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 Democracy Impacts
Impact — democratization causes peace. Democracies avoid use of force with other
democracies.
Tomz & Weeks 13 — Michael Tomz, professor of political science at Stanford University, Ph.D. in
Political Science, Jessica L. Weeks, assistant professor of government at UW-Madison, Ph.D., Political
Science, 2013 ("Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace," American Political Science Review, February,
Available Online at https://web.stanford.edu/~tomz/pubs/TomzWeeks-2013-11.pdf, Accessed 5-10-
2016)

Our research supports the hypothesis that peace among democracies could be due, at least in part, to
public opinion. Countless studies have shown that democratic leaders are responsive to public opinion
on matters of foreign policy; we demonstrate that the public discriminates between democratic and
autocratic targets. Public opinion may, therefore, foster a special zone of peace among democracies.

Moreover, our experimental approach allows us to conclude with confidence that the effect of
democracy is genuinely causal. Democracy affects preferences independent of confounders such as
alliances, power, and trade. While our experiments confirm the intuition of skeptics that at least part of
the peace among democracies is due to shared interests, military power, and economic ties, we
nonetheless find clear evidence that democracy has an independent effect on support for war.

Our experiments also reveal the mechanisms through which democracy dampens support for war. The
finding that democracies view other democracies as less threatening, which in turn reduces support
for using force, accords with major works on the democratic peace emphasizing threat perception
(Russett 1993, Risse-Kappen 1995). Understanding how and why democracies trust fellow democracies,
but not autocracies, is an important avenue for future research (Kahl 1998, Williams 2001). We also
found that perceptions of cost do not explain the public aversion to fighting democracies, and that
expectations about success explain only a small amount of the 35 effect.

Finally, we found that morality plays an important role in the democratic peace. The regime type of
the target affects moral calculations, which in turn changes preferences about the use of force.
Surprisingly few scholars have explored morality as a potential source of peace. This should be a major
topic for future research.
 They Say: “Dem Peace Theory Wrong”
Public opinion sways democratic leaders towards peace.
Tomz and Weeks 13 — Michael Tomz, professor of political science at Stanford University, Ph.D. in
Political Science, Jessica L. Weeks, assistant professor of government, Ph.D., Political Science, 2013
("Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace," American Political Science Review, February, Available
Online at http://conconi.ulb.be/DP.pdf, Accessed 5-16-2016)

The leaders who make the ultimate decisions about war and peace in democracies have powerful
incentives to respect the opinions of citizens. Public opinion matters for several reasons. First, leaders
who disappoint or anger their constituents risk being removed from office . While early research
claimed that public opinion on foreign policy was incoherent (Almond 4 1960) and that politics “stopped
at the water’s edge” (Wildavsky 1966), this view has been supplanted by numerous studies showing that
mass opinion is coherent and influential. Leaders know that citizens care about foreign policy, that
foreign policy often plays a role in electoral campaigns, and that foreign policy mistakes can hurt
leaders at the ballot box (Aldrich, Sullivan, and Borgida 1989, Gronke, Koch, and Wilson 2003, Gelpi,
Reifler, and Feaver 2007).

Second, democratic leaders face institutional constraints on their powers to use force (Morgan and
Campbell 1991), and public opinion affects how tightly those constraints bind. In many democracies,
leaders need legislative authorization for war, but legislative approval is less likely to materialize in the
face of public opposition (Lindsay 1994, Hildebrandt et al. 2013). Moreover, leaders must raise
revenues to pay for military operations, but legislative bodies are unlikely to levy new taxes, incur new
debt, or cut government programs to finance wars that their constituents oppose (Hartley and Russett
1992, Narizny 2003).

Third, leaders understand that, by remaining popular, they can accomplish more during their time in
office. In the U.S., for example, popular presidents have more influence over Congress (Krosnick and
Kinder 1990, Edwards 1997, Howell and Pevehouse 2007). They also wield more international
influence, since leaders who enjoy the backing of the public find it easier to persuade other countries
that their promises and threats are credible .

Consistent with these arguments, countless studies have concluded that, in decisions about using
force, democratic leaders pay close attention to public opinion (Rosenau 1961, Mueller 1973, Russett
1990, Foyle 1999, Sobel 2001, Reiter and Stam 2002, Baum 2004, Holsti 2004, Canes-Wrone 2006, Baum
and Potter 2008, Berinsky 2009). Studying the public can, therefore, tell us much about leaders’ political
incentives.

Democracy is the key component to peace — economic prosperity is alone is

insufficient.
Hegre 13 — Håvard Hegre, Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Research
Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo, Dr. Philos in Political Science, University of Oslo, 2013
("Democracy and armed conflict," No Publication, October 16 th, Available Online at
https://havardhegre.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/democraticpeacereview.pdf, Accessed 6-18-2016)
This review has discussed recent research on the relationship between democracy and armed conflict,
covering both conflicts internal to countries as well as interstate ones. Although there are many
differences between the interstate and domestic conflict, the review indicates there are also several
similarities. In particular, some important challenges to the democratic peace apply to both types of
conflict. The most fundamental one, in my view, is that there might be underlying social changes that
explain both the development of democratic institutions and peaceful resolution of social conflicts.
These changes are typically summarized as socio-economic development, and typically work through
the incentives for using physical force for political goals. At the same time, as recently seen in Syria,
relative economic development in itself is not sufficient 14 to prevent armed conflict. Democratic
institutions are formal codifications of non-violent conflict resolution procedures. Socio-economic
development is likely to change societies such that non-violent conflict resolution is an underlying
pareto-optimal equilibrium, allowing actors to agree to such codifications. In the absence of the
formal codifications, however, actors may be unwilling to trust that this underlying equilibrium exists.
Hence, democratic institutions may be necessary to allow the beneficial changes due to development
to be manifested as more peaceful societies.
Affirmative
 Courts Embolden Movements
Courts Turn — court success is key to mobilization and recruiting of social movements.
Heitzeg 15 — Nancy Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity at St.
Catherine University (MN), Ph.D in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, 2015 (“CI: The Supreme
Court and the Shape of Social Movements,” Critical Mass Progress, February 5th, Available Online at
https://criticalmassprogress.com/2015/02/04/ci-the-supreme-court-and-the-shape-of-social-
movements/, Accessed 05-30-2020)

Instead, a word about the impact of the Supreme Court on social movements . In the midst of Black
History Month, screenings of Selma, and current movements against racialized police state violence, we
must remember the significance of Brown v the Board of Education, Topeka Kansas (1954). Despite
the practical limits of Brown in effecting desegregation or the failure to implement the directives of
Brown II, there can be no denying that the ruling – “separate but equal is inherently unequal” –
created a over-arching legal framework that emboldened the Civil Rights Movement . The repudiation,
at the Federal last word level, of the Jim Crow machinery set up in Plessy freed the Civil Rights
Movement to pursue direct action civil disobedience with the confidence of victory . Certainly, there
was the omnipresent risk/reality of brutal police response, extra-legal violence and death. But
segregation could now be challenged at the local and state levels — the buses in Montgomery, the
lunch counters in Greensboro, the beaches in Florida, everything in Birmingham – with the assurance
that should the cases wend their way through the Federal Courts, the protesters would prevail. The
highest Court in the land was 9 – 0, unanimously, on their side.

Litigation fuels movements and makes them more diverse.

Bagenstos 15 — Samuel Bagenstos, Professor of Law @ Michigan, former Principal Deputy Assistant
Attorney General in the US DOJ Civil Rights Division, former Associate Dean for Research and Faculty
Development at Washington University Law, JD from Harvard, 2015 (“Social Change Litigation as Just
Another Political Tool,” The New Rambler: An Online Review of Books, Available Online at
https://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/law/social-change-litigation-as-just-another-political-tool,
Accessed 06-06-2020)

Comparing these three approaches to injury-compensation policy, Barnes and Burke find unproven a
number of the charges leveled against litigation as a tool to achieve social change. They reject the
claim, articulated by Rosenberg and William Forbath among others, that litigation crowds out other
forms of political mobilization. Rather, they find that in their case studies “adversarial legalism
seemed to fuel group mobilization , creating a more fragmented , pluralistic politics featuring more
diverse interests with competing viewpoints” (p.17). Activists did not wholly commit to litigation or
other forms of mobilization but instead “seemed adept at moving from one institution to another,
looking for levers wherever they could find them” (p. 17). The shift in the vaccine area from tort law to
a bureaucratic compensation system—a shift supported by many of those who had brought suits
claiming vaccine injuries—is a prime example of the point (p. 162-167).
 Democracy Impact Answers
Democratic peace theory is wrong — democracy doesn’t eliminate conflicts.
Larison 12 — Daniel Larison, Senior Editor at The American Conservative, holds a Ph.D. in History from
the University of Chicago, 2012 (“Democratic Peace Theory Is False,” The American Conservative, April
17th, Available Online at http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/democratic-peace-theory-is-
false/, Accessed 08-11-2013)

Rojas’ claim depends entirely on the meaning of “genuine democracy.” Even though there are numerous
examples of wars between states with universal male suffrage and elected governments (including that
little dust-up known as WWI), the states in question probably don’t qualify as “genuine” democracies
and so can’t be used as counter-examples. Regardless, democratic peace theory draws broad
conclusions from a short period in modern history with very few cases before the 20th century. The
core of democratic peace theory as I understand it is that democratic governments are more
accountable to their populations, and because the people will bear the costs of the war they are going
to be less willing to support a war policy. This supposedly keeps democratic states from waging wars
against one another because of the built-in electoral and institutional checks on government power.
One small problem with this is that it is rubbish.

Democracies in antiquity fought against one another . Political equality and voting do not abolish
conflicts of interest between competing states. Democratic peace theory doesn’t account for the
effects of nationalist and imperialist ideologies on the way democratic nations think about war.
Democratic nations that have professional armies to do the fighting for them are often enthusiastic
about overseas wars. The Conservative-Unionist government that waged the South African War (against
two states with elected governments, I might add) enjoyed great popular support and won a huge
majority in the “Khaki” election that followed.

As long as it goes well and doesn’t have too many costs, war can be quite popular , and even if the war
is costly it may still be popular if it is fought for nationalist reasons that appeal to a majority of the
public. If the public is whipped into thinking that there is an intolerable foreign threat or if they believe
that their country can gain something at relatively low cost by going to war, the type of government
they have really is irrelevant. Unless a democratic public believes that a military conflict will go badly for
their military, they may be ready to welcome the outbreak of a war that they expect to win. Setting
aside the flaws and failures of U.S.-led democracy promotion for a moment, the idea that reducing the
number of non-democracies makes war less likely is just fantasy . Clashing interests between states
aren’t going away , and the more democratic states there are in the world the more likely it is that
two or more of them will eventually fight one another .
 Extend: “Dem Peace Theory Wrong”
DPT is false — economic norms theory fully accounts for it.
Mousseau 13 — Michael Mousseau, Professor at the University of Central Florida, teaching
International Relations Theory, Political Economy of War and Peace, and Terrorism and Insurgency,
former professor at Koç University, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Binghamton University and an
M.A. in International Studies from the University of Denver, 2013 (“The Democratic Peace Unraveled:
It’s the Economy,” International Studies Quarterly, Volume 57, Available Online via Academia at
https://www.academia.edu/19753792/The_Democratic_Peace_Unraveled_It_s_the_Economy,
Accessed 10-02-2018, pg. 191-193)

Model 2 presents new knowledge by adding the control for economic type. To capture the dyadic
expectation of peace among contract-intensive nations, the variable Contract-intensive EconomyL
(CIEL) indicates the value of impersonal contracts in force per capita of the state with the lower level of
CIE in the dyad; a high value of this measure indicates both states have contract-intensive economies.
As can be seen, the coefficient for CIEL ()0.80) is negative and highly significant . This corroborates that
impersonal economy is a highly robust force for peace. The coefficient for DemocracyL is now at zero .
There are no other differences between Models 1 and 2 , whose samples are identical, and no prior
study corroborating the democratic peace has considered contract-intensive economy. Therefore, the
standard econometric inference to be drawn from Model 2 is the nontrivial result that all prior reports
of democracy as a force for peace are probably spurious , since this result is predicted and fully
accounted for by economic norms theory .

CIEL and DemocracyL correlate only in the moderate range of 0.47 (Pearson’s r), so the insignificance of
democracy is not likely to be a statistical artifact of multicollinearity. This is corroborated by the variance
inflation factor for DemocracyL in Model 2 of 1.85, which is well below the usual rule-of-thumb indicator
of multicollinearity of 10 or more. Nor should readers assume most economies: While almost all nations
with contract-intensive economies (as indicated with the binary measure for CIE) are democratic
(Polity2 > 6) (Singapore is the only long-term exception), more than half—55%—of all democratic
nation-years have contract-poor economies. At the dyadic level in this sample, this translates to 80% of
democratic dyads (all dyads where DemocracyBinary6 = 1) that have at least one state with a contract-
poor economy. In other words, not only does Model 2 show no evidence of causation from democracy
to peace (as reported in Mousseau 2009), but it also illustrates that this absence of democratic peace
includes the vast majority —80%—of democratic dyad-years over the sample period .

Nor is it likely that the causal arrow is reversed—with democracy being the ultimate cause of
contract-intensive economy and peace. This is because correlations among independent variables are
not calculated in the results of multivariate regressions: Coefficients show only the effect of each
variable after the potential effects of the others are kept constant at their mean levels. If it was
democracy that caused both impersonal economy and peace, then there would be some variance in
DemocracyL remaining, after its partial correlation with CIEL is excluded, that links it directly with
peace. The positive direction of the coefficient for DemocracyL informs us that no such direct effect
exists (Blalock 1979:473–474).
Model 3 tests for the effect of DemocracyL if a control is added for mixed-polity dyads, as suggested by
Russett (2010:201). As discussed above, to avoid problems of mathematical endogeneity, I adopt tohe
solution used by Mousseau, Orsun and Ungerer (2013) and measure regime difference as proposed by
Werner (2000), drawing on the subcomponents of the Polity2 regime measure. As can be seen, the
coefficient for Political Distance (1.00) is positive and significant, corroborating that regime mixed dyads
do indeed have more militarized conflict than others. Yet, the inclusion of this term has no effect on the
results that concern us here: CIEL ()0.85) is now even more robust, and the coefficient for DemocracyL
(0.03) is above zero.7

Model 4 replaces the continuous democracy measure with the standard binary one (Polity2 > 6), as
suggested by Russett (2010:201), citing Bayer and Bernhard (2010). As can be observed, the coefficient
for CIEL ()0.83) remains negative and highly significant , while DemocracyBinary6 (0.63) is in the
positive ( wrong ) direction.

As discussed above, analyses of fatal dispute onsets with the far stricter binary measure for democracy
(Polity = 10), put forward by Dafoe (2011) in response to Mousseau (2009), yields perfect prediction (as
does the prior binary measure Both States CIE), causing quasi-complete separation and inconclusive
results. Therefore, Model 5 reports the results with DemocracyBinary10 in analyses of all militarized
conflicts, not just fatal ones. As can be seen, the coefficient for DemocracyBinary10 ()0.41), while
negative, is not significant. Model 6 reports the results in analyses of fatal disputes with DemocracyL
squared (after adding 10), which implies that the likelihood of conflict decreases more quickly toward
the high values of DemocracyL. As can be seen, the coefficient for DemocracyL 2 is at zero, further
corroborating that even very high levels of democracy do not appear to cause peace in analyses of
fatal disputes, once consideration is given to contractintensive economy. Models 3, 4, and 6, which
include Political Distance, were repeated (but unreported to save space) with analyses of all militarized
interstate disputes, with the democracy coefficients close to zero in every case. Therefore, the
conclusions reached by Mousseau (2009) are corroborated even with the most stringent measures of
democracy, consideration of institutional distance, and across all specifications: The democratic peace
appears spurious , with contract-intensive economy being the more likely explanation for both
democracy and the democratic peace.

Democracies don’t cause peace — correlation doesn’t mean causation.

Campbell et. al. 18 — Benjamin W. Campbell, holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from The
Ohio State University, holds a B.A. in Political Science from Southern Illinois University, former John T.
Williams Dissertation Prize Nominee, Skyler J. Cranmer, Associate Professor of the Department of
Political Science at The Ohio State University, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Davis, holds a
MA in international Relations from San Francisco State University, former visiting pre-doctoral fellow at
Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of
Konstanz in Germany, and Bruce A. Desmarais, Associate Professor in the Department of Political
Science at Penn State University, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, holds a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Eastern Connecticut State University,
former Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst, 2018 (“Triangulating War: Network Structure and the Democratic Peace, ArXiv, Available
Online at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.04141.pdf, Accesse 08-31-2019, p. 30-31)

The dyadic understanding of the democratic peace has become ubiquitous in International Relations.
By looking beyond simple dyadic analysis, accounting for the embededness of states in a much more
complex network, we found the democratic peace may not be as robust as previously thought. Our
results demonstrate that after accounting for the tendency for like-regime states with common
enemies not to fight one another, the effect of the democratic peace not only vanishes, but jointly
democratic dyads seem to be more conflict prone than mixed dyads. These results are consistent
across operationalizations of the outcome variable, our triadic closure predictor, measurements of joint
democracy, and a variety of other factors.

We believe this explanation for the democratic peace is not a mechanism for understanding the
democratic peace, but instead, an alternative. What we have shown here is that conflict between
democracies indeed exists and the peaceful relations occasionally found are not necessarily a
function of the affinity of democratic states, or intrinsic attributes of democratic states, but instead, a
function of the strategic inefficiencies of fighting a state with a shared enemy. While regime type may
influence the interests of states, we find that it does not directly influence the probability that any
two states fight one another.
 They Say: “Courts are Flypaper”
Litigation does not trade-off with other forms of activism.
Gloppen 13 — Siri Gloppen, Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen, Senior
Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, Research Coordinator at PluriCourts Center of Excellence @
University of Oslo, 2013 (“Social Movement Activism and the Courts,” Mobilizing Ideas, February 4th,
Available Online at https://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/social-movement-activism-and-
the-courts/, Accessed 06-06-2020)

But litigation is not necessarily an either-or. It often forms part of a broader political mobilization
strategy . A court case may be pursued less for the judgment itself than for its mobilization and
agenda-setting potential —or because having a case before the courts (“negotiating in the shadow of
litigation”) provides social movements access to decision-making forums and adds leverage to their
demands . Hence, decisions to litigate are not necessarily based on prospects for court victory—even if a
case is likely to be lost, gains could be made (“winning by loosing”) (McCann 2006, Yamin & Gloppen
2011).

No “fly-paper” link — movements view litigation as a partial tactic only.

NeJaime 13 — Douglas NeJaime, Associate Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, former Faculty
Director of the UCLA Williams Institute, a research institute on sexual orientation and gender identity
law and public policy, co-author of Cases and Materials on Sexuality, Gender Identity, and the Law, 2013
(“Constitutional Change, Courts, and Social Movements,” Michigan Law Review, April, Vol. 111, Available
Online at https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/5222/, Accessed 05-30-2020)

Balkin's account of courts in the process of constitutional change maps onto the empirical reality of
social movements . As socio-legal scholars in the legal mobilization and cause-lawyering fields have
demonstrated, contemporary social movement advocates neither put all their hope in courts nor look
to courts to single-handedly produce change." Instead, advocates view litigation as a significant but
partial tactic —one that works in conjunction with other tactics , and aids rather than displaces other
forms of mobilization. They see courts as opportunities, often providing the first official venue in which
to articulate and hone the group's claims. In courts, subordinated groups can announce their
grievances, craft their visions, and force state actors to listen.49 Such groups might also convert
constitutional claims into legal entitlements.

Movements aren’t stupid — they will engage in litigation when they have the best
chance for success there.
Siri Gloppen, (professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen), Feb. 4, 2013. Retrieved
May 16, 2020 from https://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/social-movement-activism-and-
the-courts/
What the alternatives are also plays into the equation. Most important in this regard, is the political
opportunity structure—the chances of winning through political mobilization (including social
mobilization and media campaigns). This depends on the responsiveness of the political elite, generally
and with respect to the issues involved and whether the resources available to the social movement
and its allies are sufficient to make headway by creating political pressure. The more unlikely social and
political mobilization is to yield results, the more likely social movements are to engage in litigation—
even when the legal opportunity structure seems relatively unfavorable. This is often the situation for
marginalized and unpopular groups (insular minorities) who lack political clout. Deliberative space
provided by courts may be their best option , even if chances of success are meager .