Reiter, Dan - Is Democracy A Cause of Peace PDF

Is Democracy a Cause of Peace?
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

Dan Reiter
Subject: World Politics Online Publication Date: Jan 2017
DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.287
Summary and Keywords
Essentially all scholars agree that the levels of violent conflict, especially wars, within
democratic pairs of states are significantly lower than levels of violent conflict within
other pairs of states. However, debate rages as to whether this observed correlation is
causal or spurious. Does democracy actually cause peace? Answering this question is
critical for both scholarly and policy debates.
Critics have lodged two sets of arguments proposing that the observed correlation
between democracy and peace does not mean that democracy causes peace. First, some
claim that the peace observed among democracies is not caused by regime type, but
rather by other factors such as national interest, economic factors, and gender norms.
These critics often present statistical analyses in which inclusion of these or other factors
render the democracy independent variable to be statistically insignificant, leading them
to draw the conclusion that democracy does not cause peace.
The second critique claims that there is a causal relationship between democracy and
peace, but peace causes democracy and not the reverse. Peaceful international
environments permit democracy to emerge, and conflictual international environments
impede democracy. Though peace causes democracy, democracy does not cause peace.
Careful examination of the theoretical claims of these critiques and especially the
pertinent empirical scholarship produces two general conclusions. First, there is enough
evidence to conclude that democracy does cause peace at least between democracies,
that the observed correlation between democracy and peace is not spurious. Second, this
conclusion notwithstanding, the critiques do make important contributions, in the sense
that they demonstrate that several factors (including democracy) cause peace, that there
may be some qualifications or limitations to the scope of the democratic peace, and that
causality among factors like democracy and peace is likely bidirectional, part of a larger
dynamic system.
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date: 24 January 2019

Keywords: democratic peace, conflict, domestic politics, international relations, causation, empirical international
relations theory
The Democratic Peace Debate

One of the most indisputable, nontrivial, observed patterns in international relations is
that democracies almost never fight each other. Few dispute the existence of the
empirical association of democracies not fighting each other, especially not fighting high-
intensity conflicts such as wars. There is, however, great contention, over whether or not
democracy causes peace. Some argue that democracy does in fact cause peace, while
others argue that the observed democracy-peace correlation is either spurious or that
causal arrow is reversed, as peace causes democracy but democracy does not cause
peace.
Whether or not democracy causes peace is an issue of more than scholarly interest. For
decades, international actors have sometimes supported democratization because of the
belief that making states more democratic would cause them to be more peaceful, at least
with each other. Conversely, policy critics have argued that because democracy does not
cause peace, it is a fool’s errand to attempt to spread democracy, because of the costs
and risks of trying to democratize other states.
This essay considers whether democracy causes peace. It proceeds in three sections.
First, it describes the empirical pattern that democracies almost never fight each other,
and presents the principal theoretical arguments as to why democracy might cause
peace. It then considers two clusters of critiques of the proposition that democracy
causes peace, that the correlation is spurious and that peace is actually caused by factors
other than democracy; and that democracy and peace are causally related, but that peace
causes democracy, and not the reverse.
The Correlation of Democracy and Peace

Though democracies sometimes become embroiled in conflicts with non-democracies,
they almost never fight each other (Russett & Oneal, 2001). Since the emergence of
modern democracy in the early 19th century, two mature democracies have never
experienced intense violent conflict with each other, incurring at least 1,000 battle dead.
The Correlates of War project and other data sets have long classified a conflict as a war
if it experiences at least 1,000 battle dead (Reiter et al., 2016). On the rare occasions
when two democracies have entered militarized disputes with each other, as in the 1898
Fashoda Crisis or the 1970s “Cod Wars” between Britain and Iceland, they essentially
always settle the conflict short of war.
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There have been close calls of democracies nearly fighting wars against each other.
Mature democracies have sometimes fought repressive states with some democratic
elements, such as the United States fighting Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American War
(Ray, 1995). Democracies sometimes end up as members of opposing coalitions, though in
those cases the opposing democracies avoid fighting each other. Democratic Finland
fought alongside the Axis in World War II, but experienced no combat with any
democratic members of the Allies. In the 1948 War of Israeli Independence, a somewhat
democratic Lebanon found itself allied with Arab states against the new Israeli
democracy, but Lebanon carefully avoided direct clashes with Israel (Morris, 2008, pp.
344, 348). In the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict, though Israel launched strikes against
Hezbollah forces based in Lebanese territory, Israel did not declare war on democratic
Lebanon and generally avoided attacking Lebanese forces directly. Lebanon also mostly
avoided attacking Israel forces. Probably the closest instance of two democracies going to
war with each other was the 1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan, though that
conflict experienced less than 1,000 battle dead (Reiter et al., 2016). More systematic
studies have also found that pairs of democratic states are less likely to experience less
intense violent, international conflicts than other pairs of states (Russett & Oneal, 2001;
Rousseau et al., 1996), though there is debate over whether jointly democratic pairs of
states are less likely to experience non-war disputes as compared with all other pairs of
states, or just with pairs of states that include a democracy and a non-democracy
(Bennett & Stam, 2004).
Though there is strong consensus about the “dyadic” democratic peace, that democracies
do not fight each other, there is more debate about the existence of other possible
patterns of democratic peace. Many dispute the existence of the “monadic” democratic
peace, that democracies are more likely to be peaceful in their relations with all states
(Russett & Oneal, 2001; for an early statement of the monadic democratic peace, see
Rummel, 1979). There is also debate over the existence of a “systemic” democratic peace,
whether making the international system or even a region more democratic will make the
system or region more peaceful (Gleditsch, 2002; Mitchell et al., 1999).
Scholars have outlined two clusters of explanations as to why democracies ought to be

more peaceful in their relationships with each other (Russett, 1993; for other summaries
of the democratic peace literature, see Ray, 1995; Reiter, 2012B). First, democratic
political institutions nurture peace between democracies. There are a few variants of the
institutional explanation of the democratic peace. Perhaps the most general account, first
described by Immanuel Kant in the 19th century, is that because democratic leaders are
elected, they know that pursuing unpopular policies will increase their likelihood of being
removed from office. Wars are unpopular because of their costs in blood and taxes, and as
a result elected leaders attempt to avoid wars. Dictators, in contrast, are confident that
they can use the tools of repression to stay in power even in the face of popular
discontent, and are more likely to go to war, knowing that they can more easily stay in
power. One variant of the institutionalist hypothesis is that democratic political
institutions impose higher audience costs on elected leaders who back down in crisis, and
the prospect of higher audience costs in turn helps democracies avoid wars with each
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other (Fearon, 1994). Another variant proposes that the ability of democracies to mobilize
their economies more deeply during war time deters democracies from attacking each
other (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003). A third variant is that the diffusion of power
within democratic governments, such as the separation of powers, slows the abilities of
democracies to make war (Reiter & Tillman, 2002; Russett, 1993).
A second explanation focuses on norms. Democratic political culture emphasizes

nonviolent means of conflict resolution, using tactics such as law and the courts,
elections, and free speech to resolve disputes. These norms percolate into democratic
foreign policy, encouraging democracies to being more willing to use foreign policy tools
such as mediation, diplomacy, and international law to resolve international disputes. The
political culture of non-democracies emphasizes violence, as domestic politics within
dictatorships are characterized by tactics such as repression, mass and elite revolutions,
and brutality. This political culture of violent conflict resolution then pushes non-
democracies to be violent in their international relations, using coercion, threats, and
force to resolve interstate disputes. This normative explanation of the democratic peace
overlaps with a constructivist explanation, that democracies share a common identity and
see themselves as comprising a community of like-minded states. These shared identities,
especially in concert with norms of nonviolent conflict resolution, help democracies
transcend self-interest, enjoy deeper levels of cooperation, and avoid violent conflicts
with each other (Deutsch, 1957; Kahl, 1998/1999; Risse-Kappen, 1995).
Causation and the Democratic Peace

The central claim of the democratic peace proposition is that democracy causes peace. As
noted, the focus in this essay will be on causal processes within the dyadic democratic
peace. The dyadic democratic peace proposes that relations within a pair of democracies
are more peaceful than relations within other kinds of pairs, such as pairs of autocracies
or a democracy matched with an autocracy.
Whether democracy causes peace can be framed around this question: Is the democratic
peace a law, as Levy (1989, p. 88) asserted, or is it a mere correlation? Risjord (2014, p.
212), a philosopher of social science, distinguished “laws from mere correlations” as
follows: “1. Laws must be general, making no reference to particular objects, times, or
places. 2. Laws must support counterfactual statements.” Importantly, philosophers of
social science agree that a law can be probabilistic and need not be exceptionless,
analogous to the existence of probabilistic laws in the biological sciences (Risjord, 2014,
p. 213).
In using the democratic peace proposition as an example in his discussion of causation

and scientific laws, Risjord (2014, p. 213) accepts that the democratic peace is a law: “If
laws are general regularities that support counterfactuals, then the democratic peace is a
law. It is a strong correlation that makes no mention of particular objects, places, or
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times. And it seems to support counterfactuals. American foreign policy in the latter 20th
century has often aimed to reduce war by spreading democracy. This policy is supported
by the idea that if a country becomes a democracy, it is less likely to declare war; if North
Korea were a democracy it would be less hostile to South Korea. In this sense, then, the
democratic peace supports counterfactuals and is entitled to prima facie status as a law.”1
Note that the idea of counterfactual separates causal from spurious relationships, as a
spurious relationship would not support a counterfactual. The focus of this essay is to
explore two critiques of the assertion that the democratic peace is causal, and therefore a
law. That is, in the context of the Korea example, if the democratic peace is mere
correlation and spurious rather than causal, then the democratization of North Korea
would not lead to reduced hostility with South Korea.
Proving that democracy causes peace has both scholarly and policy stakes. On the
scholarly side, democratic peace theory describes a causal rather than correlational
relationship, meaning that tests of the theory need to demonstrate causation rather than
mere correlation. The democratic peace proposition is itself a centuries-old idea central
to international relations, at the heart of one of the most prominent and well-established
theories in international relations, Kantian liberalism (Russett & Oneal, 2001). Other
theories of international relations refute the assumptions of democratic peace theory in
this manner. Realism, for example, proposes that regime type has no effect on peace or
war, because the brutally competitive nature of the international system forces all states,
democratic and non-democratic, to behave similarly (see below for further discussion).
The policy stakes are also high. The policy implications of the democratic peace are that
because democracy causes peace, actors interested in peace should take actions to
spread democracy. Many important foreign policy decisions over the last century have
been informed by the belief that democracy causes peace. This was an important part of
President Woodrow Wilson’s 1917 public argument as to why the United States should
enter World War I, that Prussian autocracy was a fundamental cause of the war, and the
United States needed to help the Allies win the war to democratize Germany and create
the foundations for a stable peace: “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its
peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.”2 The idea that
democracy causes peace was part of the motivation to pursue the unconditional
surrender of the Axis powers in World War II; that autocracy in Japan, Italy, and Germany
were taproot causes of World War II; and that the United States needed to achieve the
unconditional surrender of these states to permit the United States to democratize them,
democratization in turn being a critical condition for creating a stable postwar world
order (Reiter, 2009). President Clinton openly stated his belief in the democratic peace,
and this belief in turn informed a number of his policies, including the 1995 intervention
in Haiti and the expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe (Reiter, 2001). Especially after
2003, President George W. Bush justified the Iraq War with the democratic peace
proposition, arguing that democratizing Iraq would in turn help stabilize the Middle East.
In his 2005 inaugural address, President Bush stated unequivocally, “The best hope for
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peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”3 During the Obama
administration, some hoped that the Arab Spring, if it succeeded in ushering in stable
democratic regimes, might permit the stabilization of the Middle East (Strauss, 2012).
The policy implications of whether democracy causes peace persist. Policy-makers would
like to know whether the 2010s deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations was caused by the
collapse of democracy in Russia under the rule of Vladimir Putin. Pakistan is enjoying an
encouraging spell of democracy, and this might create an opening for the alleviation of
the India-Pakistan rivalry. Perhaps Iran’s initial steps toward democracy, such as the
election of a moderate president in 2013, might eventually permit improved relations
with democratic rivals such as Israel and the United States. Some have debated whether
or not a Chinese transition to democracy in the 21st century would substantially reduce
the probability of war with democracies such as Japan and the United States (Friedman &
McCormick, 2015).
Though most scholars concede that a pair of democracies is less likely to experience
violent conflict than other pairs of states, some critique the inference that this observed
pattern implies a causal relationship. These critics have made two major sets of causal
critiques of the inference that the observed correlation of democracy and peace provides
support for the hypothesis that democracy causes peace.4 The following sections describe
and discuss these critiques.
Is the Democratic Peace Correlation Spurious?
The Spuriousness Critiques
The first set of critiques is that the observed correlation between dyadic democracy and
peace is spurious. More informally, the critique is that the observed peace between
democracies is caused by factors other than democracy, and not by democracy itself.
More rigorously, consonant with the definition of a law provided above, the observed
peace between democracies would not support the counterfactual that taking a pair of
democracies and rendering one of them non-democratic would make their relationship
less peaceful. Whether the democratic peace is spurious or causal is not merely a
semantic quibble. Scientists across the social and natural sciences maintain a deep
interest in determining whether an observed correlation is causal or merely spurious.
Identifying causation is critically important in translating scientific findings into policy
recommendations, in areas such as dietary guidelines, poverty reduction, education,
fighting disease, and others.
Scholarship making the claim that the democratic peace is spurious frequently takes the
following form. On the theoretical side, an alternative explanation for the causes of peace
is provided. On the empirical side, a critique will present a previously published
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multivariate regression analysis showing support for the dyadic democratic peace, and
then show that adding to this regression analysis an additional independent variable that
measures the new, alternative explanation will cause the dyadic democratic peace
variable to become statistically insignificant. Adding the new variable is justified from a
methodological point of view as a means of improving the model by reducing what is
referred to as “omitted variable bias.” The critique then draws the inference that because
the inclusion of this additional variable (or variables) renders the democracy variable
statistically insignificant, the initial result was flawed because of omitted variable bias. In
turn, the inference is that the initial observed correlation between democracy and peace
is spurious rather than causal, and that as a causal hypothesis the democratic peace
proposition is not supported. A further implication is that because the democracy-peace
relationship is spurious rather than causal, policy-makers should avoid concluding that
spreading democracy will in turn cause the world to be more peaceful.5
Scholars have made a number of arguments about the spuriousness of the democratic
peace, that is, they have pointed to a series of different variables that if included in
multivariate regressions render the democracy-peace correlation statistically
insignificant. The oldest and perhaps most central proposition of this type is the realist
argument that common national interests rather than joint democracy explain peace. As
indicated above, realism proposes that international relations are fundamentally driven
by national interests, and not by domestic politics or institutions. Further, realism places
no faith in the ability of public opinion coupled with democratic institutions to be a force
for peace, because public opinion is not necessarily rational or peaceful; and because
elected and other leaders can circumvent the constraints of public opinion through
secrecy and other forms of manipulation (e.g., Mearsheimer, 2011; Rosato, 2003;
Schuessler, 2015). Historically, the collapse of the international order in the interwar
period made realist critics such as E. H. Carr, Walter Lippmann, and Hans Morgenthau
deeply skeptical of Wilson’s vision that the spread of democracy could support global
peace. Waltz (1959; 1993, p. 78) from the 1950s through the 1990s was also critical of the
Kantian hope that democracy would bolster peace, proposing that the brutally
competitive nature of the anarchic international system forces different types of political
regimes to adopt converging foreign policies in order to survive. Realists in turn proposed
that any observed correlation between democracy and peace must be spurious, and in
turn that the observed peace between democracies was caused by commonalities in
interest and/or by a functioning balance of power rather than by regime type (see Layne,
1994; Mearsheimer, 2014; Rosato, 2003).
Several quantitative studies have endeavored to demonstrate that decisions for war and
peace are caused by realist factors such as national interests and the balance of power,
and not by regime type. In the 1990s, realist critics took note that the first wave of
rigorous quantitative democratic peace studies focused on the 1950–1985 time period,
suggesting that especially during this Cold War period democracies were unwilling to
fight each other not because of institutions or norms, but because North American, East
Asian, West European, and South Pacific democracies needed to balance together against
a common Communist threat. A variant of this argument is that peace among
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democracies during the Cold War was maintained by American hegemony, that a
democratic America managed conflict among states within the democratic, anti-
Communist bloc to solidify its global power position.
These studies took different approaches to demonstrating this point. Gowa (1999) argued
that the democratic peace was a temporal phenomenon; that pairs of democracies were
indeed less likely to become involved in militarized interstate disputes or wars after 1945;
were less likely than other pairs of states to become involved in MIDs but not wars from
1919–1938; and were as likely to become involved in wars and MIDs before World War I.
That is, she measured the presence of common interest indirectly by comparing political
eras, arguing that democracies shared common interests after 1945, confronting the
Communist threat, and therefore unsurprisingly were less likely to fight each other.
Before World War II, she argued, when there were fewer common interests among
democracies, the observed correlation between democracy and peace disappears.
Gartzke (1998) took a more direct approach toward testing the same theoretical
supposition. He also proposed that common interest rather than joint democracy was the
true cause of the observed peace between democracies, especially in the post-1945
period. Rather than comparing eras as Gowa did, he analyzed the post-1945 period, but
included in his regression analysis a variable of common interest, measuring how similar
were the United Nations General Assembly voting patterns of two states. He found that
this variable was statistically significantly related to dyadic peace, and that inclusion of
this variable rendered the joint democracy variable statistically insignificant as an
explanation of dyadic peace. Some observers have also suggested that the observed
peace between democracies is caused by geographic factors rather than regime type
(Worley, 2012).
An additional cut on the national interests argument is that conflicts are caused by
interstate disputes over contested issues, like territory, and not by regime type. Gibler
(2012) focused on territorial disagreements between states. He proposed that territorial
disagreements are the fundamental cause of conflict between states, and that inclusion of
variables that measure the stability of borders, and therefore the absence of territorial
disagreement, rendered the joint democracy independent variable to be statistically
insignificant as a cause of peace.
A second cluster of spuriousness critiques focuses on economic rather than political

factors. A perhaps more limited version of this critique is that there is a peace among
democracies, but only in the developed world and not in developing areas such as sub-
Saharan Africa (Henderson, 2008). A more ambitious form of this critique is that
development and markets are the true causes of peace, and that democracy is
uncorrelated with peace when these factors are accounted for. There are some variants of
this observation. Gartzke (2007) focused on higher levels of economic development,
proposing that more developed states enjoy lower marginal gain from winning a war over
economic assets, and in turn are less likely to become embroiled in war. Conceptually,
there is a related strand of research that war has become obsolete as states’ economies
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have become more advanced and rely more on trade and the global market (Rosecrance,
1986). This point is also related to the more popular assessments of a “McDonald’s
Peace,” the observation that countries with McDonald’s restaurants have never fought,
McDonald’s being a sign of development (Friedman, 2000, ch. 21), or the “greens peace,”
the observation that nations in which golf is sufficiently popular (again, a sign of
development) never fight each other (Plotz, 2000). Mousseau (FORTHCOMING; 2009)
made a different argument, proposing that only some forms of economic development
nurture peace. He proposed that market-based societies place a cultural emphasis on
contracts and the law. In turn, this cultural emphasis on law percolates into foreign policy
preferences, pushing such states to prefer nonviolent means of conflict resolution.
Mousseau proposed that inclusion of a variable measuring this emphasis on contracts and
law, what he termed to be “contractualism,” renders the joint democracy variable
statistically insignificant.
A third critique focuses on gender. One of the central questions asked in the study of
gender and politics is the relationship between gender and war, with many arguing that
biological sex and/or cultural constructions of gender are critical factors affecting the
onset of political violence. Further, some scholars have used gendered perspectives to
critique the proposition that democracy causes peace. Allison (2001) used Kant’s
framework of perpetual peace to propose that the key cause of international peace is a
feminine perspective on interpersonal care rather than joint democracy. Wisotzki (2015)
suggested that gender equality encourages both democracy and peace, though she
stopped short of proposing that there was no causal relationship between democracy and
peace. Hudson and colleagues (2012) used new data on the physical security of women
and political violence, finding that lower physical security of women makes political
violence more likely, and that the inclusion of gender equality in the analysis renders
democracy an insignificant determinant of peace. Notably, Hudson and colleagues’ unit of
analysis is the state rather than a pair of states, and their measure of violence
incorporates many types of violence, including intrastate violence. One of Hudson’s
coauthors in earlier studies of the causes of interstate violence found in multivariate
analyses mixed evidence that both measures of gender inequality and democracy were
statistically significant causes of peace (Caprioli, 2000; Caprioli & Boyer, 2001).
Another possible critique, not quite leveled explicitly by any critics, is that common
culture and common identity, rather than democracy, cause peace. This is perhaps an
implication of Huntington’s (1996) “Clash of Civilizations” thesis: that differences in
civilization or culture rather than regime type determine conflict between states.
Discussion
To the great benefit of the broader field, these democratic peace critiques have enjoyed
intensive scholarly debate, with both supporters and critics of the democratic peace
successfully pushing each other to refine and improve their theoretical arguments and
research designs. Regarding the critique that the democratic peace was purely a Cold
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War phenomenon, Russett and Oneal (2001), Maoz (1998), and Thompson and Tucker
(1997) demonstrated that democracies were less likely to fight each other in the interwar
and pre-World War I periods as well as in the post-1945 period. Russett (1993) also
presented evidence of a democratic peace in ancient Greece and in pre-modern societies,
and Park (2013) demonstrated that the democratic peace existed in the post-Cold War
period, as well. Cederman (2001) took a different angle in addressing this question of the
democratic peace being confined to the post-1945 time period. He agreed that the
peaceful tendencies of democracies had strengthened over time, but he proposed that
such a dynamic reflects the kinds of macrohistorical learning process that Kant himself
predicted would happen.
Supporters of the democratic peace have also published analyses showing that inclusion
of UN voting records does not render the democracy variable statistically insignificant
(Oneal & Russett, 1999), these claims in turn attracting response (Gartzke, 2000). The
proposal that capitalism rather than democracy causes peace has also attracted critiques,
mostly focusing on issues of research design to show that inclusion of capitalism variables
does not render democracy variables insignificant (Choi, 2011; Dafoe, 2011). Regarding
the possibility of common culture or civilization rather than democracy causing peace,
observational data and survey experimental studies have found that the inclusion of
culture or civilization as an independent variable does not moot the effects of joint
democracy (Bolks & Stoll, 2003; Henderson, 1998; Johns & Davies, 2012; Lacina & Lee,
2013). Regarding whether inclusion of factors such as trade or geography render the
democratic peace to be insignificant, Russett and Oneal (2001) openly claim that both
joint democracy and bilateral trade cause peace, as part of the “Kantian triangle.” They
demonstrate that inclusion of trade and geography variables does not render the
democratic peace relationship insignificant. The observation that contractualism and not
democracy causes peace has been critiqued (Dafoe et al., 2013), and that critique has in
turn attracted response (Mousseau, FORTHCOMING).
The proposal that at least during the Cold War American hegemony rather than
democracy itself fostered peace between democracies has also attracted scholarly
debate. On a simple level, studies finding evidence of democratic peace routinely include
dyadic alliance as an independent variable, including in the post-1945 period (Russett &
Oneal, 2001). A broader question is whether or not the United States at least during the
Cold War used its power to maintain both democracy and peace within its sphere of
influence. In general, the United States supported a variety of anti-Communist states,
including democracies like Japan and France and non-democracies like South Vietnam
and South Korea (Reiter, 2001).
The critique that conflict is caused by territorial dispute rather than regime type has also
experienced rigorous debate (e.g., Gibler, 2014; Park & Colaresi, 2014). Huth and Allee
(2002) found that democracy played an important role in affecting whether or not
territorial rivalries escalated to violence. Other studies looked at the related issue of
rivalry between states, territorial dispute being one type of rivalry. Hensel and colleagues
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(2000; see also Rasler & Thompson, 2005) found that democratic dyads are less likely to
experience rivalries; and that among rivals, the presence of democracy makes the onset
of violent conflict less likely.
The gender critique has also enjoyed some scholarly exchange. The most aggressive
gender-based critique of the democratic peace (Hudson et al., 2012) uses a monadic
design, and a dependent variable inclusive of a wide array of forms of violence including
intrastate and interstate conflict. As noted, some other work that focuses on interstate
conflict has included gender as an independent variable, and still shown that democracy
has a pacifying effect. Using a dyadic research design, Regan and Paskeviciuti (2003)
found that both gender and joint democracy affect the likelihood of interstate violence.
In short, the variety of critiques arguing that inclusion of additional variables in

multivariate regressions of observational data renders democracy variables to be
insignificant have each enjoyed rigorous debate. A larger question to consider is whether
there are other ways of testing causation beyond this approach of testing the possibility
of spuriousness by adding variables to a regression. There is ongoing debate within
political science and the social sciences more generally as to the general utility of
whether the addition of more independent variables always makes a regression model
“better” by generating a net reduction in bias (Achen, 2005; Clarke, 2005; Pearl, 2011).
There is a broader debate as to the general utility of multivariate regression of
observational data as a means of assessing causation, given that this approach,
sometimes called a quasi-experiment, requires the nonrandom assignment of the
treatment condition (the independent variable).
This is not to take a maximalist position that quasi-experiments add nothing, or that
adding variables is never advised. It does suggest, however, considering other means of
assessing causation, in addition to the conventional approach of seeing if adding plausible
exogenous variables renders the democracy-peace correlation to be statistically
insignificant. Scholars have explored other means of assessing causation in the
democratic peace, and have amassed three other types of evidence that support the
conclusion that democracy causes peace: evidence demonstrating support for other
empirical patterns suggested by democratic peace theory; evidence produced using
experimental methods; and evidence produced using case studies.
The first type of evidence explores for the existence of other empirical patterns predicted
by democratic peace theory. If a theory predicts the existence of a variety of empirical
patterns and these patterns are demonstrated through tests, we can be more confident in
the validity of the theory, and in turn that observed correlations are causal and not just
spurious. And, indeed, there is a wide array of quantitative empirical studies that provide
support for various assumptions or implications of democratic peace theory, especially for
institutionalist accounts of the democratic peace. Perhaps the central institutionalist
explanation of the democratic peace proposes that elected leaders are motivated to avoid
fighting wars, because the costs of wars will incite popular discontent in turn threatening
their hold on power. Studies have demonstrated a number of empirical patterns
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consistent with this view. Democracies fight shorter wars (Reiter & Stam, 2002, ch. 7).
Democracies suffer fewer casualties when they fight wars (Valentino et al., 2010), and
when they fight, popular support for the leadership declines as casualties escalate
(Mueller, 1973). The benefits of victorious wars may sometimes push democratic publics
to accept the costs of war when they are confident of victory, and accordingly
democracies almost never start wars they go on to lose (Reiter & Stam, 2002). During
war, public support erodes as the perceived likelihood of victory declines (Gelpi et al.,
2009). As the institutional explanation of the democratic peace would predict, variations
of institutional and leadership form within democracies also affects conflict behavior, as
in general more constrained states are less conflict prone (Reiter & Tillman, 2002).
Consistent with the audience costs explanation, democracies can more effectively signal
their resolve than at least some kinds of autocratic states (Schultz, 2001; Weeks, 2014).
There are also some studies supporting elements of the normative explanation. For
example, some studies have found that democracies are especially likely to use mediation
or binding arbitration to resolve interstate disputes (Dixon, 1993; Raymond, 1994, 1996).
In total, though there are certainly scholarly debates about some of these observed
patterns,6 this collection of studies improves our confidence that democracy is causing
peace in the manners described by democratic peace theory.
The second type of evidence uses experimental methods. Some have proposed that
experimental methods enjoy critical advantages over the analysis of observational data in
assessing causation. Experimental methods are able largely to skirt some of the biggest
causal inference problems associated with quasi-experimental methods, such as biased
samples and nonrandom assignments of treatment. That said, the limitation of
experimental methods is that, especially in international relations, they can only be used
to test some arguments, or some components of arguments. For example, regarding the
democratic peace an experimenter cannot take a set of states and then randomly assign
some to be democratic and others to be non-democratic.
That said, scholars have thus far been able to conduct survey and laboratory experiments
that have tested some elements of the democratic peace. A number of surveys have found
support for one of the core assertions of dyadic democratic peace theory: that citizens of
democracies are significantly less likely to support the use of force against democracies
as compared to using force against non-democracies (Geva et al., 1993; Johns & Davies
2012; Lacina & Lee, 2013; Mintz & Nehemia, 1993; Rousseau, 2005, pp. 219–232; Tomz &
Weeks, 2013) Other experiments have tested elements of the audience costs variant of the
democratic peace, showing that the public does inflict audience costs on leaders who
back down in a crisis (Horowitz & Levendusky, 2012; Tomz, 2007; Trager & Vavreck,
2011).
A third empirical means of demonstrating causation is to engage in process tracing

through case studies. Scholars have presented several individual case studies of the
democratic peace in events such as 19th-century American diplomatic crises, the 1898
Fashoda Crisis, the onset of World War II, the Spanish-American War, and many others
(see Elman, 1997; Owen, 1997; Ray, 1995; Risse-Kappen, 1995; Rousseau, 2005; Schultz,
Page 12 of 25

2001; for case studies presenting evidence against the democratic peace, see Layne, 1994).
Some of these case studies demonstrate specific parts of the causal logic of the
democratic peace, such as the ability of democracies to signal more effectively through
invoking greater audience costs (Schultz, 2001), or the inability of elected leaders to
manipulate public opinion or secretly drag their nations into wars the public would
otherwise avoid (Reiter, 2012A). Perhaps the most striking case study of democratic
peace dynamics is the pacification of Western Europe after World War II, democracy
helping to dissolve immediately and completely one of the most violent interstate conflicts
in modern history, the France-Germany rivalry (Russett & Oneal, 2001).
Causal Arrows: Does Peace Lead to Democracy,

but Not Vice Versa?
The Causal Arrow Critique
A different cluster of arguments critiquing the claim that democracy causes peace
focuses on the direction of the causal arrow, proposing that peace causes democracy, but
that democracy does not cause peace. The central claim of the “peace causes democracy”
element of this claim is that threatening international environments motivate
governments to improve their abilities to balance against these threats, and that part of
that response is to expand the power of the state and to weaken democratic political
institutions. Lasswell (1941) described how a sense of international threat can encourage
the emergence of the “garrison state,” a government that empowers military leaders,
emphasizes the collective over the individual, and prioritizes coercion over bargaining, as
part of a process that eventually destroys democracy. Sometimes states will take internal
actions to improve their ability to confront these threats, and these internal actions can in
turn bolster autocracy and undermine democracy. One course of action is to strengthen
the state itself, recalling Tilly’s (1975, p. 42) claim that “war made the state, and the state
made war.” Greater external threat may require a government in the short term to
increase defense spending (Nordhaus et al., 2012) and revenue collection and total
spending more broadly (Lektzian & Prins, 2008), expanding its control of the national
economy.
A related point is that higher levels of external threat push states to reduce individual
liberties, including political competition. Poe and Tate (1994; see also Davenport &
Armstrong, 2004) demonstrated that participation in interstate wars was negatively
correlated with a measure of the percentage of the adult population who vote and with
respect for human rights. Conversely, autocracies may be more willing to undergo
democratization in a peaceful international context as compared with a more threatening
environment (Thompson, 1996).
Page 13 of 25

Importantly, there are two variants of the peace causes democracy argument. The more
moderate form proposes that the causal arrow runs both ways, that democracy causes
peace and peace causes democracy (Crescenzi & Enterline 1999; Gleditsch, 2002;
Midlarsky, 1995; Rasler & Thompson, 2005; Reuveny & Li, 2003; Thompson, 1996).
Russett and Oneal (2001) framed this as part of a Kantian positive feedback loop in which
peace, economic interdependence, democracy, and international organization all mutually
and positively reinforce each other.
The more ambitious form of the argument contends that peace causes democracy but not
the reverse. Authors making this claim present different types of quantitative tests to
show support. James and colleagues (1999) is perhaps the most sophisticated, using a
multiple equations model to demonstrate that peace causes democracy, but that the effect
of democracy on peace is statistically significant but substantively negligible. Gibler
(2012; Gibler & Tir, 2014) coupled his critique that border stability and not democracy
causes peace with the observation that border stability in turn causes democracy.
Mitchell and colleagues (1999) presented an interesting variant, albeit using a system
level of analysis. Using Kalman filter analysis, they found that though democracy spreads
peace, war itself can cause democracy, because democracies often win wars and victors
in war pursue regime change.
Discussion
As with the spuriousness critiques, the claim that peace causes democracy but that
democracy does not cause peace has attracted scholarly debate. Regarding the garrison
state thesis, some have proposed that levels of threat may cause states to grow stronger,
but that need not come at the expense of undermining democracy (Friedberg, 2000; see
also Zakaria, 1998). The James and colleagues (1999) article described above attracted
scholarly exchanges (Oneal & Russett, 2000; James et al., 2000), though in a later article
James himself (Enia & James, 2015) moved to the more moderate position of bidirectional
causality, that peace and democracy both cause each other. Some scholars have been
skeptical of the proposition that democracy causes peace, presenting quantitative
evidence that peaceful international environments do not make democratic transitions
more likely, or strengthen democratic regimes (Reiter, 2001). Pevehouse (2005) found
only mixed evidence that regional conflict impeded democratization, and little evidence
that regional conflict impeded democratic consolidation. Mousseau and Shi (1999) used
interrupted time series models to make the point that peace did not cause democracy but
democracy does cause peace. Kadera and colleagues (2003; see also Gleditsch, 2002)
critiqued the view that the level of conflict in the system affects a democracy’s ability to
survive, finding instead that democratic survival is more strongly affected by the number
of other democracies in the system. Regarding the thesis that democracies spread
democracy after winning wars, more recent analysis paints a different picture, finding
that foreign imposed regime change often fails to implant either stability or democracy
(Bueno de Mesquita & Downs, 2006; Peic & Reiter, 2011).
Page 14 of 25

There are important methodological dimensions of the debate around the causal arrow
critique, mostly concerning the difficulties of constructing a research design that would
definitively conclude that peace caused democracy but democracy did not cause peace.
One issue concerns the level of analysis. The dyadic democratic peace focuses on the pair
of states as its unit of analysis, whereas the peace causing democracy thesis focuses
generally on the single state, that a peaceful international environment will affect a single
state’s likelihood of becoming democratic. The difference in level of analysis presents
difficulties in constructing an integrated estimation strategy that could test satisfactorily
both causal arrows (Reuveny & Li, 2003, perhaps come closest to tackling this thorny
problem).
Methodological issues aside, there is some theoretical inconsistency within the claim that
peace causes democracy but not the reverse. The spuriousness critiques make
theoretically straightforward claims: Peace is caused by factors other than regime type,
such as national interests, and therefore democracy does not cause peace. In contrast,
the causal arrow critique is less straightforward. It proposes that a threatening
international environment undermines democracy because leaders perceive that
democracy would impede a state’s ability to fight war, because a weak state would be
insufficiently agile or powerful to mobilize quickly for war, and/or because individuals
empowered by democratic political institutions might resist mobilization and/or a decision
for war.7 And yet if these assumptions are true, then they are in turn of course reasons
why democracies are more peaceful in their international relations, the heart of the
democratic peace thesis. That is, if states or leaders shun democracy because they fear
democratic systems are better suited for peaceful rather than violent international
environments, then the implication is that democracies ought to be more peaceful in their
foreign policies. Peace would cause democracy because democracy causes peace.
Page 15 of 25

Toward Synthesis
What conclusions should be drawn from the spuriousness and causal arrow critiques,
both with regards to academic scholarship and policy? Should political scientists
recognize that the theory that democracy causes peace has been empirically disproven,
meaning that the theory should be rejected? When considering whether or not to spread
democracy, should policy-makers no longer consider the benefit that democratization
might spread peace?
There is enough evidence to draw the conclusion that joint democracy does cause peace,
and that the dyadic democratic peace is a law. None of the spuriousness critiques, though
intriguing, have sufficiently withstood scholarly rebuttals to justify dismissing as spurious
the very strong correlation between joint democracy and peace, especially given the
experimental, case study, and other quantitative observational work that provide support
for different elements of the democratic peace argument. That said, the spuriousness
critiques suggest possible modifications of the law of the democratic peace, such as
perhaps that the democratic peace could be weaker in less-developed regions. Regarding
the causal arrow thesis, though there is evidence that peace may cause democracy as
well as democracy causing peace, the evidence is much weaker that peace causes
democracy but not vice versa. Further, the claim that peace causes democracy but not the
reverse contains theoretical inconsistencies.
That said, it is of course conceivable that future studies may emerge that cast decisive
doubt on the proposition that democracy causes peace. Data collection in international
relations is never going to be as decisive in supporting or refuting theory as data
collection in fields like physics or chemistry, where highly precise, often non-probabilistic
theory permits point predictions that can be tested many times in controlled laboratory
settings. It also will not be as decisive as data collection in the medical sciences, where
theories are probabilistic but experiments can be conducted on thousands of subjects and
repeated dozens of times. That said, the evidence that dyadic democracy causes peace is
as strong as the evidence supporting essentially any theoretical proposition in
international relations, other than relatively trivial propositions such as that adjacent
states are more likely to fight each other than nonadjacent states. Echoing his 1989
assessment, Levy (2013, p. 587) remarked that in international relations “no one has
identified a stronger empirical regularity” (Levy, 2013, p. 587). That is, if the dyadic
democratic peace is not a law, it’s as close to a law that we have in international
relations, and probably as close to a law as we are ever going to see.
Even accepting that neither cluster of critiques dislodges the conclusion that democracy
cause peace, the inescapable conclusion is that we live in a complex, multi-causal world.
As the democratic peace advocates themselves have long recognized, many factors
beyond democracy cause peace (Russett & Oneal, 2001). Democracy and peace likely
mutually cause each other. Further, as Kant envisioned, this variety of factors each cause
each other. Development may cause peace, but democracy also causes development
Page 16 of 25

(Przeworski et al., 2000). Gender equality and democratization are likely tightly
connected in complex ways. Future empirical work using observational, experimental,
and case study methods should continue to unpack and describe this web of complex and
important relationships.
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Notes:
(1.) Italics in original.
(2.) http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Wilson’s_War_Message_to_Congress.
(3.) http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/swearing-in/address/address-by-george-w-
bush-2005.
(4.) There are, to be a sure, a variety of other critiques of the democratic peace
proposition. For a summary, see Reiter (2012b).
(5.) Ward et al. (2007) used more advanced statistical methods to assess whether the
observed democratic peace was spurious, peace being instead caused by other factors
such as geography and other dependencies. Their approach suggested that democracy
does still cause peace, but that the magnitude of the effect is lower than what had
previously been suggested.
(6.) For example, on whether democracies win their wars, see Brown et al. (2011). On
whether public support for war is driven by objective factors such as casualty rates, see
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Berinsky (2009). On whether elected leaders are more likely to lose power following
defeat in war as compared with unelected leaders, see Chiozza and Goemans (2011).
(7.) Note that these specific claims are matters of dispute among scholars. The point here
is that these are the specific points made by the causal arrow critique.
Dan Reiter
Department of Political Science, Emory University
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Is Democracy a Cause of Peace?

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

Summary and Keywords

date: 24 January 2019

The Democratic Peace Debate

The Correlation of Democracy and Peace

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Scholars have outlined two clusters of explanations as to why democracies ought to be

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A second explanation focuses on norms. Democratic political culture emphasizes

Causation and the Democratic Peace

In using the democratic peace proposition as an example in his discussion of causation

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Is the Democratic Peace Correlation Spurious?

The Spuriousness Critiques

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A second cluster of spuriousness critiques focuses on economic rather than political

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In short, the variety of critiques arguing that inclusion of additional variables in

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A third empirical means of demonstrating causation is to engage in process tracing

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Causal Arrows: Does Peace Lead to Democracy,

The Causal Arrow Critique

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Choi, S. (2011). Re-evaluating capitalist and democratic peace models. International

Clarke, K. A. (2005). The phantom menace: Omitted variable bias in econometric

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Kahl, C. H. (1998/1999). Constructing a separate peace: Constructivism, collective liberal

Midlarsky, M. I. (1995). Environmental influences on democracy: Aridity, warfare, and a

date: 24 January 2019

Mousseau, M. (Forthcoming). Grasping the scientific evidence: The contractualist peace

Pearl, J. (2011). Invited commentary: Understanding bias amplification. American Journal

Pevehouse, J. C. (2005). Democracy from above: Regional organizations and

date: 24 January 2019

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Raymond, G. A. (1994). Democracies, disputes, and third-party intermediaries. Journal of

Raymond, G. A. (1996). Demosthenes and democracies: Regime-types and arbitration

Risjord, M. (2014). Philosophy of social science: A contemporary introduction. New York:

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Risse-Kappen, T. (1995). Cooperation among democracies: The European influence on U.

Schultz, K. A. (2001). Democracy and coercive diplomacy. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge

Tomz, M. (2007, Fall). Domestic audience costs in international relations: An

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Waltz, K. N. (1993). The emerging structure of international politics. International

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Worley, D. R. (2012, November 2). Democratic Peace? Huffington Post.