2014/01/10 by Håvard Hegre · 4 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Armed conflict #Computer science #Democracy #Development economics #Economics #Empirical evidence #Empirical research #Epistemology #Law #Law and economics #Leverage (statistics) #Peacebuilding and International Security #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East #Position (finance) #Positive economics #Psychology #Social psychology #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1177/0022343313512852
openalex publication_date 2014/01/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract The article reviews the literature on the relationship between democracy and armed conflict, internal as well as interstate. The review points to several similarities between how democratic institutions affect both conflict types. It summarizes the main empirical findings and discusses the most prominent explanations as well as the most important objections raised to the finding, empirically and theoretically. To a large degree, the empirical finding that pairs of democratic states have a lower risk of interstate conflict than other pairs holds up, as does the conclusion that consolidated democracies have less conflict than semi-democracies. The most critical challenge to both conclusions is the position that both democracy and peace are due to pre-existing socio-economic conditions. I conclude that this objection has considerable leverage, but it also seems clear that economic development is unlikely to bring about lasting peace alone, without the formalization embedded in democratic institutions.