants were democracies
4) were democracies on opposite sides of the war
Namely, we need to know:
1) when countries fight wars
2) who participated in those wars
3) which of those participants were democracies
4) were democracies on opposite sides of the war
The first point has a LONG history, going back to Quincy Wright (and continuing with the Correlates of War project):
The second point is a bit trickier, as discussed here
The third point -- who is a democracy -- is even harder! I discussed that here
And the fourth point -- determining the sides -- goes back to the difficulties with point 2.
Okay, okay. So measurement is hard. We've known that and how it can influence inferences about the democratic piece (most notably in this @Journal_IS piece by @Idooren)
muse.jhu.edu/article/447406…
muse.jhu.edu/article/447406…
Even setting measurement issues aside, it's not clear what we've actually learned about the Democratic Peace.
Dean Babst published one of the first empirical papers on the topic for a report for congress in 1964. Using Wright's data, Babst produced the following two tables.
The point of the tables was that democracies were NOT on both sides (of course, Finland is awkward given that it fought WITH Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union).
Lots of work carried out on the topic over the next few decades (after all, Levy's quote comes from 1988!).
But the main next piece is Oneal and Russett's famous 1997 @ISQ_Jrnl piece
But the main next piece is Oneal and Russett's famous 1997 @ISQ_Jrnl piece
Using a "dyadic design" (state A, state B, year t) they find that the higher is the lower of the two "Democracy" scores in the dyad, the less likely is the dyad to enter a conflict (did you follow that?).
And now we're off to the races!!
This set off a long series of papers trying to identify an omitted variable that would wipe-out the relationship, along with Oneal and Russett responding to those papers.
These omitted variables included...
This set off a long series of papers trying to identify an omitted variable that would wipe-out the relationship, along with Oneal and Russett responding to those papers.
These omitted variables included...
...Cold War interests
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
...dyad specific effects
cambridge.org/core/journals/…
cambridge.org/core/journals/…
...too many control variables
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
...capitalism
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
...contract intensive economies
books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr…
books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr…
....concentration of democracies
academic.oup.com/isq/article/57…
academic.oup.com/isq/article/57…
...and I recently just reviewed TWO new papers that also challenge the democratic piece (and will likely be refuted)
The point? Maybe we have to amend Levy's quote:
"Debating whether the absence of war between democracies is a real phenomenon is the closest thing IR scholarship has to a degenerate research program" 🤷♂️
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"Debating whether the absence of war between democracies is a real phenomenon is the closest thing IR scholarship has to a degenerate research program" 🤷♂️
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