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Statistical Critiques of the Democratic Peace: Caveat Emptor

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  • Allan Dafoe

Abstract

The “democratic peace”—the inference that democracies rarely fight each other—is one of the most important and empirically robust findings in international relations (IR). This article surveys the statistical challenges to the democratic peace and critically analyzes a prominent recent critique (Gartzke 2007). Gartzke's claim that capitalist dynamics explain away the democratic peace relies on results problematically driven by (1) the censoring from the sample of observations containing certain communist countries or occurring before 1966, (2) the inclusion of regional controls, and (3) a misspecification of temporal controls. Analysis of these issues contributes to broader methodological debates and reveals novel characteristics of the democratic peace. Gartzke and other critics have contributed valuably to the study of IR; however, the democratic peace remains one of the most robust empirical associations in IR.

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  • Allan Dafoe, 2011. "Statistical Critiques of the Democratic Peace: Caveat Emptor," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 247-262, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:55:y:2011:i:2:p:247-262
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00487.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Patrick M. Regan & Richard W. Frank, 2014. "Migrant remittances and the onset of civil war," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(5), pages 502-520, November.
    2. Michael Mousseau, 2018. "Grasping the scientific evidence: The contractualist peace supersedes the democratic peace," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(2), pages 175-192, March.
    3. Bryan Rooney, 2019. "Emergency Powers in Democracies and International Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(3), pages 644-671, March.
    4. Christos Kollias & Suzanna-Maria Paleologou, 2017. "The Globalization and Peace Nexus: Findings Using Two Composite Indices," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 871-885, April.
    5. Maxim Bratersky & Gunes Gokmen & Andrej Krickovic, 2016. "It’S Not the Economy Stupid! Is Russia-Us Trade Really Underdeveloped? A Test Using Gravity Models," HSE Working papers WP BRP 26/IR/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    6. Brast, Benjamin, 2017. "Liberal Statebuilding Interventions and the Monopoly on Violence," SocArXiv yqk9v, Center for Open Science.
    7. Jason Enia & Patrick James, 2015. "Regime Type, Peace, and Reciprocal Effects," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(2), pages 523-539, June.
    8. Matti Vuorensyrjä, 2019. "A decentralized cooperative solution to the iterated pacifist’s dilemma game: notes in the margin of Pinker’s theory of Leviathan," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 235-260, June.
    9. James Lee Ray & Allan Dafoe, 2018. "Democratic peace versus contractualism," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(2), pages 193-203, March.
    10. Mousseau Michael, 2019. "Four Ways We Know the Democratic Peace Correlation Does Not Exist in the State of Knowledge," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 25(4), pages 1-8, December.
    11. Massoud Tansa G. & Magee Christopher S., 2012. "Trade and Political, Military, and Economic Relations," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-39, May.
    12. Michael Mousseau, 2012. "The Democratic Peace Unraveled: It’s the Economy," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1207, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    13. David Altman & Federico Rojas-de-Galarreta & Francisco Urdinez, 2021. "An interactive model of democratic peace," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 384-398, May.
    14. Johann Park, 2013. "Forward to the future? The democratic peace after the Cold War," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(2), pages 178-194, April.

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