Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T08:12:30.722Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intervention and Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2006

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita  and
George W. Downs
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Affiliation:
New York University and the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Calif, [email protected]
George W. Downs
Affiliation:
New York University, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Recent events have raised questions about the extent to which military intervention promotes democracy and the degree to which this depends on the nature of the intervener. We argue that traction on these issues is best obtained by focusing on the policies of the target state that have the greatest implications for the political survival of the intervening state's leader and the kind of governmental institutions in the target state that are most likely to produce them. This perspective generally—although not always—predicts that third-party military intervention in civil wars, other intra- or interstate disputes and wars will lead to little if any improvement, and all too often erosion in the trajectory of democratic development. Three hypotheses on the impact of third-party intervention by democracies, autocracies, and the United Nations are then tested and strongly supported against a counterfactual expectation of what the democratic trajectory would have been in the absence of intervention.We benefited greatly from the wise counsel of Feryal Cherif, Michael Gilligan, Shanker Satyanath, and Alastair Smith, each of whom read or discussed in depth earlier versions of this study. Patrick Regan was also extremely helpful in providing data and guidance in the use of the data on interventions that he has made available. The study was significantly improved by the insightful advice of the anonymous reviewers (we wish we could thank them by name) and by Lisa Martin's able and thoughtful guidance. Authors often complain about referees; we have nothing but praise for the contributions they made. Of course, we alone are responsible for any errors and for all remaining shortcomings in this investigation.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , July 2006 , pp. 627 - 649
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

Alesina, Alberto, and David Dollar. 2000. Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why? Journal of Economic Growth 5 (1):33–63.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Enterline, Andrew, and J. Michael Greig. 2003. Beacons of Hope? The Impact of Imposed Democracy on Regional Peace, Democracy and Prosperity. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Science Society (International), November, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Forsythe, David P. 1992. Democracy, War, and Covert Action. Journal of Peace Research 29 (4):385–95.Google Scholar
Fortna, Virginia Page. 2004a. Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace? International Intervention and the Duration of Peace After Civil War. International Studies Quarterly 48 (2):269–92.Google Scholar
Fortna, Virginia Page. 2004b. Interstate Peacekeeping: Causal Mechanisms and Empirical Effects. World Politics 56 (4):481–519.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Michael, and Stephen John Stedman. 2003. Where Do the Peacekeepers Go? International Studies Review 5 (4):37–54.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Lene Siljeholm Christiansen, and Håvard Hegre. 2004. Democratic Jihad? Military Intervention and Democracy. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, March, Montreal.
Goldsmith, Jack L., and Eric A. Posner. 2005. The Limits of International Law. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gurr, Ted Robert. 1997. Polity II: Political Structures and Regime Change. 1800–1986. [computer file] (study no. 9263). ICPSR, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. 〈www.icpsr.umich.edu〉.
Herman, Edward, and Frank Broadhead. 1984. Demonstration Elections: U.S. Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador. Boston: South End Press.
Hermann, Margaret G., and Charles W. Kegley. 1998. The U.S. Use of Military Intervention to Promote Democracy: Evaluating the Record. International Interactions 24 (2): 91–114.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Karl, Terry. 1986. Imposing Consent: Electoralism Versus Democratization in El Salvador. In Elections and Democratization in Latin America, 1980–1985, edited by Paul Drake and Eduardo Silva, 9–36. San Diego: University of California.
Karl, Terry. 1990. Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America. Comparative Politics 23 (1):1–21.Google Scholar
Kegley, Charles W., Jr., and Margaret G. Hermann. 1997. Putting Military Intervention into the Democratic Peace: A Research Note. Comparative Political Studies 30 (1):78–107.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, Abraham F. 1991. Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America—Themes and Issues. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Meernik, James. 1996. United States Military Intervention and the Promotion of Democracy. Journal of Peace Research 33 (4):391–402.Google Scholar
Muravchik, Joshua. 1991. Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press.
O'Donnel, Guillermo, Philippe Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Regan, Patrick. 2000. Civil Wars and Foreign Powers: Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Rueschmeyer, Dietrich, Evelyn Huber Stephens, and John Stephens. 1992. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Voeten, Erik. 2001. Outside Options and the Logic of Security Council Action. American Political Science Review 95 (4):845–58.Google Scholar
Voeten, Erik. 2004. Resisting the Lonely Superpower: Responses of States in the United Nations to U.S. Dominance. Journal of Politics 66 (3):729–54.Google Scholar
Voeten, Erik. 2005. The Political Origins of the UN Security Council's Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force. International Organization 59 (3):527–57.Google Scholar
Wantchekon, Leonard, and Zvika Neeman. 2002. A Theory of Post–Civil War Democratization. Journal of Theoretical Politics 14 (4):439–64.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Laurence. 1991. The Imposition of Democracy. In Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America, edited by Abraham Lowenthal, 234–60. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.