Group 45

Abstract
In this brief paper the intention is to merge Comparative Politics and Security Studies, addressing
the differences in the participation in Wars in the different forms of government in different
countries. Using literature about the risks of personalist and autonomous ways of exercise of
foreign policy, a linear regression model will be used to test the hypothesis in this work exposed.

Key words

InterState wars, Executive power, Presidentalism, Parliamentarism, Comparative

Politics, Dictatorships.
1. Introduction

In recent years there have been few times in which the debate between presidentialism
and parliamentarism has arisen. Within these discussions in the discipline of
Comparative Politics, one of the main terms of debate has been the possible problem
that the autonomy of the Executive Power, in the terms in which it occurs within
Presidentialism, can become problematic in different ways. fields. In this way, what this
work intends to analyze is how said autonomy, based on the lack of effective control
mechanisms, can affect the participation of the different organizational models of the
government apparatus in wars between states.

2. Literature review

The literature on the debate between presidentialism and parliamentarism is quite

extensive. From comparative politics, it is a subject that is widely explored by important
authors that should not be overlooked in the analysis.

The autonomy of the executive power as the main characteristic (and problematic) of
presidential systems has been one of the interests in the last decades in the discipline
of Comparative Politics.

The interesting concepts, cited in Shughart and Carey (1992), but referring to Lijphart,
are related to authoritarianism and personalism that they can lead to in decision-
making. In this way, I think that a concept that is not too exploited in relation to all this
has to do with how authoritarian and personalistic traits in participation in wars. The
theory, therefore, is that the more personalistic and authoritarian the regime, the
greater the participation in wars of the countries in question.

In this way, in Lijphart (2012), Patterns of democracy, the role that the head of state
exhibits is mentioned as the third difference between parliamentary and presidential
regimes. There is talk of how parliamentary regimes are capable of establishing
government models of a much more collective and plural nature than presidentialism.
It is even debated whether this personalism created with presidentialism may be related
to putting in check the separation of powers that is so important in a democracy.

In addition, also in Lijphart, it is established how Presidentialism is capable of turning

politics into a zero-sum game, which encourages the emergence of policies of polarized
majorities, more subject to social and political tension.

Analyzing the work of Elman (2000), the autonomy of the Executive Power in the
different types of State can be an incentive and a trigger for greater participation in
armed conflicts between States according to the theory of democratic peace.

Precisely this reflection leads to expand the investigation. It goes from simply analyzing
the Parliamentarianism-Presidentialism dichotomy in the participation in Wars between
States, to also including dictatorships. It is understood that Presidentialism is not the
only organizational model of a State that implies autonomy from the Executive Power.
Precisely for that reason, to add to the literature of the previously cited paper, according
to the study of Comparative Politics Clark et al (2017) dictatorships will also be taken
into account as participants in these wars:

1. Civil dictatorship
2. Military dictatorship
3. Royal dictatorship

In this way, it is understood that the greater the autonomy (starting with
parliamentarism as the lowest due to the relationship and possibility of cessation
between the chambers and the Prime Minister, ending with a military dictatorship) of
the executive power, the greater the capacity and probability of entering into wars.

H0: The autonomy of the executive power is not related to participation in wars.

H1: The autonomy of the executive branch is related to participation in wars.

3. Methodology

In order to test the hypothesis, two databases will be merged to carry out the study. On
the one hand, the Inter State Wars database, from the Correlates of War, will be taken
to find the variable that analyzes the number of wars in which each country participates.
On the other hand, the DD Revisited will be used to access the classification of countries
around the axis Parliamentarism, Semi-presidentialism, Presidentialism and the 3
different types of dictatorships used constantly in the analysis of Comparative Politics;
civil dictatorships, military dictatorships and monarchical dictatorships.

As they were two different databases for which we wanted to anchor two different
variables (years and countries), we proceeded to use Stata's Merge function. In this way,
both databases are built into one by using merge and the variables ctryname and year.
In this way, a linear regression is performed with the key value being
parliamentarianism. To do this, a fusion of different variables is carried out, creating the
countryt variable, which counts the number of wars in which each country that appears
in the database has participated.
The next aim is to create a linear regression between the newly created variable,
countryt, which is set as the dependent variable, and regime. In order to be able to
analyze the effect that the increase in the autonomy of the executive branch has with
respect to what is considered as little autonomy (parliamentarism), i.regime will be
used. This will return results on the change that each of the elements

1. Semi presidentialism

2. Presidentialism

3. Civil dictatorship

4. Military dictatorship

5. Monarchical dictatorship

Assumes with respect to indicator 0: Parliamentarism. This is the reference value for
the regression.

In order to further analyze the different effects that different elements may have, it is
also sought to control for gdppercapita (since it is understood that the lack of resources
can be an important factor in wars), as well as control for years to avoid that the time
factor can create uninteresting relationships when studying these aspects that you want
to demonstrate at work.

We proceed with a drop _merge, to establish another merge command, this time adding
another database that includes the GDP per capita of each country. The variables that
refer to years and country have been previously renamed to change from Entity to
ctryname and from Year to year to be able to execute the command.
 4. Results

The linear regression proposed above is carried out. When done by combining in a basic
way countryt (counting the number of wars each country participates in) and i.regime,
this result can be found:

In this way, all the findings are found to be 90% significant, and 3 of them exceed 95%
confidence. However, it is found that the findings are just the opposite of those raised
according to the analysis of the literature. The null hypothesis is rejected, according to
which there is a relationship between both variables, and the alternative hypothesis is
established, since the direction of the coefficients has gone in the opposite direction to
what seemed to be understood from the literature.

To go deeper into this, the same linear regression is performed again, this time adding
the GDP per capita of each country as a control variable. The significance of the
coefficients drops significantly, so that with a hypothesis test at 90% the first coefficient
falls, and with one at 95%, 3 of the above resist,

Finally, to make the study as deep as possible, the variable referring to the years is also
added, to prevent time from modifying the relationship. When the temporal space is
controlled, two of the coefficients do not withstand a hypothesis test at 90% (the one
referring to Presidentialism, 2, and the one referring to military dictatorship, 4) and only
1 resists the hypothesis test when 95% (the one that refers to monarchical dictatorships,
5).

This latest model yields the best R2 yet: a 0.3291. Without being too strong a
relationship, it may be relevant to coefficients that are significant.

The results obtained are an indication that there is sufficient evidence to reject the null
hypothesis. However, they do not know otherwise, they come to argue just the
opposite. The only significant results are those that indicate that dictatorships have been
involved in significantly fewer numbers than parliamentary, semi-presidential and
presidential democracies.

Therefore, it can be understood that there is an interesting degree of relationship

between the level of autonomy established in each State and the tendency to start wars.
Although the trend is not seen with much clarity, it can be said that, with all the control
variables analyzed, there is enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis and accept the
alternative hypothesis, which would be the one that indicates the opposite relationship
to the one. that had been raised in the research hypothesis following the literature.
 5. Discussion

The results yield different conclusions than those that could have been expected with
respect to the analysis of the literature. In this section, the different factors that could
have significantly affected the results of this work will be analyzed.

On the one hand, it is understood that, although the autonomy of the executive power
can be an important element when participating in wars, the social circumstances of the
country in general, its history, and its geopolitical context should also be analyzed. In
addition, the nature of who holds the executive power is an important weapon when
conducting this study.

It is not enough for the Executive Power to enjoy autonomy, but it must be the case that
whoever has this power has a belligerent nature (Elman, 2000). This, being mainly
personal characteristics of each person, is something difficult to measure and capture in
quantitative analysis.

On the other hand, it is understood that democracies rooted in time tend to last
considerably longer than dictatorships. In this way, older democracies, such as the
United States and the United Kingdom, have been involved in a greater number of wars
than in countries that may have a more recent origin. Counting the wars in absolute
numbers may have been a problem for the model. Following this logic, we must not
forget that there are fewer dictatorships in the world than democratic countries under
the other regimes to be studied, so that could favor this negative trend within dictatorial
countries when participating in wars.

In addition, information may be lacking in the analysis regarding the actual separation
of powers: the classification and understanding of said separation of powers has
theoretical nuances that are difficult to represent quantitatively in databases. It is
understood, therefore, that this could have partially biased the study.

Finally, the competences held by the different powers also have to be an element to
take into account. Foreign policy, and the hands it falls into, whether it is divided or not
(Elman, 2000). According to Elman (2000), the semi-presidential countries are, and what
she classifies as Westminster democracy those that, due to their normal distribution of
powers, have a greater propensity to participate in wars, if the leader of the Executive
Power has a character belligerent. It should be noted that at levels of semi-
presidentialism, the results are consistent with this part of Elman's (2000) analysis.

6. Conclusion

The null hypothesis can be rejected, as previously explained. However, a clear trend is
not observed in the study, although the patterns of the coefficients are directed in a
slightly more direct way towards the alternative hypothesis than the one originally
proposed according to the analysis of the literature.

It is interesting to highlight the finding regarding semi-presidentialism which, despite

having ruled out in the literature review, has been consistent with the analysis by Elman
(2000).

It must be understood, however, as has been said previously, that there may be many
factors that are modifying the relationship to be studied. In this way, only with a more
in-depth study and with a greater amount of data and resources will it be possible to
determine the true nature of the relationship studied in this case.
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Appendix