Peace and Democracy: Three Levels of Analysis

Author(s): Nils Petter Gleditsch and Havard Hegre

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), pp. 283-310
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Peace and Democracy
THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

NILS PETTERGLEDITSCH
HAVARDHEGRE
InternationalPeace ResearchInstitute,Oslo (PRIO)
Departmentof Sociology and Political Science,
Norwegian Universityof Science and Technology

Peace and regime type can be examinedat the dyadic, nation,and system levels. At the dyadic level, it
is well establishedthatdemocraciesrarelyif ever fight each other.At the nationallevel, the broadconsensus
is that there is no significantrelationshipbetween democracyand war participation,but this conclusion
remainscontroversial.At the systemlevel, therehasbeenlittleresearch;most scholarshave takenforgranted
thatthe answer can be inferredfrom the findingsat the dyadic or nationallevels. The authorsshow that,if
the conventionalwisdom holds at the dyadicandnationallevels, the probabilityof warin a politicallymixed
dyad mustbe higherthanthe probabilityof warbetweentwo nondemocracies,andthe relationshipbetween
democracyandwaratthe systemlevel mustbe parabolic.Thusincreasingdemocratizationinitiallyproduces
more war, and the reductionof war startsonly at a higherlevel of democratization.

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE

THREE QUESTIONS

In this articlewe investigatethe relationshipbetweendemocracyandpeace at three

levels of analysis:

Dyadic: Do democraciesusually keep the peace among themselves?

Nation: Do democraciesmore frequentlymaintainpeace overall?
System:Is aninternationalsystemwith a high proportionof democraticstatesmorepeaceful?

AUTHORS' NOTE: Some of the Correlatesof Wardata and the Polity data used in this articlewere
madeavailablefromthe InteruniversityConsortiumof PoliticalandSocial Research(ICPSR),eitherdirectly
or throughthe Norwegian Social Science Data Archives (NSD). Neitherthese institutionsnor those who
originallygeneratedthe dataare responsiblefor our use of them. For commentson earlierversions of the
article, we are gratefulto ClarkAbt, StuartBremer,Scott Gates, WarwickMcKibbin,Sara McLaughlin,
Arvid Raknerud,RudolphRummel,Bruce Russett,Roslyn Simowitz, and ErichWeede, as well as to Dan
Smith and other colleagues at PRIO. John Wilken Aschehoug provided technical assistance with the
manuscript.Finally,we would like to express our gratitudeto the FridtjofNansen Foundationfor Science
and the Humanities,the NorwegianMinistryof Defense, and the NorwegianResearchCouncil (NFR) for
financialsupport.
JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION,Vol. 41 No. 2, April 1997 283-310
? 1997 Sage Publications,Inc.
283
284 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

The prevailingopinion appearsto answerthese three questions yes, no, and yes.
The first question has been extensively researched,with clear results. The second
question has also been analyzed a great deal, with conflicting results and with the
prevailingopinionleaning in the directionof a no, but now shiftingin the directionof
a perhaps.The thirdquestionhas rarelybeen subjectedto empiricalinvestigation,but
it is commonlyassumedthatit can be answeredby a simple deductionfrom one of the
two otherlevels. The most commonconclusionis thatif democraciesdo not fight each
other,an increasingnumberof democraciesin the systemwill producea morepeaceful
system. Othershave arguedthatif democraciesare as war prone as nondemocracies,
it makesno differenceat the systemlevel if the numberof democraciesincreases.Both
of these system-level statementscannot be true at the same time, so there must be
somethingwrong eitherwith the deductionsor with the empiricalregularities.
In this articlewe firstconfirmthe democraticpeace at the dyadic level andthe lack
of a clear relationshipat the nationallevel, using several measuresof conflict. Next
we show that, given the conventionalwisdom-that democracieshardly ever fight
each other but overall participatein war as much as other countries-it follows
logically that the probabilityof war in a politically mixed dyad must be higher than
the probabilityof war between two nondemocracies,and the relationshipbetween
peace anddemocracyat the system level mustbe bell-shaped(i.e., parabolic).Finally,
we look briefly at the empiricalevidence at the system level. Althoughdemocracyis
clearly relevantfor subnationalconflict, we do not examinethose effects here.1

RESEARCH DESIGN

SPATIALAND TEMPORALDOMAIN

Ourempiricalstudyis basedon the dataon militarizeddisputesand interstatewars

in the Correlatesof War(COW)dataset, dataon post-ColdWararmedconflicts from
the UppsalaUniversitydata set, and dataon political system characteristicsfrom the
Polity III data set. To the COW data on interstatewars we have addeddata for 1993
and 1994 from the Uppsala data to cover the entire Polity time span2from 1816 to
1994 in the study of interstatewars. Following the COW criteriafor membershipin
the interstatesystem (Small and Singer 1982, 39-43, summarizedin Gleditsch 1995a,
304-5), we have addedthe new UN member,Andorra,as a system memberin 1993.

THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE

In the COW project,an interstatewar is defined as a violent conflict between two

or more membersof the internationalsystem involving morethan 1,000 annualbattle
1. Otherstudies have found a bell-shapedrelationshipbetween the degree of democracyand violent
domestic conflict (Mullerand Weede 1990; Ellingsenand Gleditsch,forthcoming).Democracieshave less
domestic violence, presumably because they permit the expression of opposition in peaceful ways.
Dictatorshipsalso have less violence because they repress any opposition before it can organize. The
"in-between"countriesare the most violence prone.
2. Therewere no new internationalwarsin these 2 years,butthe Armenian-Azerbaijan warcontinued.
 Gleditsch,Hegre /PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 285

deaths(Small and Singer 1982; Singerand Small 1994). Ourtwo otherdatasets have
a lower thresholdon violence. The militarizedinterstatedisputesdatafor 1816 to 1892
(Singer and Small 1994) includeall interstateconflicts with the use or threatof force.
The Uppsaladata(Wallensteenand Sollenberg1996) includeall armedconflicts with
more than 25 dead in a given year.3

DEMOCRACY

We use the most recentlycorrectedversion of the Polity III data set generatedby
Ted Gurrandassociates(Gurr,Jaggers,andMoore 1990; Jaggersand Gurr1995), the
only such dataset to cover the full spatialandtemporaldomainof the COWdata.4The
Polity data set includes 172 currentand historical countries. In terms of units of
analysis,the overlapbetweenthe Polity andCOWdatais very high (Gleditsch 1995a,
306). However, the Polity set of countriesis somewhat smaller than COW's. Thus
some country years and dyad years included here have no Polity data at all. For
simplicity, we have merged this category with the Polity codes of interruption,
interregnum,transition,and missing data(Gurr,Jaggers,and Moore 1989, 6-8).
For the measurementof democracy,we first compute for each country year the
difference between the Polity III indices of institutionalizeddemocracyand institu-
tionalized autocracy.If DEMOC-AUTOCis 3 or higher, we define the country as
democratic.By using the differencebetween the two scales, we avoid categorizing
ambiguousregimes as democracies.Primeexamplesof countrieswith a high score on
the two indices areJapanfrom 1868 to 1944 (DEMOC= 5, AUTOC= 4) andGermany
from 1908 to 1917 (DEMOC= 5, AUTOC= 3).
The DEMOC and AUTOC indexes in Polity are additiveindexes rangingfrom 0
to 10. Combiningthem(DEMOC-AUTOC)yields an additiveindex rangingfrom-10
to 10, combining assessmentsof the competitivenessof political participation(-2 to
3), regulationof politicalparticipation(-2 to 0), competitivenessof executive recruit-
ment (-2 to 2), openness of executive recruitment(-1 to 1), and constraintson the
chief executive (-3 to 4). The cutoff at 3 is fairly arbitrarybut is set to give roughly
the same proportionof democraciesas in previous studies with a cutoff of 6 on the
democracyscale alone. Ourdemocracyindex may be validatedintuitivelyby consid-
ering values for a few selected countries:The United States exceeds 3 for the entire
time span, Germanyachieves it duringthe WeimarRepublic (1919-1932) and again
from 1949, Russia is coded with a 4 in 1917 but did not reach this level again until
1991, andFranceis classified as a democracyfrom 1848 to 1950, from 1877 to 1939,
and from 1946 onward.

3. The Uppsala conflicts have been updateduntil 1995, but we can go only as far as the Polity data
have been updated(i.e., to 1994). The dataarepublishedby conflict.We have coded all countriesat opposite
sides in a war as being opponents.The Uppsaladatarequirethat at least one governmentto be among the
contendingparties.Whereveranothergovernmentis listed on the opposingside, we have coded the conflict
as international.
4. The correctedversion of the data set is availableby anonymousftp from <isere.colorado.edu.>.
Relative to the version publicized in Jaggers and Gurr (1995), the new version has corrected a small
summationerrorin the scores for democracyand the autocracyscores and a few other errorsthat barely
affect the statisticalresults.
286 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

DO DEMOCRACIES USUALLY
MAINTAIN PEACE WITH EACH OTHER?

The evidence from previous studies is straightforward: there are few if any wars
between democracies.Some disagreementremainsas to whetherthe relationshipis
merely very strong (e.g., Weede 1992, 382) or virtuallywithout exception (Rummel
1983, 1995; Ray 1993).
Table 1 summarizesthe evidence for the entire 179-yearperiod. The dataindicate
thatthe relativefrequencyof war between two democraciesis abouttwo fifths of the
relative frequency of war between two nondemocracies.Politically mixed dyads
(democracy/nondemocracy)have an even higher relative frequency of war than
nondemocraticdyads.
Although this is a strong and highly significant relationship,it is by no means
perfect.Table2 lists the exceptions.The anomalouscases of warbetweendemocracies
comprise30 dyadyears.No less than24 of these aremadeup by Finlandversusvarious
Westerndemocraciesin WorldWarII. These cases could be interpretedas "derived
war," resulting from the change of sides of a major actor (the Soviet Union) in a
three-waycontest.It would notbe unreasonableto modify the theoryof the democratic
peace to incorporatesuch majorshifts in a multipolarwaras one of the circumstances
underwhich small democraciesmight unwittinglyfind themselves at war with other
democracies.However,it seems moreappropriate to dismissthese shiftsas a weakness
in our measurementof dyadic war data because there was no war action at all, even
where therewas a formaldeclarationof war.5
Two anomalousdyadyears occurbecausethe time variablein the Polity dataset is
too coarse. The 1971 BangladeshWarbetweenIndiaandPakistanwas precededby a
stateof emergencyin Pakistan.Similarly,theTurko-CypriotWarin 1974 was preceded
by a GreekCypriotmilitarycoup, instigatedby a militaryregimein Greece.Five days
later, Turkey responded by an invasion, which divided the island and, ironically,
broughtdown the Greekcolonels' regime. Thus these dyadyears should be classified
as wars between a democracyand a nondemocracy.These anomalies occur because
regime changes in Polity are coded by year ratherthanby date.
Of the remainingfour anomalousdyad years, the Lithuanian-PolishWarof 1919
was consideredtoo smallto be includedin earlierversionsof the COWset of interstate
wars6and thereforehas not turnedup in earlierlists (e.g., Gleditsch 1993, 313). It is
includedin the newest versionof the COWdataset butas a marginalwar (1,000 battle
deaths) between two brand-newdemocracies.Because Lithuania'sconstitutionwas
not adopteduntil 1922 (The Baltic States 1991, 180), one might question the Polity
coding of Lithuaniaas a democracyfrom 1918 (cf. also Weart1994). Coding Spain
5. The United States resisted Soviet pressureto declarewar on Finland,so the United States-Finland
dyads are particularlyinappropriateas war dyads. The senior authorhas dealt more extensively with the
case of Finlandelsewhere (Gleditsch 1993), as has Ray (1993, 271). The discussion in Spiro (1994, 61-2)
is somewhatmisleading.He chargesFinlandwith having"pursuedan alliancewith fascists and ... declared
war on democracies"(it was, of course,Englandthatdeclaredwaron Finland).Spiroalso countsEngland's
attackon Germanshippingin a Finnishharboras an attackon Finlandmore than4 monthsbefore England
declaredwar on Finland.
6. In Small and Singer(1982, 338) the LithuanianPolish Waris listed as a warbut with differentdates
(1920-1927) and is excluded because it did not meet the battlecasualtiesthreshold.For 1919 they also list
(p. 337) a Polish-UkrainianWar,excluded for the same reason.
 TABLE 1
DemocracyandDyadic Relationshipsin War,1816-1994 (perc

MissingRegime
Two One No Data or
Typeof Relationship Democracies Democracy Democracies RegimeTransitio

At war with each other .05 .17 .12 .61

Allied in wara .51 .18 .12 .74
Otherb 99.44 99.65 99.76 98.65
Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
Numberof dyadyears 62,581 219,563 227,537 39,693
NOTE:Interstatewars from the Correlatesof Warproject,updatedto 1994. Democracy defined as
autocracyindices in the correctedPolity IIIdata.Each dyadis countedseparatelyfor each year.The n
to 17,020 in 1994. The X2tests at the end of the first two rows refer to the two 2 x 3 tables that em
transitioncolumneliminated.Twopossibleobjectionsto ouruse of chi-squaretests arethe following:(
wars continuingover several years are countedas severalobservations.We admitthe validityof this
figureswherethis dependencyhas been reducedandeven eliminated.(2) The numberof observation
and thus securingsignificantresults.This objection,however,is not valid as long as thereis no dep
onsets of dyadicconflictor war(see Table4) wouldnot changeif we hadchosen the dyadmonthas th
countij- expectedcountij]/expectedcountiy)and the expectedcountsfor nonwarare much highertha
the statistic.
a. Meansthatthe two countriesin the dyadare at war and on the same side of the war.
b. Includesall dyadswhere neithercountryis at war or whereonly one countryis at war (with some

0oo
*sj
288 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

TABLE2
AnomalousCases: WarbetweenDemocracies, 1816-1994

Country1 Country2 War Years AnomalousDyad Years

Spain United States Spanish-American 1898 1

Lithuania Poland Lithuanian-Polish 1919 1
Finland Australia,Canada, WorldWarII 1941-1944 24
New Zealand,
SouthAfrica,
United Kingdom,
United States
Israel Syria Palestine 1948 1
India Pakistan Second Kashmir 1965 1
India Pakistan Bangladesh 1971 1
Cyprus Turkey Turko-Cypriot 1974 1
Total 30
NOTE:Data as in Table 1. Countries1 and 2 are listed in alphabeticalorder.

as a democracyin 1898 has been questionedby Ray (1993). Coding Syriain 1948 and
Pakistanin 1965 as democraciesis also debatable.None of these four deviant cases
concernsstable or establisheddemocracies.
Obviously, one should be careful aboutreclassifyingdeviant cases without reex-
amining other cases. Temporalmismatchesand fictitious dyadic opposition in mul-
tipolarwars may occur among nondemocraciesand politically mixed dyads as well.
Moreover,correctingfor temporalmismatchmay conceivablyyield new warsbetween
democracies. But even in the absence of such systematic reconsideration,Table 1
confirmsthe very strongdyadicrelationshipbetweendemocracyandpeace, andgiven
our caveats aboutthe data,it is consistentwith the idea of a near-perfectrelationship.
Although democraciesrarely,if ever, fight each other,they are more frequently
allied in war.An averagepairof democraciesis allied in war more thanfour times as
frequentlyas the averagepair of nondemocracies.
How far can we lower the violence thresholdwhile retainingthe strong dyadic
relationshipbetween democracyand peace? Weede (1992, 380), using data with a
thresholdof 100 dead,foundno militaryconflictsbetweendemocraciesbetween 1962
and 1974. Likewise, no major military interventions(i.e., claiming more than 100
lives) betweendemocraciesarementionedin the dataset generatedby Tillema(1991).
If we look at all the interventionsin this dataset, the relationshipis no longerperfect.
But there are few such interventionsbetween democracies, and "almost all were
symbolic and short-termuses of armed force" with little loss of life (Kegley and
Hermann1996, 319). Studiesusing militarizedinterstatedisputes(MIDs) (Gochman
and Maoz 1984) find some conflict between democracies(Maoz and Russett 1992,
Table2, 254) but not for the highestcategoryof MIDs ("wardisputes")andfewer than
for othercombinationsof regime types.7
7. Manyof the MIDs betweendemocraciesarefisheriesdisputes(e.g., the Cod Warsbetween Iceland
and its neighbors).In such conflicts, the threator use of force is usually acted out betweenthe government
on one side and a privatefishing vessel on the other.The intergovernmental interactionis generallylimited
to diplomaticexchanges, and it is questionablewhether such conflicts have any place in a data set on
interstatedisputes.
 Gleditsch,Hegre /PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 289

Apartfrom the higher risk of coding errorin the MID data, it is unreasonableto
expectjoint democracyto eliminateall militarizedconflict down to the level of force
found, for instance, in the Cod Wars.The theory of the democraticpeace does not
assume thatjoint democracywill eliminate all conflict, and we should expect some
conflicts to develop militaryovertones.But we shouldalso assumethatthe nonviolent
normsof democracieswill interveneto preventfurtherescalation.
In the secondline of Table3, we test the dyadicrelationshipfor the Uppsalaconflict
datafor the post-ColdWarperiod (1989-1994). For this dataset, more inclusive than
the COW data but not as inclusive as the MID data, we find a single case of armed
conflict between two democracies(Indiaand Pakistanin 1989) and little difference
between nondemocraticpairs and the mixed dyads. This is, in a sense, a stronger
finding thanthe one in Table 1 because the violence thresholdis lower. On the other
hand,the time span for the Uppsaladatais much shorterthanfor the COW data.The
thirdline of the tabletests the dyadicrelationshipon the disputesdata,where we also
find the least conflict for double democraticdyads, althoughthe relationshipis not
nearlyas strongas for interstatewar.Thusboth datasets providesupportingevidence
for the dyadic democraticpeace.
Just as we have asked whetherthe dyadic democraticpeace holds at lower levels
of violence, we may ask if the relationshipvaries with differinglevels of democracy.
If we lower the threshold of democracy minus autocracyto zero, the ratio of war
incidence among democraciesto that among nondemocraciesincreases from 2:5 to
more than 2:3. Conversely,if we raise the level of democracyminus autocracyfrom
3 to 8, we eliminateall wars betweendemocraciesexcept Finlandversus the Western
democraciesin 1944. This is anothercase of temporalmismatchbetween Polity and
COW because Finland'schange to a high level of democracyoccurredafter the end
of the war.Thus, at this level of democracy,the correlationmay be perfect.
Empiricalfindings such as those in Tables 1 and3 have frequentlybeen questioned
on the basis that the dyad years do not representindependentobservations.If two
countriesare at war in year t, the chancesaremuchbetterthatthey will remainat war
in year (t + 1) than that two new countrieswill go to war. Similarly,once a conflict
has brokenout betweencountriesa andb, thereis a higherprobabilitythatthe conflict
will spreadto countryc (particularlyif this is a neighboringor allied country)thanfor
an entirely new conflict to startbetween c and d. We may call these two forms of
dependencybetween the units dependenceon the past and simultaneousdependence.
To eliminate this problem, Bremer (1992, 320) limits his investigationto the dyad
years thatoccuron the first day of a war,arguingthat"thequestionof how warsbegin
is fundamentallydifferentfrom the questionsof why wars grow in size, duration,or
severity."But this is not a questionthatcan be settled a priori.Duringa war,decision
makers are constantlyforced to reexamineits costs, and a decision to stay in a war
ratherthangive up or withdrawfromconquestmay be a resultof the same forces that
made war break out in the first place. Bremer's approachhas the disadvantageof
reducinglong wars with many participantsto a single dyadic observationor, at most,
a few, if severalcountriesenterthe war on the first day.ThusWorldWarII is reduced
to one dyad year,Poland-Germanyin 1939. Anotherproblemwith Bremer'swork is
that his censoring is inconsistent: he eliminates dependent cases of war but not
t)
\C

TABLE3
DemocracyandDyadic ArmedConflict (percentageof dy

Missing Regime
Two One No Data or
Typeof Anned Conflict Democracies Democracy Democracies Regime Transition Tota

Interstatewar, 1816-1994 .05 .17 .12 .61 .17

Armedconflict, 1989-1994 .01 .05 .06 .02 .04
Militarizeddisputes,1816-1992 .38 .87 .68 1.51 .78
NOTE:The line for interstatewar is repeatedfromTable1 for purposesof comparison.The dataon arm
The line for militarizedinterstatedisputesis from Singerand Small (1994). Democracyis definedas 3
autocracyindicesin the correctedPolity III dataset. Each dyad is countedseparatelyfor each year.
 Gleditsch,Hegre /PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 291

dependentcases of peace. His analysis lumps dyads continuingat war and dyads in
the process of joining an ongoing war with dyads at peace.
In a companionarticle from our project,Raknerudand Hegre (1997) tackle this
problemin a radicallydifferentway by modellingthe interstatedyad as a continuous
process (cf. also Beck and Tucker 1996). This leads to results that also confirm the
democraticpeace while seeing it in connection with war diffusion and recurrence.
Here, we choose a simpler approach,by comparingthe results obtainedin Tables 1
and 3 with the resultsof an analysisin which we have eliminatedthe unitdependency
for war (butnot for peace). The assumptionis thatif we find the same relationshipfor
the incidence of war and the onset of war,our confidencein the results will increase.
In Table4, we have cross-tabulateddemocracywith onsets of dyadic war and onsets
of war. The second half of the table correspondsto Bremer's radical reduction of
conflict dyads to new conflicts only, but the first half of the table is a less drastic
solution in which all new conflict dyads are countedin their first year.Although the
frequencyof dyadic war onsets is naturallylower than the dyadic incidence of war,
and the frequencyof war onsets even lower, Table4 confirmsthat war occurs much
more rarelyin jointly democraticdyads. The numberof anomalouscases is reduced,
mainly because the Finnishwar dyads from 1941 to 1944 are eliminated.
The dyadic relationshipbetween democracy and peace has been subjected to
various tests of thirdvariables(Maoz and Russett 1993; Oneal et al. 1996; Bremer
1992, 1993; Gleditsch 1995a); no evidence has been found for considering the
relationshipspurious.Indeed, if the relationshipbetween democracyand peace was
perfect, tests for spuriousnesswould be superfluous-unless a control variablewas
proposedthatin itself had a perfectrelationshipto the dependentandthe independent
variable.Even if the relationshipis just very strongratherthanperfect,the searchfor
single thirdvariablesseems unpromising.

ARE DEMOCRACIES MORE PEACEFUL?

There has been much more controversyaroundthe propositionthat democratic

countriesareless warlike.Some of this controversyis no doubtdue to confusionabout
the meaning of warlike. We take as our startingpoint whether or not democracies
participatein war more frequentlythanothers.The point thatdemocraciesareno less
prone to participatein war than other polities was made in an influentialarticle by
Small and Singer (1976). Most of those who have addressedthis topic in the decade
since the debatewas reopenedwith the seminalarticlesby Doyle (1983a, 1983b) and
Rummel (1983) have drawnthe same conclusion.Rummelis a majordeviant,but the
empirical evidence in his 1983 article has been questioned because of its limited
empiricalbase. More recently,Rummel (1995) has complained,with some justifica-
tion, that he was not alone in finding democraciesto be more peaceful. For instance,
Haas (1965, 319) found "a slight but consistenttendencyfor democraticcountriesto
have less foreignconflict thanundemocraticpolitical systems,"basedon conflict data
from the end of the 1950s andpoliticalvariablesin A Cross-PolitySurvey(Banks and
Textor 1963). Ray (1995) and Benoit (1996) are also revisionists on this issue.
 TABLE4
Democracyand Dyadic Onsetsof ArmedCo

MissingRegime
Two One No Data or
Typeof ArmedConflict Democracies Democracy Democracies RegimeTransition Tota

Dyad years with onset of

new dyadicconflict (%)a
Interstatewar, 1816-1994 .02 .06 (-) .05 (+) .18 .06
Armedconflict, 1989-1994 .00 .05 (-) .05 (-) .02 (-) .03
Militarizeddisputes,1816-1992 .32 .59 .48 .82 .53
Dyad yearswith onset of
new conflict (%)b
Interstatewar, 1816-1994 .01 .01 (+) .03 (-) .04 (+) .02 (-
Armedconflict, 1989-1994 .00 .00 (+) .00 (+) .01 .00 (+
Militarizeddisputes,1816-1992 .28 .43 .36 .61 .40
NOTE:To avoid exaggeratedaccuracy,we have limitedthe conflict frequenciesto two significantdigit
a plus or a minussign to indicateif the unroundedfigureis higheror lower.
a. Conflictdataanddemocracydataas in Tables 1 and 3. Each dyadis countedseparatelyfor each year
dyad. To determinewhich dyadic armedconflicts and which armedconflicts were new in 1989, we co
project.The 1988 list is moreinclusive (no lower thresholdon violence), so it cannotbe used to extend
determinewhich cases of incidencein 1989 were also onsets.
b. Dataas in the firsthalf of the table,butdyadicconflictis countedonly for the firstyearof the conflict.
conflict, we used Keesing'sContemporary Archives(1989, 36579f).
 Gleditsch,Hegre/PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 293

TABLE5
Democracyand ArmedConflict:The National-Level
Relationship(percentageof countryyears with conflict)

Missing Numberof
RegimeData Conflict All
No or Regime Dyad Dyad
Typeof ArmedConflict Democracy Democracy Transition Years Years X2 p

Incidenceof conflict
Interstatewar, 1816-1994 5.4 5.3 6.6 639 5.5 .04 .85
Armed conflict, 1989-1994 4.8 4.5 1.8 43 4.2 .03 .86
Militarizeddisputes, 1816-1992 33.6 32.9 22.8 3,632 32.1 .61 .43
Onset of new dyadic conflict
Interstatewar, 1816-1994 2.1 2.3 2.6 266 2.3 .78 .38
Armed conflict, 1989-1994 3.9 2.8 1.2 31 3.0 .85 .36
Militarizeddisputes, 1816-1992 28.0 26.3 16.9 2,928 25.9 3.45 .06
Onset of new conflict
Interstatewar, 1816-1994 1.1 1.8 1.6 182 1.6 5.92 .02
Armed conflict, 1989-1994 .7 1.0 .6 8 .8 .33 .56
Militarizeddisputes, 1816-1992 24.6 26.0 14.5 2,718 24.0 2.20 .14
NOTE: Conflict dataand democracydataas in Tables 1 and 3.

Although Rousseau et al. (1996, 526) found the previous evidence in supportof the
conventionalwisdom at the nationallevel "actuallyquite thin,"they also concluded
that the evidence for the dyadic thesis was much stronger.The bulk of the large-n
studies agrees with Chan (1984), who found that "relativelyfree" countriespartici-
pated in warjust as much as the "less free"-6.7% versus 6.1%, respectively,of all
country years between 1816 and 1980.8
Table 5 gives our national-levelresults for the correctedPolity III data using the
threeindicatorsof conflict. The same problemof dependencybetweenunits occurs at
the nationallevel. Therefore,we have computeddatafor the incidence of conflict as
well as for the two forms of onset. The frequencyof participationin waror militarized
interstatedisputes (whether measuredby incidence or onset) is not very different
between democraciesand nondemocracies.However,in an analysis dividing the war
data by time periods (not reproducedhere), we found that during the cold war,
democraciesparticipatedsignificantly less frequentlyin war than nondemocracies.
This patternappearsto continueinto the post-ColdWarperiod.
It mightbe suspectedthatthe "norelationship"findingwas dependenton the cutoff
for the level of democracy.Perhapsa positive relationshipbetween democracyand
peace would emergeif the requirementfor democracywere more stringent.This idea
was testedwith a negativeoutcome.At least for the periodas a whole, thereis no clear
trend in the war participationof democraciesrelative to nondemocracieswhen the
level of democracyis variedsystematically.
8. For extrasystemic wars (i.e., colonial and imperial wars), democratic countries were at war
significantlymorefrequently.However,this figureexaggeratesthe relativewarparticipationof democracies
because nondemocraticopponentsin colonial wars are not countedas separateactors.
294 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

Rummel(1995) has shown thatdemocraticcountriessuffermuch smallerlosses in

war than nondemocraticcountries,from .24% of the populationin democraticcoun-
trieskilled peryearin warin this centuryto .56%for totalitariancountries(usingCOW
data).9He arguesthatstudyingthe frequencyof warmeansaskingthe wrongquestion.
For instance,countrieswith extremely small losses may be counted as being at war
because they form partof a coalitionandhave more than 1,000 troopsinvolved, even
if they sufferednegligible losses (Small and Singer 1982). Even for participantswho
do qualify for the thresholdlosses, Rummel arguesthat it is unreasonableto equate
countryyears of majoractorsin WorldWarII with minorborderskirmishes.
Rummel's (1995) finding aboutdemocraciessufferingless violence in war is, of
course, also compatiblewith an argumentthat democraciesare strongerin war and
technologicallymore advancedandbetterable to deploy force at greaterdistances,so
that most of the fighting occurs on the opponent's territory.These data are even
compatiblewith Galtung's(1996) notionthatdemocraciesaremoreself-righteousand
thereforemore belligerent.Stam (1996) shows thatdemocraciestend to win the wars
they participatein, and Singer (1991) has suggested that therehas been a process of
displacement in the later stages of the cold war: war was reduced in the central
system-not just amongdemocracies,butamongindustrialandpostindustrialnations
generally.In the periphery,warnot only continuedbutwas acceleratedby majorpower
rivalries.If Singer's argumentwere valid (and we tend towardskepticism),it would
be consistent with lower war losses in democracies.There is a great deal of other
evidence that democracies value human life more highly, notably because of the
absence in democraciesof genocide (Rummel 1994) and famine (Sen 1994) and the
lower incidence of civil war (Ellingsenand Gleditsch 1996). But we cannotconclude
from figures on war losses alone thatdemocraciesare more peaceful in theirforeign
behavior,althoughRummelhas indeedshownthattheirpopulationsareon the average
less negativelyaffectedby war.How to properlytest an argumentrelatingwarseverity
to peacefulnessremainsunclear.It wouldprobablyrequiredataaboutwho kills whom
and where, and such datahave not yet been compiled.
One fairly simple explanationfor the high overall participationof democraciesin
war is the tendencyfor democraciesto ally in war. Some of the war participationof
the allied statesis fairlylimited,as with Belgium andthe Netherlands,which arelisted
as full-fledged combatantsin the KoreanWareven thoughtheir casualtieswere only
about 100 each (Small and Singer 1982). This is seen clearly when we comparedata
on the incidenceof conflictwiththose on the onset of new conflict in Table5. Although
democracieshave a slightly higher incidence of war, they have fewer onsets of new
conflict. The lattermeasureof war participationdoes not include countriesbrought
into the war throughtheiralliances,except those thatentera war on the first day. This
finding correspondsto the lower frequencyof onsets of war in mixed dyads relative
to nondemocraticdyads (cf. Table4).
Yet anotherway of reconcilingthe lack of warbetweendemocracieswith the high
war participationof democraciesis to arguethatdemocraciesare unlikely to initiate
9. Rummel (1995) also found thatthe negative relationshipbetween democracyand relativehuman
losses in war held up when controllingfor the level of economic developmentor capability,althoughnot
for the value "high"on eitherof the controlvariables.
 Gleditsch,Hegre/PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 295

war. Rummel (1979) did not posit a correlationbetween freedom and the frequency
of involvement in war because free states by their very example represented a
subversive challenge to authoritarianand totalitariansystems. Therefore,libertarian
states would have to engage in defensive andreactiveviolence againstattemptsfrom
nonlibertarianstates to change the statusquo.
This idea was testedby Small and Singer(1976, 66), who foundthatin the 19 wars
in which democraciesparticipated,they initiated(or were on the side of the initiator)
in 58%. This result should have been adjustedfor the numberof democraciesin the
system, but this involved more work collecting democracy data than they were
preparedto undertakeatthetime.Becauseat all timesthereweremorenondemocracies
than democracies,nondemocraciesshould be expected to initiate more wars. When
the oppositeis found,it appearsthatdemocraciesareeven moreproneto initiatewars
than Small and Singer's resultsindicate.
Table6 lists all warsbetween 1816 and 1994 involving democraciesfrom the start
of the war.The tableincludes30 of the 75 interstatewarsin the Small-Singerdataset.
Twenty-two of these, or 73%, were initiated by a democracy.To determine war
initiationis a difficult coding task because it dependson identifyingthe countrythat
crosses the decisive borderlinein a processof escalation.In some cases, the threshold
is obvious, as when GermanyattackedPolandin 1939. In othercases, with a protracted
process of escalation in many small steps, identifying the initiatormay requirean
arbitrarycutoff. Moreover,the possibility of preventivewar muddiesthe waters.If A
intendsto attackB, andB strikesfirst to preventit, B will be the initiatorin Small and
Singer's (1976) terms, but in discussing nations' peacefulness, it may be just as
reasonable(or unreasonable)to identifythe otherpartyas the aggressor.
When the Small and Singer(1976) list of initiatorsis examinedmore closely, such
problemsemergequite clearly.Looking at some of the wars initiatedby democracies,
we find several protractedhigh-tension disputes (India vs. Pakistanin the Second
KashmirWarin 1965, Israelvs. its neighborsin the 1956 and 1967 wars,and Syriavs.
Israelin 1948) in which mutualthoughtsof preemptionmust have been so pervasive
that the coding of war initiationbecomes highly suspect. In four other wars (United
Statesvs. Vietnamin 1965, Indiavs. Pakistanover whatbecameBangladeshin 1971,
Turkeyvs. Cyprusin 1974, andArmeniavs. Azerbaijanin 1991) an interstatewarwas
initiatedonly afterviolence had alreadystartedin the form of civil war, government
massacre, or a coup d'etat. Thus all eight wars initiated by democracies in the
post-WorldWarII period seem ratherirrelevantto determiningthe peacefulness of
democracies.We have not analyzedin similardetail earlierwars initiatedby democ-
racies, but the data from the post-1945 period alone cast considerabledoubt on the
notion thatdemocraciesare as war prone as nondemocracies.At least in the modern
era, democracieswould appearto initiate violence very rarely,except in protracted
conflicts;but if violence has startedin some form,they arenot averseto interveningor
escalatingthe disputeto the point where it can be settledby superiorforce. The prior
existenceof violencemay serveas a justificationfor the interventionof democracies.
The six most violentinterstatewarsin theentireCOWperiod-World WarI (1914),
World War II (1939), the Sino-JapaneseWar (1937), the Korean War (1950), the
VietnamWar(1965), and the Iran-IraqWar(1980)-were all initiatedby nondemoc-
296 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

TABLE6
Democracyand the Initiationof War,1816-1994
Initiator(s) Target(s)
Starting Democracy Democracy
Year War Level Country Level Country

1846 Mexican-American 10 United States m.d. Mexico

1856 Anglo-Persian 3 United Kingdom -10 Persia
1879 Pacific 3 Chile -7 Bolivia
1884 Sino-French 7 France -6 China
1893 Franco-Thai 7 France -10 Thailand
1897 Greco-Turkish 10 Greece -10 Ottomanempire
1898 Spanish-American 10 United States 4 Spain
1900 Boxer Rebellion 10 United States -6 China
7 United Kingdom
8 France
-10 Russia
1 Japan
1909 Spanish-Moroccan 6 Spain -6 Morocco
1912 First Balkan 4 Yugoslavia/Serbia -1 Turkey
10 Greecea
-9 Bulgariaa
1913 Second Balkan m.d. Bulgaria 4 Yugoslavia/Serbia
10 Greece
1914 WorldWarI -4 Austria-Hungary 4 Yugoslavia/Serbia
1919 Russo-Polish -1 Russia 8 Poland
1919 Lithuanian-Polish 8 Poland 4 Lithuania
1919 Hungarian-Allies 7 Czechoslovakia Hungary
-4 Rumania
1919 Franco-Turkish 8 France m.d. Turkey
1939 Russo-Finnish -9 USSR 4 Finland
1948 Palestine 5 Syria m.d. Israel
-4 Iraq
1 Egypt
2 Lebanon
-10 Jordan
1956 Sinai 10 Israel -7 Egypt
1962 Sino-Indian -8 China 9 India
1965 Vietnamese 10 United States -8 North Vietnam
1965 Second Kashmir 9 India 3 Pakistan
1967 Six Day 9 Israel -7 Egypt
-9 Jordan
-7 Syria
1971 Bangladesh 9 India 3 Pakistan
1973 Yom Kippur -7 Egypt 9 Israel
-10 Jordan
-10 SaudiArabia
1974 Turco-Cypriot 9 Turkey 10 Cyprus
1982 Falklands -8 Argentina 10 United Kingdom
1991 Armenia-Azerbaijan 7 Armenia -1 Azerbaijan
 Gleditsch,Hegre /PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 297

TABLE6 Continued

NOTE: m.d. = missing data. In the 1969 Israeli-EgyptianWar,Israel (9) and Egypt (-7) participated,but
COW has no informationon initiation.This table includes all interstatewars in the Correlatesof Wardata
set involvingat least one democracyfromthe start.SmallandSinger(1982) have coded the initiatorvariable
only up to 1980. For the remainingyears,we have used Singer'supdateof the war datato 1992 (Singer and
Small 1994), the Wallensteenand Sollenberg(1996) data on wars between 1993 and 1994, and our own
coding of the initiator.Three wars had to be eliminatedfrom the COW list when the presenttable was
compiled. In the Israeli-EgyptianWar(1969-1970) and the Vietnamese-Cambodian War(1975-1980), no
initiatoris named.The war called RomanRepublic(1849), accordingto the COWdataset, was initiatedby
France,which was not one of the originalparties(Two Sicilies vs. Austria-Hungary). This makes no sense,
so this war has also been left out. Of these three, only the first involved a democracy.Note that the two
worldwars have also been excluded.Althoughthey involved severaldemocracies,the originalinitiatorand
victim (Austria-Hungaryvs. Serbia in WorldWar I and Germanyvs. Poland in WorldWarII) were not
democracieswhen the wars broke out. The same goes for the Crimeanwar, the FirstBalkanWar,and the
KoreanWar.Warsin bold printare those initiatedby democracies.Democracyscores are from Polity III.
a. Greece and Bulgarianot coded by COWas initiatorsbut as participatingon the initiator'sside from the
first day of the war.

racies, although mostly with other nondemocraciesas the initial victims. When
democraciesbecame involved, as they did in four of these wars,theyjoined the target
ratherthanthe initiator.This addsforceto the contentionthatif democraciesparticipate
at all, they tend to be on the reactiveside, at least in majorwars.
This is not tantamountto saying that democracies are more peaceful. Such a
statementwould require a more detailed analysis of the patternsof escalation and
considerationof a widerset of wars.For instance,manyextrasystemicwarshave been
initiatedby democraciesengagedin colonialconquest.Second, in the post-WorldWar
II periodthereappearto havebeen manymoremilitaryinterventionsabroadconducted
by democratic (Western)countries than by the Soviet Union and its allies. Some
interventionshave been justified with reference to stopping domestic violence or
promotingdemocracy,but others are more commonly interpretedas power politics.
Third,majorpowers, includinglargedemocracies,may fight war throughproxies.
Finally, what aboutcontrolsfor thirdvariables?Thattask is much more urgentat
the nationallevel thanat the dyadic level becausewe arenot dealing with a perfector
near-perfectrelationship.Many of the third variables controlled for at the dyadic
level-for instance,those testedby Bremer(1992)-could be translatedto the national
level. But few if any studies controlfor thirdvariablesin a convincing manner.10

CONNECTING THE LEVELS LOGICALLY

Althoughthe relationshipbetweenthe dyadiclevel andthe nationallevel has been

the subjectof some debate,therehas been little researchat the system level and very
little discussion aboutthe links to the otherlevels. Most have takenit for grantedthat
the systemic relationship could be deduced from the dyadic level (Singer and
Wildavsky 1993) or fromthe nationallevel (SmallandSinger 1976). In one of the few

10. A partialexception is Schj0lset (1996).

298 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

studies to addressdirectly the logical connections between two levels, Starr(1992)

arguesthat a greaternumberof democraciesproducesa largernumberof democratic
dyads, and this in turnlowers the level of violence in the system. But this is not so
obvious. A greatershareof democraciesalso means a largernumberof mixed dyads
with a higherprobabilityof war.So what is the net effect on war in the system?
Obviously,if all countriesbecome democratic,interstatewarwill hardlyoccur any
more. In other words, given complete democratization,a yes to the dyadic question
logically implies a yes to the system-level question, and the national-levelquestion
becomes irrelevant. But what about links between the levels at lower levels of
democratization?As long as the democraciesare in a minorityamong the countries,
double democracieswill be an even smallerminorityamongthe dyads,andit will take
only a slightly higherincidence of war between democraciesand nondemocraciesto
compensatefor the lack of war betweendemocracies.If an increasein the incidence
of democracy over time is accompanied by an increasing rate of war between
democraciesand nondemocracies,a system with a higherproportionof democracies
need notbe morepeaceful.QuincyWright'snotion([1942] 1965, 266) that"thegreater
the numberof sheep, the betterhuntingfor the wolves" is consistent with this idea:
the greaterthe numberof democracies,the greaterthe value of war to the despots.
However,the perspectivechangeswhenthe democraciesbecome a majority.To see
the problem,we may ask what happenswhen thereis just one nondemocracyleft. If
a war occurs, the single nondemocracymust be at war. To maintainthe equal war
participationof democraciesand nondemocracies,thatsingle nondemocracymust be
at warwith all the democraciesin thecourseof theyear.This seems highly implausible,
althoughone might conceivablyimaginea UnitedNations of all countriesexcept one
going to war to rid the world of the last vestige of authoritarianism.
The Gulf Warof
1991 pointed in this direction.Iraq fought a coalition of no less than 29 countries
(Wallensteenand Sollenberg1996), backedby a series of UN resolutions.Of course,
only a minorityof these countriesdeployedany force to speakof, severalof themwere
far from democratic,and democracyin Iraqwas not a statedobjective of the war.
The relationshipbetweenthe levels becomesclearerwhen we formulateit formally.
Assuming a very simple model in which the political characterof the regime is the
only factor,we will show how parametersfor the differentlevels areinterrelated.The
argumentis easily generalizedfor more thanthese threecategories,but the formulae
quickly become very complex.

DYADIC VERSUS NATIONAL LEVEL

In the developmentof a model, we will assumethroughoutthatno countrycan start

a war againstmore than one othercountryin a given time interval.If this intervalis
short, this is a fairly realistic assumption.If the intervalis as long as a year, it holds
for 75 of the 118 "newwars."
First, considerthe simple case thatwar probabilityis independentof regime type.
If there areN countries,the probabilityof an outbreakof war in a dyad in the course
of a year is Tdyadandthe probabilityof a randomlychosen countrygettinginvolved in
a war in a year is rCnaon,the relationshipbetweenthe probabilitiesfor the two levels is
 Gleditsch,Hegre /PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 299

7dnation
dyad= N 1 (1)

iTnation= ndyad (N- 1). (2)

If we view ination as constant, rCdyadis proportional to 1/N. Conversely, if we look at

< nation < 1, 0 < ndyad < 1/
rCdyadas constant,rtnationis proportionalto N. And because 0
-
(N 1). This means that ndyad is not a primitive parameter but has to decrease with
increasing N! This is confirmed by empiricalanalysis:between 1954 and 1994, the
relativefrequencyof nationalonsets of warwas aboutone thirdof whatit was between
1851 and 1953. At the same time, the relativefrequencyof dyadic onsets of war was
less than one tenth.Thatthe reductionat the dyadic level is threetimes largerthan at
the nationallevel is explainedby formula(1): the reductionat the dyadic level is due
to the increasefrom an averageof 48 countriesin the firstperiodto 111 in the second.
The relationshipbetween the probabilitiesat these two levels of analysis is thus
expected to change from

itnation tnation
- to
dyad
48-1 111 - 1

Quantitativestudiesbased on dyad years in this field routinelyassume thatidyad is

constant(conditionalon the independentvariables)andthusrunthe risk of generating
spuriousresults. Because the internationalsystem is steadily increasingin size over
time and the shareof democraciesis also increasingover time, the effect of increasing
N can be falsely attributedto increasingdemocratization.
Maoz and Russett (1992, 1993) use a subset of the populationof dyads that they
call "politicallyrelevant"(i.e., dyads thatare eithercontiguousor include one or two
majorpowers). This limitationresultsin a reductionof theirnumberof dyad years by
nearly 88%.Because this reductionof the units of analysis involves a loss of 26% of
the disputes in the dataset on militarizedinterstatedisputesand 20% of the conflicts
in the InternationalCrisisBehaviorset (Brecher,Wilkenfeld,andMoser 1988), we are
skepticalof this procedure.Moreover,it seems unfortunateto reducethe units on the
basis of variablesthatarepotentiallyhighly relevantfor the analysis.But, unintention-
ally, this reduction also alters the relationship between idyad and reduces the
and TCnation
dangerof spuriouscorrelation.We will returnto this point later.
We will now extend (2) to formulatethe relationshipbetweenthe two levels, given
the countries' distributionon a dichotomous variable, such as democracy or non-
democracy,and given dyadic probabilitiesfor the differentresulting dyads. If the
probabilityof war outbreakis dependenton regime type, the relationshipbetweenthe
two levels will be dependenton the distributionof democraciesand nondemocracies.
We will write the share of democracies as d. Then there are Nd democracies and
N(1 -d) nondemocracies.ThereareNd(Nd- 1)/2 dyadsconsistingof two democracies,
N(1 - d)(N(1 - d)-1)/2 dyads consisting of two nondemocracies, and N2 d(1 - d)
politically mixed dyads.
300 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

The probabilityof a war outbreakin a randomlychosen democracyis then the

expected numberof democraciesE(D) in war outbreaksin a given year, divided by
the numberof democracies.E(D) = 2E(DD) + E(ND) because an outbreakof war in
a double democraticdyad will involve two democracies,and an outbreakof war in a
mixed dyad will involve one democracy (as long as the assumptionholds that no
countrystartsa war againstmore than one opponentin a given year). We may now
express the probabilitynD of a democracyentering a war in terms of N, d and the
probabilitiesof war outbreakin dyads with differentregime combinations TDD and
7tND:

E(D) 2E(DD) + E(ND) 2(Nd (Nd - 1) /2) tDD + N2d( - d) lND

D Nd- Nd Nd (3)
= ( Nd- I)CDD+ N(1 - d)ND.

In the same way,

E(N) 2E(NN)+ E(ND) 2(N (1 - d)(N (1 - d) - 1)/2) NN+ N2d(1- d)

'XN = ND
(4)
N( - d) N( -d) N(1-d) (4)
= (N (l -d)- l)nNN+ NdnND.

As in (2), the relationshipbetween the nationaland dyadic probabilitiesare propor-

tional to N.
To illustrate our point, we have selected a set of 30 countries that have been
membersof the internationalsystem for most of the period between 1853 and 1992.
The observed frequenciesfor "new disputes"(correspondingto Table4) for this set
are: tDD = .0063, NDo= .0158, and NN = .0105. The average system size, N, was 27.7
countries,varyingfrom 21 to 30. Based on these parameters,tD and tN areplotted as
functionsof d in Figure 1.
For these particular parameters, where 7ND > tNN > tDD, tD decreases with increasing
d and lN increaseswith increasingd.

DYADICVERSUSSYSTEMLEVEL

At the system level, we are most interestedin the proportionof the system's
countriesin war outbreakin a year.For a start,we assume thatthe probabilityof war
between two democracies tDD is 0. Then the frequency of war is a function of JND, 7eNN,
d, and N, the number of countries in the system. Clearly, if tND < 1NN, the replacement
of a dyad of two nondemocraciesby a mixed dyad of one democracy and one
nondemocracymust involve a decreasein the frequencyof war.Therefore,as long as
lND < tNN (as we have found empirically to be the case for the onset of new interstate
war and for all measures of armed conflict at a lower threshold of violence), the
frequencyof war declines monotonicallywith increasingd. In otherwords, the more
democraciesin the system, the less war.
On the other hand, if ND > tNN (as we have found empirically to be the case for the
incidenceof war,the onset of new dyadicinterstatewar,andall measuresof militarized
 Hegre/PEACEANDDEMOCRACY301
Gleditsch,

0% 10% 20% 30% 40/o 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
d
-..... Democracies --Non-Democracies

Figure 1: Expected Share of Democracies and Nondemocracies in Onset of New Dispute

in a Year as a Function of d, Given the Sample Values for N, irND,IN/, and 1tDD
NOTE:Data as in Table 1 for a subset of 30 countries.

disputes), the system-level relationshipis more complex. Imagine that we have no

democraciesin the system at all. In that case, the frequencyof war in the system is a
function only of the probabilityof war among nondemocracies.If we introduceone
democracy,the frequency of war must go up because (N - 1) dyads now become
politically mixed with a higher probabilityof war, but there are as yet no double
democracieswhere the probabilityof war is zero. On the otherhand, if all countries
but one are democratic,increasingdemocratizationmust decrease the frequency of
war in the system because the last (N - 1) remainingmixed dyads are replaced by
double democracies.
This reasoning is confirmed by deriving lnaton, the weighted average of nD and lCN,
from expressions (3) and (4):

E(D) + E(N) 2E(DD) + 2E(ND) + 2E(NN)

7nation N N
N N
- -
+d(-1 - +i D N 1) N( d)(N (- ) (5)
-
=~^\ ^ 2 d(\-d)nw^
^DD+~jN 1NN\ ^
2

+ 2Nd(l - d)nND+ (d - 1)(N (d - 1) + 1)nNN.

= d(Nd - 1)7cDD

We see that if cDD = 0 and d = 1, n,ation has to be 0. The formula can also be
expressed as

lnation = Nd2(7tDD- 2lND + 7CNN)+ d(-TDD + 2NtND- 2N7NN + 7LNN)+ NtNN - CNN. (6)

As a functionof d, this expressionis quadratic.In otherwords,if the conventional

wisdom holds aboutthe dyadic andthe national-levelregularities,it follows logically
thattheremust be a parabola-shapedrelationshipbetweenthe degree of democratiza-
302 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

tion and the frequencyof war at the system level. Thus, with increasingdemocratiza-
tion over time, we should expect the frequencyof war to increase initially and only
decline when reachinga breakpoint. The derivativeof (6) with respectto d is the rate
of change of nationwhen d increases:

dnation(d)
= 2dN(DD - 2 ND + 7NN)+ (-tDD + 2NnND- 2NnNN+ 7NN). (7)
dd

The maximizerof nat,on(d) is the value of d for which (7) equals0 (given values for
In the specialandnotveryrealisticcase of 7NN= 0 andnDD = 0 (i.e.,
the otherparameters).
no war among similarregimes), the frequencyof warpeaks for d = .5, at which point
half the dyads are mixed; hence any furtherdemocratizationmust replace a mixed
dyad with a pure dyad of one sort or the other. For our numerical example, the
maximizer is d = .36.
These points are illustratedin Figure2, where we have plotted7nationas a function
of d in a our subset of countries,using expression 6. If the observedfrequenciesare
representative,initial democratizationin the internationalsystem is followed by a
slightly increasingfrequencyof war until 36% are democratized,and then it startsto
decline.
It can be derivedfrom (7) thatthe maximizerof 7nation(d) is independentof N when
we assume that the dyadic probabilities CND, 7tNN, and 7DD are constants. In other words,
the expected frequency of war at the system level peaks for the same share of
democraciesregardlessof the size of the system.But, as arguedin theprevioussection,
the assumptionof constantdyadic probabilitiesis untenable:both cnationand ldyad are
dependenton the size of the system.Therelationshipbetweenthe levels is inextricably
tied to the size of the system, makingstrictempiricaltesting of our argumentdifficult.
The fact thatN has been constantlyexpandingin the time framecovered probably
does not alter the relationshipbetween the levels shown here, althoughwe have not
worked out the formalrelationship.In the absence of such an extendedformula,it is
thus necessaryto limit the analysisin some way to keepN roughlyconstantif we want
to test ourpropositions.We mightdo this by applyingsome variationof the politically
relevantdyads.Elsewhere,we (RaknerudandHegre 1997) proposea flexible version
of this procedurein which the irrelevantdyads are weighted down instead of being
deleted. Anotherway to bypass the problemis to confine the empiricalanalysis to a
regionthatis expandingonly moderately(suchas Europe)or to a fixed set of countries
as in our numericalexample.1 In Table7, the 140-yeartime span has been divided
into fourperiodsof 35 yearseach for the 30-countrysample.The shareof democracies
d and the observedshareof nationyears with the onset of a new militarizedinterstate
dispute has been computedfor each period. In the final column, we reportthe 7nation
predictedby expression(5), given the observedproportionsat the dyadic level. These
predictedfigures correspondwith Figure2.
Although double democraticdyads have a considerablylower proportionof dyad
years with new disputes(.0063 vs. .0105 and .0158), the predictedprobabilitiesat the
11. We conductedan analysis similar to the one reportedin Table 7 for all Europeancountrieswith
similarresults.
 Gleditsch,Hegre/PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 303

25 %

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
0% 10%0 20% 30% 40%0 500/ 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
d

Figure 2: Expected Share of Countries in Onset of New Dispute in a Yearas a Function of

d, Given the Sample Values for N, IrND/nINN and IoDD
NOTE:Data as in Table 1 for a subset of 30 countries.

nationallevel are almost similar.At 63% democratization,the democraticpeace still

has only a limited effect at the system level (cf. Figure 2). The observedproportions
areconsiderablylower thanpredicted.This is due to violationsof the assumptionthat
no countrycan starta waragainstmorethanone othercountryin the given time interval
(i.e., in a year). If a countrystartstwo separatedisputeswith two othercountriesin a
year,this is countedas two dyadicdisputesandthreenational-leveldisputes,not four
as assumed. Second, the parabolais much steeperthanpredictedbecause the dyadic
probabilitiesare not constantover time: militarizeddisputesare less frequentfor all
regimetypes afterWorldWarII. The observedfrequenciesindicatea muchlower level
of MIDs at recenthigh levels of democracy.
This analysis may also shed some new light on the debatebetween Mansfield and
Snyder (1995, 1996) and Enterline (1996), Weede (1996), and Wolf (1996) on
democratizationand the dangerof war.Mansfieldand Snyderarguethatthe process
of political change, in general,and democratization,in particular,createinstabilities
that increase war participation.12 Mansfield and Snyder's argumentis strictly at the
national level. Enterlineand others have arguedthat their data do not supporttheir
argument.From our analysis, it is clear thatthe war participationof a given country
dependson the politicalmix of surroundingcountries.Fora nondemocracy,increasing
the numberof democraciesincreaseswarparticipation.For a democracy,the effect is
the opposite. The studies done to date are underspecifiedand fail to distinguishtwo

12. Many currentarmedconflicts, such as those in the formerYugoslaviaand in the Caucasus,can be

relatedto ongoing democratizationor attemptsat democratization,even if few of the warringpartiesfail to
reachthe thresholdfor democracyused here.
304 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

TABLE7
Observedand PredictedProbabilitiesof MIDs
at the NationalLevel in a Set of 30 Countries

Period AverageN d (%) ObservedPnation

(%) Predicted rnation
(%)

1853-1887 27.8 22.2 24.1 32.6

1888-1922 27.6 32.2 29.8 33.4
1923-1957 25.8 43.3 22.6 33.2
1958-1992 29.7 63.4 14.9 30.4
1853-1992 27.7 40.6 22.7 33.4

differenteffects of democratization:the effect of the processof changefor the country

itself and the effect of a changingpolitical environment.

SPREADING DEMOCRACY, SPREADING PEACE?

If the simple dyadic- to system-level argumenthad been true, the increasing

democratizationreportedin manystudies,andparticularly"thethirdwave"of democ-
ratizationsince 1974, shouldhaveprovidedconsiderablecause for optimism-leaving
aside the issue of short-terminstabilitiesassociatedwith the democratizationprocess.
However, as noted earlier,the conventionalwisdom at the dyadic and the national
levels leads to the conclusion that the relationshipbetween democratizationand the
frequencyof war at the system level, ceteris paribus,should be parabolic.In tracing
the historicalpatternfrom the birthof moderndemocracy,we should expect it to be
accompanied,then, by a relativeincreasein the frequencyof interstatewarbefore the
effect of democratizationstartsworkingin the oppositedirection.The absolutenumber
of democraticcountrieshas never been higher,and even thoughtherehas been a vast
increasein independentstates (from 23 in the COW dataset in 1816 to 186 in 1994),
the fractionof independentstatesunderdemocraticruleis also approachingan all-time
high. Because colonies and other dependentterritoriescan rarely be classified as
democratic,the increasein relativedemocratizationis even greaterthanwhat we find
when we consideronly independentstates.As thedemocraticgroupof countriespasses
above 50%, more than 25% of all randomlyselected pairs will have ruled out war
among themselves. At this level, we might reasonably hope that it should have
consequencesfor the level of violence in the system as a whole.
In Figure3, the relativenumberof democraciesandthe incidenceof war(measured
by the fractionof countryyears at war to all countryyears) are plotted in the same
graph.13 No clearmonotonicrelationshipemerges:democratizationshows a long-term
increase,but the amountof interstatewarappearsto increaseand then to decline after
WorldWarII. The peakof waractivityaround1940 followed a long anddrasticdecline
13. Plottingthe war data on an annualbasis, not shown here, gives the same overall impressionbut in
a somewhatmore erraticfashion. We could also have measuredsystemic war by the frequencyof dyadic
war,but the trendwould be very similar.
 Gleditsch,Hegre /PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 305

70% -

60 % -

50% -

40 % -

30% -

20 % -

10%

0%
o so ' '0
so %o o0 ' ' 0 '0 0 '0 '0 '0 > 'I
so '0 '
0 r- 00 oo0as \c0 Yr-a o 0
o oo o' o o

Year

Figure 3: Relative Number of Democracies in the World and Incidence of War, 1816 to
1994 (%)
NOTE: Data as in Table 1. Wardata accumulatedby countryand by decades. Countriesin transitionor
withoutcodes in Polity have been excluded.

in the level of democracyin the 1920s and 1930s. Earlierperiodsof war accompanied
periods of democratization.All this is broadly consistent with the hypothesized
curvilinearpatternif we fix the turningpoint between 1910 and 1920.
A similar approachis taken in Figure 4, where the two variables are plotted on
separateaxes. Here the frequencyof war in the system (measuredby the percentage
of countryyears at war) is plottedagainstthe degree of democracy(measuredby the
percentageof countryyears accountedfor by democraticcountries)for each of six
time periods.The firstfive timeperiodseachcover 35 years,butthe final periodcovers
only the postcoldwarera.Figure4 shows thatfor the first 100 years,the worldbecame
more democraticand also more war prone. After the world wars, it became more
democraticand peaceful. However, in examining the changes between neighboring
periods, we find too little war in the thirdperiodand too little democracyin the fifth
for the patternto be completely consistentwith our theoreticalexpectations.Never-
theless, the curve as a whole may (with some imagination)be characterizedas
parabolic,whereincreasingdemocratization,as expected,is firstassociatedwith more
war,then with less.
Although it is difficult to predicttheoreticallywhere the breakpoint might occur,
we can simulate it. If we assume nND and nNNtobe constant over time and equal to the
frequencyof war in mixed andpurenondemocracydyads over the entiretime period,
using the actualfigures for d (the fractionof democracies),we get a predictedpattern
of war thatpeaks in the late 1920s and generallydeclines from then on. Because war
peakedonly 20 years laterandthe late 1920s were in fact quite a peacefulperiod,this
might seem to be wide of the mark.But if we regardthe two world wars as essentially
one conflict (not an unreasonableassumptionin view of the fact that the actors and
conflict lines were largely the same, at least in Europe),the midpointof that conflict
lies somewherein the late 1920s and early 1930s.
306 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

12% -

10%-

) 8%-

6%-

4%-
2% I I

0% 1 . I I I I I I- 1
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Percentof Country-YearsDemocratic

Figure 4: Degree of Democratization by War Incidence at the System Level, 1816 to

1994 (%)
NOTE: Data as in Table 1 and Figure 1. The periods include the following: I. Post-Congressof Vienna
(1816-1850), II. ItalianandGermanUnification(1851-1884), III.WorldWarI (1885-1918), IV.WorldWar
II (1919-1953), V. The Cold War(1954-1986), andVI. Post-ColdWar(1987-1994). The initialdivision, up
until the end of the cold war, was arbitrarilymade into five periodsof 35 years each, and the labels have
been addedafterwardas an indicationthatthey seem to make some substantivesense.

It is tempting to suggest that some kind of system shift has occurred, perhaps at the
end of the long European conflict known as the two world wars or perhaps at the end
of the cold war. This shift could be related to the fact that democratization has reached
such a high level-at least in certain regions-that there is a lack of opportunities for
war. The level of democracy in Europe is now higher than ever before. Because Europe
has accounted for so much of the world's war in the previous periods (Gleditsch
1995b), this could explain the recent decline in interstate war.
In one of the few studies at the system level,14 Maoz and Abdolali (1989) tested
regime type (democratic, anocratic, autocratic) against the occurrence of militarized
interstate disputes between 1816 and 1976. This study is not so relevant here because
it posits a positive relationship between democracy and peace at the national and
dyadic levels. Obviously, then, a simple monotonic relationship must follow at the
system level, although it would appear that these authors also think that the system-
level hypothesis is a logical extension of the dyadic-level hypothesis alone. The tests
reported in the empirical part of the article generally reflect the same lack of attention
to possible curvilinear relationships. They first report that the proportion of double
democracies is positively related to system conflict (Maoz and Abdolali 1989, 26) and
that this held even when corrected for autocorrelation (p. 27), but the proportion of
double democracies had a negative effect on the number of wars, although only a small
proportion of the variance was accounted for (p. 27). When broken down into two
subperiods, the relationship between the degree of democracy and conflict was found
14. Anotherimportantstudyat the system level (Maoz 1996) deals morewith systemic changesand its
causes thanwith consequencesof regime type measuredat the system level.
 Gleditsch,Hegre /PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 307

to be differentin the 19th and 20th centuries.This is reminiscentof the famous early
findings by Singer and associates of differences between the 19th and the 20th
centurieswith regardto the influence of alliances and capabilitydistribution.15 Such
findings are unsatisfactorybecause "century" is not a theoreticalcategory. When the
difference between centuriesis interpretedas a question of crossing a thresholdof
democratizationin the internationalsystem,the shiftin therelationshipto warbecomes
theoreticallymeaningful,butthe shiftis unlikelyto follow the calendarquiteso neatly.
What about controlsfor thirdvariablesat the system level? The issue has hardly
been touchedin the literature.Clearly,the empiricalpatternfound in Figures 3 and 4
might be very differentif we had incorporatedthe influence of other variables.The
"shrinkingworld"might be one such variable,measuredfor instance by the time it
takes to travel between two randomly picked members of the interstate system.
Because there is more war between neighboringand proximatestates (Bremer1992;
Gleditsch 1995a),we mightexpect a higherfrequencyof waras countriescome closer
to each otherin termsof the time andcost expendedin interaction.This mightoutweigh
the effect of democratizationor influencethe relativesize of the probabilities7ND and
nNN, moving the breakpoint at which democratizationstartsto producepeace at the
system level. Once again, we might take all of Bremer's third-variabletests and
translatethemto the system level. To date,therehas been little theoreticalor empirical
researchof this kind.16

SUMMARY

The evidence for the democraticpeace is overwhelmingat the dyadiclevel. Double

democracyis virtuallya sufficientconditionfor nonwarin the dyad.
At the nationallevel, the evidence is mixed. Ourown empiricalevidence confirms
most previousstudies in suggestingthatover the periodcoveredby the COWproject,
democraticstatesare aboutas proneto participatein waras otherstates.Democracies
have fewerbattlefatalities,butit is not obviouswhatthis impliesfor theirpeacefulness.
The war participationof democracies is inflated by their tendency to ally in war.
Finally, the question of war initiation is marredby problems of interpretation;the
possibility thatdemocraciesare less aggressivecannotbe ruled out.
At the system level, the questionhas not been exploredmuch in previous studies.
For most of the period understudy,democratizationwas associatedwith increasing
violence betweenstates,whereasmorerecentlydemocratizationoccurssimultaneous-
ly with decreasingviolence. This is in line with ourtheoreticalargumentbased on the
dyadic- and national-levelrelationships.We surmisethatthe world, or at least certain

15. Singer and Small (1968) found thata high numberof alliancestendedto be associatedwith peace
at the system level in the 19thcenturybut with warin the 20th century.Singer,Bremer,and Stuckey (1972)
found a balance-of-powermodel of peace to fit the 19thcentury,but a power preponderancemodel seemed
more suitablefor the 20th century.
16. For a first attempt,see McLaughlin(1996), who finds more supportfor a linearthan a curvilinear
relationshipbetweendemocracyandpeace atthe systemiclevel butcautionsthatatthis stage of herresearch,
inferenceis difficult.
308 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

regions, may now have passed througha system shift in crossinga thresholdvalue for
democratization.
If this (admittedlysomewhatspeculative)conclusionis correct,furtherdemocrati-
zation should continue to lower the probabilityof war, at least in regions where
democracyis at a reasonablyhigh level. As noted, democraciestend to win the wars
in which they participate(Stam 1996), andunsuccessfulconductof a waris frequently
punished with a violent regime change (Bueno de Mesquita, Siverson, and Woller
1992). Losers seem morelikely to imitatethe winner,so the net outcomewill probably
be furtherdemocratization.The experienceof the two world wars and the end of the
cold war confirmsthis expectation.Although,in the shortterm,participationin war
is likely to underminedemocracy(e.g., throughrestrictionson freedom of speech or
thepostponingof elections),warwouldseem to promotemoredemocracyin the longer
run,and-at least above a certainlevel-more democracyin turnleads to a reduction
of war. Thus the optimism of the democraticpeace literaturewould seem warranted
in the long run,but on the basis of a somewhatmorecomplexreasoningthanordinarily
assumed.Of course,if the idea gains currencythatwarmay be pursuedas a deliberate
strategyof democratization,the world could be in for a transitoryunpeacefulperiod.

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