Michael Mousseau

Market Prosperity, Democratic Consolidation, and Democratic Peace

A model is introduced that yields a single parsimonious explanation for a diverse range of political phenomena, including the processes of democratic consolidation and peace among democratic nations. The model predicts democratic values to arise from the norms of contract that are endemic in developed market economies and yields the novel contingent claim that the peace among democratic nations may be a pattern limited to those democracies with developed economies. Analyses of a large number of interstate dyads from 1950 to 1992 show strong support for this hypothesis. It seems that the pacifying impact of democracy is about twice as strong among developed countries compared with other dyads. Among conflict-prone contiguous dyads, the pacifying impact of democracy does not appear statistically significant among the poorest decile of joint democratic dyads. The study demonstrates the wide explanatory power of the simple postulate that social values and political preferences derive from socioeconomic norms.

Democracy and Compromise in Militarized Interstate Conflicts, 1816-1992

Research has documented that democratic nations are about 30 times less likely to originate interstate wars and about 3 times less likely to originate militarized interstate disputes among themselves than other types of regimes. Compromise is a means for resolving conflict whereby disputants agree to mutual concessions. Many researchers contend that compromise is among the central defining features of democratic political culture. If a norm of compromise can explain the absence of wars between democratic nations, then one should expect to find a democratic inclination toward compromise in the path from the initial militarization of an interstate conflict to all-out war. An analysis of militarized interstate disputes originating as one-on-one confrontations occurring worldwide from 1816 to 1992 reveals robust support for the proposition. The results indicate that joint highly democratic dyads are about 3 times more likely than joint highly autocratic dyads to resolve their militarized conflicts with mutual concessions.

The Social Market Roots of Democratic Peace

Democracy does not cause peace among nations. Rather, domestic conditions cause both democracy and peace. From 1961 to 2001, democratic nations engaged in numerous fatal conflicts with each other, including at least one war, yet not a single fatal militarized incident occurred between nations with contract-intensive economiesthose where most people have the opportunity to participate in the market. In contract-intensive economies, individuals learn to respect the choices of others and value equal application of the law. They demand liberal democracy at home and perceive it in their interest to respect the rights of nations and international law abroad. The consequences involve more than just peace: the contract-intensive democracies are in natural alliance against any actorstate or nonstatethat seeks to challenge Westphalian law and order. Because China and Russia lack contractualist economies, the economic divide will define great power politics in the coming decade. To address the challenges posed by China and Russia, preserve the Westphalian order, and secure their citizens from terrorism, the contract-intensive powers should focus their efforts on supporting global economic opportunity, rather than on promoting democracy.

Urban poverty and support for Islamist terror Survey results of Muslims in fourteen countries

Survey respondents in 14 countries representing 62% of the world’s Muslim population indicate that approval of Islamist terror is not associated with religiosity, lack of education, poverty, or income dissatisfaction. Instead, it is associated with urban poverty. These results are consistent with the thesis that Islamist terrorists obtain support and recruits from the urban poor, who pursue their economic interests off the market in politics in collective groups. These groups compete over state rents, so a gain for one group is a loss for another, making terrorism of members of out-groups rational. The rise of militant Islam can be attributed to high rates of urbanization in many Muslim countries in recent decades, which fosters violence as rising groups seek to dislodge prior groups entrenched in power. Rising group leaders also compete over new urban followers, so they promote fears of out-groups and package in-group identities in ways that ring true for the urban poor. Because many of the urban poor are migrants from the countryside, popular packages are those which identify with traditional rural values and distinguish enemies as those associated with urban modernity and the secular groups already in power. Imams have an incentive to preach what audiences want to hear, so a mutated in-group version of Islam – Islamism – struck a chord in several large cities around the globe at the same time. With globalization of the media, in many developing countries the West is widely (albeit wrongly) perceived as an inimical out-group associated with urban modernity. The best political strategy to limit support and recruits for Islamist terrorist groups is to enhance the economic opportunities available for the urban poor and to provide them the needed services, such as access to health care and education, that many currently obtain from Islamist groups.

The Contracting Roots of Human Rights

There is a broad consensus that democracy and economic development are among the key factors that promote better human rights practices in nations, but there is little agreement on how this happens. This article reports evidence that human rights, democracy, and development may all be at least partially explained by a fourth factor: market-contracting. Studies in economic history and sociology have established that in developing countries many exchanges of goods and services occur within social networks of friends and family. New institutionalist approaches posit that daily habits give rise to corresponding values and world-views. This study integrates these two fields of study to show how economic dependency on friends and family can promote perceived interests in discriminating strangers from out-groups and abiding by the orders of leaders. Dependency on strangers on a market, in contrast, can promote more individualistic identities and perceived interests in a state that enforces law and contracts with impartiality. This may cause the governments of nations with marketplace societies to be less likely than others to imprison political opponents and act contrary to law. On a large sample of nations from 1977 to 2000, robust support is found for this view: a change from weak to high levels of market-contracting is associated with a substantial 49% to 61% reduction in risk of state repression in nations. At least some of the variance in state repression accounted for by democracy and development may be attributed to market-contracting. This article introduces a new and robust variable in the field of human rights research, with direct policy implications: to reduce state repression, a crucial task is the achievement of market-oriented economic development.

Democracy and Militarized Interstate Collaboration

It is well documented that democratic nations very rarely engage in militarized conflict with other free nations. This study expands on this notable pattern by examining the possibility that democracies may also be more amenable to collaborate in militarized interstate conflict. A theoretical rationale for this expectation is developed resting on the cooperative norms of democratic political culture. With empirical analysis encompassing all nations from the Napoleonic era to the end of the Cold War, it is found that joint democracy has a positive and robust impact on the probability that two states will be on the same side at the start of a militarized interstate dispute. This conclusion remains robust after accounting for the potent influences of major power status, geographic proximity, dyadic alliance, and regime maturity on the probability of militarized collaboration. The results suggest that researchers may wish to seek answers for democratic foreign behavior that encompass the realm of interstate cooperation as well as the often-noted absence of interdemocratic militarized conflict.

AN ECONOMIC LIMITATION TO THE ZONE OF DEMOCRATIC PEACE AND COOPERATION

The zone of democratic peace and cooperation is the premier nontrivial fact of international relations. Recent research, however, has shown that the democratic peace is substantially limited to the economically developed democracies (Mousseau, 2000). Is the zone of democratic cooperation also limited to the economically developed democracies? With the observation of most nations from 1919 to 1992, robust support is found for this hypothesis. It appears that economically developed democracies are more than eight times more likely than other states to engage each other in an intense form of interstate cooperation: collaboration in militarized conflict. Democracies with per capita incomes of less than

Comparing New Theory with Prior Beliefs: Market Civilization and the Democratic Peace:

8,050, in contrast-77 percent of all joint democratic dyads-appear less likely than other types of states to collaborate with each other in militarized conflict. This result is consistent with the view that liberal political culture arises from economic development, and it is liberal political culture that explains the global zone of democracy, peace, prosperity, and interstate cooperation.

Why Some Countries are Immune from the Resource Curse: The Role of Economic Norms

Stuart Bremer counseled against the falsificationist convention of testing new models against the null hypothesis of no model. Instead, new models should be compared against prior beliefs, and theories should compete, whenever possible, on a field of equivalent test conditions. This article applies Stuart Bremers notion of comparative theory testing by comparing a new model of contract norms with the prior institutionalist model of democratic peace. On a field of equivalent test conditions it is found that the hypothesis for contract norms (that the democratic peace is contingent upon economic development) is thousands of times more likely to be true than the hypothesis for institutionalist theory (that democracy pacifies all dyads regardless of economic conditions). Democracy appears to be a significant force for peace only in dyads that are above the median income: the richest 45%. The results indicate that scholars of war should update the widespread prior belief that democracy, alone, causes peace.

Grasping the scientific evidence: The contractualist peace supersedes the democratic peace

The political resource curse – the detrimental effect of natural resource dependence on democracy – is a well-established correlate of authoritarianism. A long-standing puzzle, however, is why some countries seem to be immune from it. We address this issue systematically by distinguishing two kinds of economies: contract-intensive, where individuals normally obtain their incomes in the marketplace; and clientelist, where individuals normally obtain their incomes in groups that compete over state rents. We theorize that the institutionalized patronage opportunities in clientelist economies are an important precondition for the resource curse, and that nations with contract-intensive economies are immune from it. Analysis of 150 countries from 1973 to 2000 yields robust support for this view. By introducing clientelist economy as a prerequisite for the resource curse, this study offers an important advance in understanding how nations democratize.