1. "How Smart and Tough Are Democracies? Reassessing Theories of Democratic Victory in War"
- Author:
- Alexander B. Downes
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The argument that democracies are more likely than nondemocracies to win the wars they fight— particularly the wars they start—has risen to the status of near-conventional wisdom in the last decade. First articulated by David Lake in his 1992 article “Powerful Pacifists,” this thesis has become firmly associated with the work of Dan Reiter and Allan Stam. In their seminal 2002 book, Democracies at War, which builds on several previously published articles, Reiter and Stam found that democracies win nearly all of the wars they start, and about two-thirds of the wars in which they are targeted by other states, leading to an overall success rate of 76 percent. This record of democratic success is significantly better than the performance of dictatorships and mixed regimes.
- Topic:
- War