Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T21:28:50.599Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democratic International Governmental Organizations Promote Peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2006

Jon Pevehouse  and
Bruce Russett
Jon Pevehouse
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, [email protected]
Bruce Russett
Affiliation:
Yale University, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The Kantian peace research program has produced generally robust results on the role of democracy and international trade in reducing the risk of international conflict. Yet a key theoretical linkage in the Kantian argument, that of international governmental organizations (IGOs) to peace, has proved less robust and more problematic. We propose a new theoretical perspective focusing on the contributions of a particular kind of IGO—that composed largely of democracies—to peaceful conflict resolution through aiding credible commitments, dispute settlement, and socialization to peaceful behavior. A set of statistical tests provides strong support for our hypotheses that such densely democratic IGOs are far more likely to engender peaceful relations between members than are more homogenous IGOs. This is true when controlling for regime type, interdependence, and several realist-oriented influences. The peace-inducing influences affect both democratic and nondemocratic member states.We thank Robert Axelrod, Erik Gartzke, Edward Mansfield, Thomas McCarthy, and Nicholas Sambanis for comments, the Ford Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Research Foundation for financial support, and Ann Fishback and Courtney Hillebrecht for research assistance. All our data and computations will be available at 〈http://www.polisci.wisc.edu/pevehouse〉 at the time of publication.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , October 2006 , pp. 969 - 1000
Copyright
© 2006 The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abbott, Kenneth W., and Duncan Snidal. 1998. Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations. Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (1):3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler, Emanuel. 1998. Seeds of Peaceful Change: The OSCE's Security-Community Building Model. In Security Communities, edited by Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, 119–160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Adler, Emanuel, and Michael Barnett. 1998. A Framework for the Study of Security Communities. In Security Communities, edited by Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, 29–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Adler, Emanuel, and Michael Barnett, eds. 1998. Security Communities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Achen, Christopher. 2005. Let's Put Garbage-Can Regressions and Garbage-Can Probits Where They Belong. Conflict Management and Peace Science 22 (4):327–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batt, Judy. 1994. The International Dimension of Democratisation in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In Building Democracy? The International Dimension of Democratization in Eastern Europe, edited by Geoffrey Pridham, Eric Herring, and George Sanford, 168–187. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Bearce, David H. 2003. Grasping the Commercial Institutional Peace. International Studies Quarterly 47 (3):347–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, Jonathan N. Katz, and Richard Tucker. 1998. Beyond Ordinary Logit: Taking Time Seriously in Binary Time-Series Cross-Section Models. American Journal of Political Science 42 (4):1260–1288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, D. Scott, and Allan C. Stam. 2004. The Behavioral Origins of War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Bercovitch, Jacob, and Jeffrey Langley. 1993. The Nature of Dispute and the Effectiveness of International Mediation. Journal of Conflict Resolution 37 (4):670–691.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boehmer, Charles, Erik Gartzke, and Timothy Nordstrom. 2004. Do Intergovernmental Organizations Promote Peace? World Politics 57 (1):1–38.Google Scholar
Bunce, Valerie. 1997. The Visegrad Group: Regional Cooperation and European Integration in Post-Communist Europe. In Mitteleuropa: Between Europe and Germany, edited by Peter Katzenstein, 240–284. Providence, R.I.: Berghahn Books.
Cederman, Lars-Erik. 2001. Back to Kant: Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace as a Macrohistorical Learning Process. American Political Science Review 95 (1):15–31.Google Scholar
Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Mohan Penubarti Rao. 2001. Exploring the Dynamics of the Democratic Peace. Journal of Conflict Resolution 45 (6):818–833.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chernoff, Fred. 2004. The Study of Democratic Peace and Progress in International Relations. International Studies Review 6 (1):49–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowhey, Peter F. 1993. Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitments: Japan and the United States. International Organization 47 (2):299–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dembinski, Mattias, and Katja Freistein. 2005. Comparing Regional Security Organizations: Is Democracy the Key? Paper presented at the 1st Annual Conference of the World International Studies Committee, August 24–27, Istanbul.
Dembinski, Mattias, Andreas Hasenclever, and Wolfgang Wagner. 2004. Towards an Executive Peace? The Ambivalent Effects of Inter-Democratic Institutions on Democracy, Peace, and War. International Politics 41 (3):543–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deutsch, Karl W., Sidney Burrell, Robert Kann, Maurice Lee, Martin Letterman, Raymond Lindgren, Francis Loewenheim, and Richard Van Wagenen. 1957. Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Diehl, Paul F., ed. 1998. The Dynamics of Enduring Rivalries. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Donno, Daniela. 2005. Regional Intergovernmental Organizations and the Collective Defense of Democracy. Ph.D. diss. prospectus, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, Mette, and Daniel Verdier. 2005. European Integration as a Solution to War. European Journal of International Relations 11 (1):99–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farber, Henry, and Joanne Gowa. 1997). Common Interests or Common Politics? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace. Journal of Politics 59 (2):393–417.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1994. Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of Interstate Disputes. American Political Science Review 88 (September):577–592.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1995. Rationalist Explanations for War. International Organization 49 (3):378–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James D., and Alexander Wendt. 2002. Rationalism v. Constructivism: A Skeptical View. In Handbook of International Relations, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth Simmons, 52–72. London: Sage.
Finnemore, Martha. 1996. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. International Organization 52 (4):887–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flakus, Greg. 1999. Honduras-Nicaragua Military Dispute. Voice of America. Available at 〈http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/1999/12/991209-honduras.htm〉. Accessed 30 June 2006.
Fordham, Benjamin, and Christopher Sarver. 2001. Militarized Interstate Disputes and United States Uses of Force. International Studies Quarterly 45 (3):455–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gartzke, Erik, Quan Li, and Charles Boehmer. 2001. Investing in the Peace: Economic Interdependence, and International Conflict. International Organization 55 (2):391–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaubatz, Kurt T. 1996. Democratic States and Commitment in International Relations. International Organization 50 (1):109–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gheciu, Alexandra. 2005. Security Institutions as Agents of Socialization? NATO and the ‘New Europe.’ International Organization 59 (4):973–1012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghosn, Faten, and Glenn Palmer. 2003. Codebook for the Militarized Interstate Dispute Data, Version 3.0. Available at 〈http://cow2.la.psu.edu〉. Accessed 30 June 2006.
Gibler, Douglas M., and Meredith Sarkees. 2003. Measuring Alliances: The Correlates of War Formal Interstate Alliance Data Set, 1816–2000. Available at 〈http://cow2.la.psu.edu〉. Accessed 7 June 2006.
Gleditsch, Kristian. 2002. Expanded Trade and GDP Data. Journal of Conflict Resolution 46 (5):712–724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian. 2003. All International Politics Is Local: The Diffusion of Conflict, Integration, and Democratization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Goldstein, Judith. 1998. International Institutions and Domestic Politics: GATT, WTO, and the Liberalization of International Trade. In The WTO as an International Organization, edited by A. O. Krueger, 133–160. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Haas, Ernst. 1993. Collective Conflict Management: Evidence for a New World Order. In Collective Security in a Changing World, edited by Thomas Weiss, 63–117. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.
Haftel, Yoram, and Alexander Thompson. 2006. The Independence of International Organizations: Concepts and Applications. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50 (2):253–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Hurrell, Andrew. 1998. An Emerging Security Community in South America? In Security Communities, edited by Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, 228–264. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, Daniel, Stuart Bremer, and J. D. Singer. 1996. Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, Coding Rules, and Empirical Patterns. Conflict Management and Peace Science 15 (2):163–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kacowicz, Arie. 1998. Zones of Peace in the Third World: South America and West Africa in Comparative Perspective. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Kahler, Miles. 2000. Legalization as Strategy: The Asia-Pacific Case. International Organization 54 (3):549–571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. [1795] 1970. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. Reprinted in Kant's Political Writings, edited by Hans Reiss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Karaosmanoglu, Ali L. 1991. The International Context of Democratic Transition in Turkey. In Encouraging Democracy: The International Context of Regime Transition in Southern Europe, edited by Geoffrey Pridham, 159–174. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Keohane, Robert, Andrew Moravscik, and Anne-Marie Slaughter. 2000. Legalized Dispute Resolution: Interstate and Transnational. International Organization 54 (3):457–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, Michael Tomz, and Jason Wittenberg. 2000. Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44 (2):347–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, and Langche Zeng. 2001. Explaining Rare Events in International Relations. International Organization 55 (3):693–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinsella, David. 2005. No Rest for the Democratic Peace. American Political Science Review 99 (3):453–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinsella, David, and Bruce Russett. 2002. Conflict Emergence and Escalation in Interactive International Dyads. Journal of Politics 64 (4):1045–1068.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kozhemiakin, Alexander V. 1998. Expanding the Zone of Peace? Democratization and International Security. New York: St. Martin's.
Leeds, Brett Ashley. 1999. Domestic Political Institutions, Credible Commitments, and International Cooperation. American Journal of Political Science 43 (4):979–1002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeds, Brett Ashley. 2003. Do Alliances Deter Aggression? The Influence of Military Alliances on the Initiation of Militarized International Disputes. American Journal of Political Science 47 (4):427–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leskiw, Christopher Scott. 2002. Sown for Peace? International Organizations and Interstate Conflict. Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
Lipson, Charles. 2003. Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Mansfield, Edward D., Helen Milner, and B. Peter Rosendorf. 2002. Why Democracies Cooperate More: Electoral Control and International Trade Agreements. International Organization 56 (3):477–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2003. Institutions, Interdependence, and International Conflict. In Globalization and Armed Conflict, edited by Gerald Schneider, Katherine Barbieri, and Nils-Peter Gleditsch. London: Routledge.
Mansfield, Edward D., and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2006. Democratization and International Organizations. International Organization 60 (Winter):137–167.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., Jon C. Pevehouse, and David H. Bearce. 1999–2000. Preferential Trading Arrangements and Military Disputes. Security Studies 9 (1–2):96–118.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Brian M. Pollins, eds. 2003. Economic Interdependence and International Conflict: New Perspectives on an Enduring Debate, 233–250. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack Snyder. 2002. Incomplete Democratization and the Outbreak of Military Disputes. International Studies Quarterly 46 (4):529–550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack Snyder. 2005. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go To War. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
March, James G., and Johan P. Olsen. 1998. The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders. International Organization 52 (4):943–969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maoz, Zeev. 2002. Dyadic Militarized Interstate Dispute Dataset Version 1.1 (Updated January 2001). Available at 〈http://spirit.tau.ac.il/zeevmaoz/dyadmid.html〉. Accessed 30 June 2006.
Maoz, Zeev. 2004. Pacifism and Fightaholism in International Politics: A Structural History of National and Dyadic Conflict, 1816–1992. International Studies Review 6 (4):107–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Monty. 2004. Polity IV Dataset. Available at 〈http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/polity〉. Accessed 30 June 2006.
Martin, Lisa. 2000. Democratic Commitments: Legislatures and International Cooperation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Martin, Lisa, and Beth Simmons. 1998. Theories and Empirical Studies of International Institutions. International Organization 52 (4):729–758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, Thomas. 1999. On Reconciling Cosmopolitan Unity and National Diversity. Public Culture 11 (1):175–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGillivray, Fiona, and Alastair Smith. 2000. Trust and Cooperation through Agent-Specific Punishments. International Organization 54 (4):809–824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGillivray, Fiona, and Alastair Smith. 2004. The Impact of Leadership Turnover on Trading Relations Between States. International Organization 58 (3):567–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mearsheimer, John. 1994/95. The False Promise of International Institutions. International Security 19 (3):5–49.Google Scholar
Miall, Hugh. 1992. The Peacemakers: Peaceful Settlement of Disputes since 1945. New York: St. Martin's.
Milner, Helen V. 1998. Regional Economic Co-operation, Global Markets, and Domestic Politics. In Regionalism and Global Economic Integration, edited by W. Coleman and G. R. D. Underhill, 19–41. London: Routledge.
Minnich, Daniel. 2005. Veto Players, Electoral Incentives, and International Commitments: The Impact of Domestic Institutions on Intergovernmental Organization Membership. European Journal of Political Research 44 (2):295–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin. 2002. A Kantian System? Democracy and Third-Party Conflict Resolution. American Journal of Political Science 46 (4):749–759.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oneal, John. R., and Bruce Russett. 1999. The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1885–1992. World Politics 52 (1):1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oneal, John. R., and Bruce Russett. 2004. Seeking Peace in the Post-Cold War World of Hegemony and Terrorism (in French). Etudes Internationales 35 (4):651–665. English version in Russett, B. 2006. Purpose and Policy in the Global Community. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Oneal, John R., Bruce Russett, and Michael Berbaum. 2003. Causes of Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1886–1992, International Studies Quarterly 47 (3):371–393.Google Scholar
Pevehouse, Jon. 2005. Democracy from Above: Regional Organizations and Democratization. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pevehouse, Jon, and Renee Buhr. 2005. Democracy and Legalism in Regional Trade Organizations. Paper presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, April, Chicago.
Pevehouse, Jon, Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. 2004. Intergovernmental Organizations 1815–2000: A New Correlates of War 2 Data Set. Conflict Management and Peace Science 21 (2):101–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, David. 2004. Turkey's Dreams of Accession. Foreign Affairs 83 (5):86–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Marvin. 2001. The Maritime Boundary Dispute Between Honduras and Nicaragua in the Caribbean Sea. Boundary and Security Bulletin 9 (2):108–116.Google Scholar
Ray, James Lee. 2005. Constructing Multivariate Analyses (of Dangerous Dyads). Conflict Management and Peace Science 22 (4):277–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, William. 2000. A Unified Statistical Model of Conflict Onset and Escalation. American Journal of Political Science 44 (1):84–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reuveny, Rafael, and Quan Li. 2003. The Joint Democracy-Dyadic Conflict Nexus: A Simultaneous Equations Model. International Studies Quarterly 47 (3):325–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1995. Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Rosato, Sebastian. 2003. The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory. American Political Science Review 97 (4):585–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, David. 2005. Democracy and War: Institutions, Norms, and the Evolution of International Conflict. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1992. Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution. International Organization 46 (3):561–598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russett, Bruce, and John R. Oneal. 2001. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: Norton.
Russett, Bruce, John R. Oneal, and David Davis. 1998. The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod for Peace: Organizations and Militarized Disputes, 1950–1985. International Organization 52 (3):441–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Gerald, Katherine Barbieri, and Nils Petter Gleditsch, eds. 2003. Globalization and Armed Conflict. London: Routledge.
Senese, Paul. 1997. Between Disputes and War: The Effect of Joint Democracy on Interstate Conflict Escalation. Journal of Politics 59 (1):1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Signorino, Curtis, and Jeffrey M. Ritter. 1999. Tau-B or not Tau-B: Measuring the Similarity of Foreign Policy Positions. International Studies Quarterly 43 (1):115–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, J. David. 1987. Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816–1985. International Interactions 14 (2):115–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, J. David, and Melvin Small. 1993. National Material Capabilities Dataset. Study No. 9903. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.
Starr, Harvey, and Christina Lindborg. 2003. Democratic Dominoes Revisited: The Hazards of Governmental Transitions, 1974–1996. Journal of Conflict Resolution 47 (4):490–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec, and Thomas Brunell. 1998. Constructing a Supranational Constitution: Dispute Resolution and Governance in the European Community. American Political Science Review 92 (1):63–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strang, David, and Patricia Mei Yin Chang. 1993. The International Labor Organization and the Welfare State: Institutional Effects on National Welfare Spending, 1960–80. International Organization 47 (2):235–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1994. Collective Identity Formation and the International State. American Political Science Review 88 (2):384–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehead, Laurence. 1994. East-Central Europe in Comparative Perspective. In Building Democracy? The International Dimension of Democratization in Eastern Europe, edited by Geoffrey Pridham, Eric Herring, and George Sanford, 32–59. New York: St. Martin's.
Zurn, Michael, and Jeffrey Checkel. 2005. Getting Socialized to Build Bridges: Constructivism and Rationalism, Europe and the Nation-State. International Organization 59 (4):1045–1079.CrossRefGoogle Scholar