Civil Society and the Democratic Peace
Hegre, Håvard ; Bernhard, Michael and Teorell, Jan LU
(2020)
In Journal of Conflict Resolution
64(1).
p.32-62
- Abstract
We theorize that three distinct structures of democratic constraint explain why more democratic dyads do not engage in military conflict with each other. We build on earlier theories that focused on electoral and horizontal accountability. We add a new dimension—the social accountability provided by an active civil society. Using several new measures from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data set, we stringently test these explanations. We find social accountability to be the strongest and most consistent predictor of nonbelligerence in dyads, that horizontal accountability is still important, but that the independent role of electoral accountability has been somewhat overstated. However, we do find that social and electoral... (More)
We theorize that three distinct structures of democratic constraint explain why more democratic dyads do not engage in military conflict with each other. We build on earlier theories that focused on electoral and horizontal accountability. We add a new dimension—the social accountability provided by an active civil society. Using several new measures from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data set, we stringently test these explanations. We find social accountability to be the strongest and most consistent predictor of nonbelligerence in dyads, that horizontal accountability is still important, but that the independent role of electoral accountability has been somewhat overstated. However, we do find that social and electoral accountability work strongly together, to make for an even greater effect. The finding is robust to a range of specifications and in the face of controls for contending theories that challenge the democratic peace (e.g., the capitalist and territorial peace theories).
(Less)
- author
- Hegre, Håvard
; Bernhard, Michael
and Teorell, Jan
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- democratic institutions, democratic peace, dyadic conflict, interstate conflict
- in
- Journal of Conflict Resolution
- volume
- 64
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 32 - 62
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85066842007
- ISSN
- 0022-0027
- DOI
- 10.1177/0022002719850620
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 34adc16d-aec2-4312-aa1e-9bbf76dfe699
- date added to LUP
- 2019-06-24 14:29:14
- date last changed
- 2022-04-26 01:56:27
@article{34adc16d-aec2-4312-aa1e-9bbf76dfe699,
abstract = {{<p>We theorize that three distinct structures of democratic constraint explain why more democratic dyads do not engage in military conflict with each other. We build on earlier theories that focused on electoral and horizontal accountability. We add a new dimension—the social accountability provided by an active civil society. Using several new measures from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data set, we stringently test these explanations. We find social accountability to be the strongest and most consistent predictor of nonbelligerence in dyads, that horizontal accountability is still important, but that the independent role of electoral accountability has been somewhat overstated. However, we do find that social and electoral accountability work strongly together, to make for an even greater effect. The finding is robust to a range of specifications and in the face of controls for contending theories that challenge the democratic peace (e.g., the capitalist and territorial peace theories).</p>}},
author = {{Hegre, Håvard and Bernhard, Michael and Teorell, Jan}},
issn = {{0022-0027}},
keywords = {{democratic institutions; democratic peace; dyadic conflict; interstate conflict}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{32--62}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Journal of Conflict Resolution}},
title = {{Civil Society and the Democratic Peace}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002719850620}},
doi = {{10.1177/0022002719850620}},
volume = {{64}},
year = {{2020}},
}