Randolph M. Siverson

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

We examine formally the link between domestic political institutions and policy choices in the context of eight empirical regularities that constitute the democratic peace. We demonstrate that democratic leaders, when faced with war, are more inclined to shift extra resources into the war effort than are autocrats. This follows because the survival of political leaders with larger winning coalitions hinges on successful policy. The extra effort made by democrats provides a military advantage over autocrats. This makes democrats unattractive targets, since their institutional constraints cause them to mobilize resources for the war effort. In addition to trying harder, democrats are more selective in their choice of targets. Because defeat is more likely to lead to domestic replacement for democrats than for autocrats, democrats only initiate wars they expect to win. These two factors lead to the interaction between polities that is often referred to as the democratic peace.

War and the Survival of Political Leaders: A Comparative Study of Regime Types and Political Accountability

We seek to answer the question, What effect does international war participation have on the ability of political leaders to survive in office? We develop a model of political reliability and derive seven related hypotheses from it that anticipate variation in the time a national political leader will survive in office after the onset of a war. Drawing upon a broadly based data set on state involvement in international war between 1816 and 1975, our expectations are tested through censored Weibull regression. Four of the hypotheses are tested, and all are supported by the analysis. We find that those leaders who engage their nation in war subject themselves to a domestic political hazard that threatens the very essence of the office-holding homo politicus, the retention of political power. The hazard is mitigated by longstanding experience for authoritarian elites, an effect that is muted for democratic leaders, while the hazard is militated by defeat and high costs from war for all types of leaders. Additionally, we find that authoritarian leaders are inclined to war longer after they come to power than democratic leaders. Further, democratic leaders select wars with a lower risk of defeat than do their authoritarian counterparts.

The Political Determinants of International Trade: The Major Powers, 1907–1990

We test three arguments about the effect of international politics on trade flows. The first argument states that trade flows are greater between states with similar interests than those with dissimilar interests, the second that trade flows are greater in democratic dyads than nondemocratic dyads, and the third that trade flows are greater between allies. We examine trade flows between the major powers from 1907 to 1990. This period provides variation on all three independent variables of interest and allows us to separate the three arguments empirically. We estimate a gravity model of trade with the above political variables added. Our results demonstrate that joint democracy and common interests increase trade in a dyad, but alliances generally do not, even when controlling for polarity of the system.

War and the Fate of Regimes: A Comparative Analysis.

Governments are likely to be held accountable for the success or failure of their foreign policies. Consequently, we claim that international wars can, under specified conditions, have domestically instigated consequences for violent regime change in the political systems of the participants. Drawing upon all international war participation between 1816 and 1975, we seek to answer the question, Do wars lead to violent changes of regime and if so, under what conditions? Three hypotheses set out the expected associations of a nations initiator or target role in a war, the war outcome, and the costs of the war with domestically instigated violent changes of regime. Direct relationships are found for all three and hold even against possible threats to their validity and robustness. The results suggest that domestic politics play a larger role in national security policy than is generally believed by realist or neorealist theorists.

Birds of a Feather Democratic Political Systems and Alliance Choices in the Twentieth Century

An examination of the alliance choices of democratic states between 1920 and 1939 and between 1946 and 1965 is undertaken to answer the question, do democracies have a tendency to ally with each other more than they ought to according to probability? The analysis of the data indicates that during the first period there was an initial tendency for democratic states to ally with each other at a higher rate than probability indicates should have been the case, but that the overall level of democratic alliances decreased as the rate of their existing alliances dissolved and democracies sought other types of partners. During the period from 1946 to 1965 alliances between democracies were formed and maintained at much higher rates than probability indicates should have been the case. Further analysis demonstrates that this effect is probably not significantly affected by either the effects of previous wartime alliances or geography.

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.

Political Institutions, Policy Choice and the Survival of Leaders

Institutional arrangements influence the type of policies that leaders pursue. We examine two institutional variables: size of the selectorate (S) – the set of people who have an institutional say in choosing leaders – and the size of the winning coalition (W) – the minimal set of people whose support the incumbent needs in order to remain in power. The larger the winning coalition, the greater the emphasis leaders place on effective public policy. When W is small, leaders focus on providing private goods to their small group of supporters at the expense of the provision of public goods. The size of the selectorate influences how hard leaders work on behalf of their supporters. The greater the size of the selectorate, the more current supporters fear exclusion from future coalitions. This induces a norm of loyalty that enables leaders to reduce their effort and still survive. As a first step towards a theory of endogenous selection of institutions, we characterize the institutional preferences of the different segments of society based on the consequences of these institutions for individual welfare. We conclude by examining the implication of the model for the tenure of leaders, public policy, economic growth, corruption, taxation and ethnic politics.

War Expansion and War Outcome

Most wars do not expand beyond the initial two participants. Why is this so? We argue that wars remain small because initiators select as targets states that they believe will not receive third-party help and that they can defeat without such help. Drawing on the idea of selection effect, a model of this choice is presented and a hypothesis is derived in which initiators (1) will win most often in wars of one against one and (2) will win least often when the target receives any help. This hypothesis is tested against war outcomes for initiators and targets in the period 1816-1975 using probit regression. The expectation is supported. The authors conclude that initiators act as predators and are likely to attack target states they know they can defeat if these targets are not joined by coalition partners. This selection pattern tends to make small wars likely.

Policy Failure and Political Survival The Contribution of Political Institutions

The authors advance a theory of the effects of political institutions on state policy. The theory explains how political institutions affect the ability of leaders to maintain themselves in office, why some political systems are more prone to policy failure than others, and why autocrats create mass political systems. The key characteristics of institutions in this theory are the sizes of a politys selectorate and winning coalition. The authors derive hypotheses from the theory and test those hypotheses using a data set covering more than 2,700 leaders from all states in the period from 1816 to 1990. The statistical tests demonstrate that (1) large winning coalitions are associated with enhanced economic growth, (2) tenure is shortened by a large winning coalition but lengthened by a large selectorate, and (3) in the face of policy failure, leaders with a large selectorate are more likely to survive than those in systems with a large winning coalition. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of these results.

Attributes of National Alliance Membership and War Participation, 1815-1965

Recent research indicates that war initiations are influenced by a process of infectious contagion and that alliances may be the agent of contagion. However, it is evident that some alliances are more likely to spread war than others. This research is aimed at identifying those attributes of national alliance membership which tend to be associated with war participation. Using a revision of the SingerSmall data set on international alliances, the main findings of this research are that nations will be most apt to join their allies in a war when: (1) many of their allies are in the war; (2) the allies they join are minor powers; (3) they have relatively few alliance partners; (4) the alliance in question is a defensive alliance; (5) their alliance is relatively new; and (6) they have a relatively large number of alliances.