IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v48y2004i4p775-795.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Democracies May Actually Be Less Reliable Allies

Author

Listed:
  • Erik Gartzke
  • Kristian Skrede Gleditsch

Abstract

Recent research builds on the observation that democracies have more durable alliances to argue that democracies make more reliable allies. This need not be the case. Alliances serve as commitment devices, adding ex ante credibility to states' claims about ex post behavior. Variation in alliance durability must reflect differences in the desirability of formalizing alignments. Put simply, democracies are “most improved” by formal commitments. We offer two related explanations for why democracies might actually be less reliable alliance partners. Information costs for participating in policymaking and the advantages of organized interest groups combined with distributional incentives generated by the periodic turnover of governments may conspire to make informal commitments on the part of democracies problematic. Determining the net effect of democratic virtue and vice is best done empirically. We test alliance reliability by focusing on intervention, rather than on the duration or the number of commitments. Our results suggest that democracies make less reliable allies.

Suggested Citation

  • Erik Gartzke & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, 2004. "Why Democracies May Actually Be Less Reliable Allies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(4), pages 775-795, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:48:y:2004:i:4:p:775-795
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00101.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00101.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00101.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wagner, Wolfgang, 2007. "Problems of Democratic Control in European Security and Defense Politics – a View from Peace and Conflict Research," Institute of European Studies, Working Paper Series qt65b9q82m, Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley.
    2. Brett V. Benson & Joshua D. Clinton, 2016. "Assessing the Variation of Formal Military Alliances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 60(5), pages 866-898, August.
    3. Joshua Alley, 2023. "Elite Cues and Public Attitudes Towards Military Alliances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 67(7-8), pages 1537-1563, August.
    4. Brett Ashley Leeds & Michaela Mattes & Jeremy S. Vogel, 2009. "Interests, Institutions, and the Reliability of International Commitments," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 461-476, April.
    5. Jesse C Johnson & Stephen Joiner, 2021. "Power changes, alliance credibility, and extended deterrence," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(2), pages 178-199, March.
    6. Gomez, Miguel Alberto & Winger, Gregory, 2023. "Public Opinion and Alliance Commitments in Cybersecurity: An Attack Against All?," SocArXiv bcwhu, Center for Open Science.
    7. Bruce Desmarais, 2012. "Lessons in disguise: multivariate predictive mistakes in collective choice models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 719-737, June.
    8. Douglas M. Gibler & Scott Wolford, 2006. "Alliances, Then Democracy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(1), pages 129-153, February.
    9. Xinyuan Dai, 2006. "The Conditional Nature of Democratic Compliance," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(5), pages 690-713, October.
    10. Isa Camyar, 2019. "Parliamentary and semi-presidential advantages in the sovereign credit market: democratic institutional design and sovereign credibility," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 383-406, December.
    11. Atsushi Tago, 2014. "Too many problems at home to help you: Domestic disincentives for military coalition participation," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 262-278, September.
    12. John Conybeare & Dong-Hun Kim, 2010. "Democracy, Institutionalization, and Corporate Alliances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(5), pages 715-744, October.
    13. J. Andrés Gannon & Daniel Kent, 2021. "Keeping Your Friends Close, but Acquaintances Closer: Why Weakly Allied States Make Committed Coalition Partners," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(5), pages 889-918, May.
    14. Douglas M. Gibler, 2008. "The Costs of Reneging," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 52(3), pages 426-454, June.
    15. Olga Chyzh, 2014. "Can you trust a dictator: A strategic model of authoritarian regimes’ signing and compliance with international treaties," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(1), pages 3-27, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:48:y:2004:i:4:p:775-795. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.