Harvey Starr

Democratic Dominoes Diffusion Approaches to the Spread of Democracy in the International System

This article is an attempt to indicate how diffusion approaches, based on the concepts of linkage and interdependence, can be of help in our thinking about the spread of democracy. The analyses address the existence or absence of diffusion effects in regard to changes in the degree of freedom in the worlds governments, and whether or not there has been a more specific global movement towards democracy. The dependent variable is the set of “governmental transitions,” based on yearly Freedom House data. Diffusion analyses are at the global, regional, and neighbor-state levels (1974-1987). Thus analysis is limited to cues or prototypes from the external environment of states. Although neighbor effects are less than those found with the diffusion of war, all three levels support the proposition that there has been a diffusion of governmental transitions, including a movement towards democracy that provided a context for the dramatic events of 1988 and 1989.

International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, and "Nice" Laws

Two logical problems appear to have impeded the development of an integrative understanding of international and foreign policy phenomena. The first has to do with the potential for foreign policy substitutability: through time and across space, similar factors could plausibly be expected to trigger different foreign policy acts. The second concerns the potential existence of “sometimes true,” domain-specific laws. It is the logical opposite of the substitution problem, suggesting that different processes could plausibly be expected to lead to similar results. Neither problem appears to be well understood in the current literature; if anything, both are ignored. Nevertheless, they are potentially important. Together, they suggest that scholars who are interested in developing a cumulative base of integrative knowledge about foreign policy and international relations phenomena need to rethink both their focus on middle-range theory and their application of the standard approaches. We recommend reconsideration of some of the “grand” theoretical approaches found in the “traditional” literature. A new synthesis of tradition and science and of grand, middle, and narrow approaches appears to be needed. Finally, in contrast to the arguments of proponents of a systems-level approach, we argue that the most fruitful avenues for theorizing and research are at the microlevel in which the focus is on decision making, expected utility calculations, and foreign policy interaction processes.

Opportunity, Willingness, and the Diffusion of War

Using borders and alliances as indicators of opportunity and willingness, respectively, we test the relationship between these and the diffusion of war during the 1816–1965 period. The impact of borders and alliances, individually and in combination, on the growth of ongoing war through “infectious” diffusion is shown through the comparison of baseline cases to cases where states at peace were exposed to various “treatments” comprised of warring border nations or warring alliance partners. The findings indicate that the probability of war diffusion is substantially increased as opportunities and willingness increase, particularly when such geographic and political factors are combined. The applicability of the opportunity and willingness framework to the study of war and diffusion is expanded and confirmed.

The Substance and Study of Borders in International Relations Research

While international borders are important in understanding the “shape” of the international system and are part of those structural characteristics which affect the interaction opportunities of nations, little attention has been paid to their conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement. This paper undertakes four tasks to help fill this gap. The first is to indicate the potentially theoretical role that borders may play in international relations, discussing the relationships between distance/contiguity and interaction opportunities. The second task entails the conceptualization and measurement of international borders. The third task involves using the data derived from this framework to describe the international system in terms of borders for the period 1946‐1965. The fourth task is to indicate the utility of a border data set by addressing questions which have been posed in the international relations literature. Research results are presented for several questions concerning the relationships between borders and war, borders and alliances, and the diffusion of war.

Democratic Dominoes Revisited

The impact of diffusion effects on the growth and spread of democracy in the global system is investigated. Using hazard analyses as well as previously employed transition matrices for the analysis of diffusion, a modified Freedom House data set is analyzed to delineate systemic, regional, and neighbor effects from 1974 to 1996. The dynamics of democratization are broken down by contrasting the differences and similarities of governmental transitions between the countries that were free (and moved to partially free and nonfree), the countries that were nonfree (and moved to partially free and free), and those countries that were partially free (and moved away from that status).

A Return Journey: Richardson, “Frontiers” and Wars in The 1946–1965 Era

In the Statistics of Deadly Quarrels Lewis Richardson presents findings linking frontiers to war. His results constitute the basis for a number of discussions concerning continuity and war, diffusion and war, and geopolitical approaches to war. Given the importance of Richardsons work, this paper investigates the generality of the frontier/ war relationship, by focusing on the post-World War II period using two different war data sets and multiple operationalizations of “borders.” The paper first develops a set of theoretical arguments linking borders and war in various ways. Next it reports an approximate replication of Richardsons analysis. The initial findings generally support Richardsons results (looking at the 1946–1965 period and with a full international system membership), but some qualifications are noted. Two further analytical approaches are then employed. The first of these is a set of cross-national approaches which are similar to Richardsons procedures. This approach provides an important further qualification of the Richardson border/war relationship: colonial borders support the border/war relationship, but noncolonial borders do not. The second approach involves nation-level comparative time-series analyses, the results of which are consistent with the qualifications discovered in the papers earlier analyses.

Regime Change and the Restructuring of Alliances

Morrow (1991) claims that alliances can shift because of changes in the policy preferences of the regimes that control states. This is counter to the central theoretical position of neorealist theory that sees alliances as the outgrowth of particular distributions of power in an anarchic international system. Drawing on regime changes in Europe between 1816 and 1965, we evaluate the relative merits of these contradictory claims. Our data support the conclusion that regime changes that were (1) externally imposed, (2) the result of internal revolution, or (3) nonviolent, but occurred in the context of an internal political crisis, all had significant effects on a states restructuring of its alliances, even when other variables, such as changes in the distribution of power and the states power status, are held constant.

Contagion and Border Effects on Contemporary African Conflict

In previous research the authors investigated the processes of war diffusion based on interaction opportunities as operationalized by interstate borders. Studies of international borders, the relationship between borders and the onset of war, and the operation of diffusion/contagion effects on bordering nations were undertaken for all nations in the international system during the 1946-1965 period. The purpose of this article is to replicate the results of the original analyses by focusing on one regional subsystem—Africa— during a different time period, 1960-1977, and using different war data sets. The present study successfully replicates the original: Borders are found to be dynamic, and the border-war hypothesis and the spatial diffusion expectations are confirmed for Africa in the later period.

The Power of Place and the Future of Spatial Analysis in the Study of Conflict

Given the general neglect of space and place in the study of conflict and conflict processes- especially in contrast to the temporal context- this article makes a plea for a more explicit and extensive attention to the spatial contexts of social phenomena. In so doing, the paper discusses the importance of space, the relationship between space and time, how space and spatiality can be studied, and the continuing challenges that come with the study of space, and of combining the study of space and time in our analyses of social phenomena.

Revolution and War: Rethinking the Linkage Between Internal and External Conflict

A not inconsiderable literature has been devoted to the complex of the linkages/connections/causal structure between phenomena occurring within the borders of nation-states and phenomena occurring beyond those borders. The issue of linkages between domestic and foreign conflict has been of particular concern to students of international relations and comparative politics, to students of war and revolution. While a variety of theoretical perspectives would argue for such linkages between internal and external conflict, difficult questions continue to focus scholarly attention on this relationship.