THE DECISION TO FIGHT OR TO NEGOTIATE
Because leaders in states with large winning coalitions cannot easily compensate for policy failure by doling out private good, they need to succeed in foreign and domestic policy. Leaders in systems with small winning coalitions can more readily compensate for policy failure by providing private benefits to their few key backers. Therefore, they do not try as hard in wars as do democrats. One consequence is that democracies are less attractive targets than autocracies. By the same token, democracies are reluctant to pursue wars they do not expect to win. Their leaders are at great risk of political defeat at home due to failed policies. Auto- cratic leaders are not.
It follows that democratic leaders generally attack only if they anticipate victory. They are highly selective; they prefer to negotiate when they do not anticipate military success. This does not mean they are unwilling to fight. Democracies, because of their propensity to try hard, can often overwhelm their foe. This carries an important implication for the type of foe they can fight and defeat. Because autocrats do not try as hard in war, they make attractive targets for democracies. In con- trast, two democracies are reluctant to fight each other. Since both try hard, each minimizes to the extent possible, given its resource endowments, the chance that the other will win. Since democrats need to be overwhelmingly confident of victory, it is difficult to satisfy the conditions necessary for democracies to fight one another.
Autocrats do not depend upon military victory to keep their job. Of course, they prefer winning to losing, but their political (and personal) survival is primarily a function of satisfying their small band of supporters rather than providing their citizens with successful policies. They are more willing to gamble on war than are democrats because the latter’s political survival is on the line; the former’s is not. Thus, it is straightfor- ward to see that democracies and autocracies can fight wars against each other and that autocracies can afford to fight one another.
Stated formally, we characterized optimal effort de-
cisions for leaders in A and B once war occurs as gA and gB, respectively. All else being equal, the larger is Wi, the harder nation i tries. If A’s leader initiates conflict with B, then A’s payoff is its chance of winning multiplied by its utility for winning, plus the chance it loses multiplied by its utility for losing, plus the value of the private goods retained after choosing a level of war effort: U,(WAR~gA, gB) = PA – k + (1 – gz*) RA/WA + P(PAFA(VA + (1 -gA) RA/WA) + (1- PA)FAQIA + (1I gA) RA/WA)), where PA is the
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An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace December 1999
probability that A wins given effort levels g and g B. If A’s leader chooses negotiation rather than conflict,
then her expected payoff is UA (nego) = X + PFA(nA + RAIWA) + RA/WA, where nA = X + WA RAISA.
A’s leader only initiates conflict when the benefit of doing so exceeds what she expects from a negotiated
settlement: UA(WARlg*, g*) 2 UA(nego).14 The more likely A is to win, the more likely it is that this condition is met. Given their political institutions, A and B exert effort levels g and g , respectively. These effort levels influence the probability of A being victo- rious, PA. In addition to structuring how hard A and B try, political institutions also influence whether leaders want to initiate conflict, given knowledge of the effort levels that will follow in any subsequent war. We define P as the probability of victory that makes A indifferent between negotiations and war:
P =
W+ A +FA nA + j-PFA + (1 WRA
(1 + kF(V + (1Ao WA ) WA FA + (1 – A WA)) RA ) Fl+RA
A only initiates conflict if PA 2 P. Although this expression is mathematically precise, it provides little substantive interpretation of the incentives that leaders face. Yet, political institutions shape this expression in a systematic manner. We present examples for both autocrats and democrats to illustrate how political institutions structure the conditions under which lead- ers choose war rather than negotiations. These stan- dard cases show how autocrats and democrats differ in their decisions to initiate conflict. Generally, survival for an autocrat depends upon her ability to distribute private goods. Providing she does not expend resources on the war effort, she typically survives whether she wins, loses, or negotiates. Since her survival is not strongly influenced by the war outcome, an autocrat’s initiation decision resembles a standard realist calcula- tion of benefits and losses. For a democrat the situation is different. Given the large number of supporters she must appease, she cannot buy political loyalty with private goods alone but must rely instead on public policy success. For her, military defeat equates with political defeat; so, where possible, she avoids fighting when defeat is a significant possibility.
The Decision for Autocrats
Autocrats initiate conflict when the~expected gains of conflict exceed what they expect to obtain through negotiations. Yet, the decision to fight is largely a
14 If X < – k, then war is inevitable, since A would prefer losing to a negotiated settlement. At the other extreme, if A’s expected deal through negotiations is greater than the best possible outcome from war, A always negotiates: X 2 1 – k. Since we are primarily thinking of X as a division between 0 and 1, the first extreme is generally impossible. To restrict ourselves to substantively interesting cases, we assume -k ‘ X ‘ 1 – k.
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secondary consideration that is not driven by an auto- crat’s primary objective-to stay in office. As such, conflict initiation depends upon an assessment of the expected value of war relative to negotiations. As we saw, autocrats find it easier to retain office than do their democratic counterparts. Autocrats have an ad- vantage over challengers in their ability to provide private goods. Since private goods figure predomi- nantly in the rewards given to supporters in autocratic systems, supporters risk much if they desert the incum- bent. This incumbency advantage in the supply of private goods means that as long as autocratic leaders retain resources to provide private goods for their supporters, they survive. Hence, as shown above, even if she makes little additional effort, A’s leader survives in office.
Knowing that the leader in A makes no additional effort and typically survives whatever the outcome of conflict, her expected value of fighting approximately reduces to PA – k + RA/WA + P, where PA is the probability of victory given no additional effort by A’s leader. Negotiated settlements leave A’s resources untouched and available for distribution as private goods. Again, having the incumbency advantage of guaranteed private goods provision, the typical auto- crat also retains office via negotiations. An autocrat’s expected value for negotiations reduces to approxi- mately X + RA/WA + P. Therefore, an autocrat’s decision resembles that of a standard unitary actor model. An autocratic leader typically initiates fighting
when PA > X + k: The expected benefits of conflict outweigh the expected value of negotiations.15
The Decision for Democrats
Unlike autocrats, leaders with large winning coalitions have only a small incumbency advantage in the supply of private goods. As already shown, this makes their survival in office harder and more contingent upon their public policy performance. Knowing that the survival of democrats depends upon their public policy performance, we construct an example to show how institutions structure the conflict decision of leaders in large winning coalition systems. Having examined this archetypal case, we analyze the limiting mathematical case. Although we believe the stereotypical case is generally appropriate, there are plausible conditions under which the results we generate from this example break down. These conditions are important because they predict the domestic political circumstance when democrats become belligerent and when war between democracies is most likely. Rather than interrupt the flow of our general argument by continually referring to these exceptional circumstances, which resemble those of gambling for resurrection under the diversion- ary war hypothesis (Downs and Rocke 1994; Goemans
15 The limiting case shows this clearly. As the winning coalition contracts, W -O 0, the private goods that each supporter receives become extremely large, RIW — o; hence, leaders make no effort,
and the decision to fight resembles the unitary actor solution: limwb0 P = X + k.
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American Political Science Review Vol. 93, No. 4
1995; Levy 1989; Richards et al. 1993; Smith 1996; Werner 1996), we consider them separately.
As we have already demonstrated, in systems with large winning coalitions, leaders have only a small incumbency advantage in the provision of private goods. Instead, leaders survive on the basis oftheir public goods performance. With their sensitivity to public policy provision in mind, we construct our stylized case by assuming that defeat means almost certain removal and victory means almost certain re- tention. Therefore, the expected payoff for a demo- cratic leader from initiating conflict is approximately
PA(l – k + T) + (1 – PA)(-k) = -k + PA(1 + P), where PA is the probability of victory for A given the effort each side makes. If instead of fighting A’s leader negotiates a settlement, then her expected pay-
off is UA(nego) = X + TFA(nA + RA/WA) + RAIWA,
where nA = X + WA – RAISA. Although we shall subsequently discuss relaxing this assumption, for cur- rent purposes suppose that this is approximately equal
to X + T + RA/WA. We know that democratic leaders are sensitive to policy failure and’ that supporters’ rewards from negotiations are generally closer to those of success than failure, since conflict is inefficient. An additional, although small, benefit from negotiation is that leaders can allocate private goods. So, as an initial working supposition, we assume that negotiations also give leaders a significant probability of retaining office.
Democrats initiate conflict when -k + PA(l +
i) > X + T + RAIWA, which can be alternatively expressed as PA> (X + T + k)/(l + T) + RA/((l + P)WA). Given the large winning coalition size of a democracy, the latter term, RAI((l + P)WA), is small. The magnitude of the former term, (X + T + k)/(l + P), depends upon the value of holding office. As holding office becomes important (large 4), this term becomes close to one. This indicates that democratic leaders who value holding office need to be almost certain of victory before risking war.
In constructing this stylized example we made sup- positions about the probability of reselection associ- ated with each outcome. Later we explore the robust- ness of our results in light of variation in these conditions. By looking at the limiting case of an extremely large winning coalition we see justification for this working assumption. As the winning coalition expands, W –> o, each supporter’s private goods allocation becomes vanishingly small, RIW -> 0. Under this contingency, private goods have no value to lead- ers, either in terms of personal or reselection benefits. Hence, leaders allocate all available resources to extra war effort, g* = 1. Under this condition A only attacks
ifpA ‘ limWooP = (X + k + TF(n) – TF(l))/(1 + T(F(v) – F(l))). Of course, if leaders care nothing about reselection (T = 0), then this again reduces to the unitary actor solution. If, as we believe, the rese- lection motive is primary (large 4), however, then concavity in F(.) is sufficient to ensure that (X + k + TF(n) – TF(l))/(1 + T(F(v) – F(l))) > X + k. Given our assumption that challenger types are expo- nentially distributed, this means that leaders in systems with large W must be more certain of winning before
they attack than is true for their autocratic counter- parts.
The implications of the above theoretical result about the willingness of democratic leaders to use violence as the means to advance their objectives is noteworthy. Autocracies may engage in imperialist expansion, for instance, out of a quest for additional private goods. Democracies can also be expected to participate in imperialist expansion according to our model, provided that doing so enhances the survivabil- ity of incumbents. The targets during wars of colonial and imperial expansion typically are very weak states or peoples who can easily be defeated. The norms-based argument that democracies use violence to protect their survival against nondemocratic foes who do not share the abhorrence of violence may account for some democratic-autocratic wars, but it seems to be contra- dicted by wars of colonial or imperial expansion by democracies. Certainly, the weak foes in such wars did not threaten the survival of the democratic belligerent. Yet, our model shows that extremely weak opponents readily fulfill the requirements to be targets of demo- cratic initiations of violence. Democracies, according to our model, initiate fighting when their prospects of victory are almost certain, so they, like autocracies, are not immune from the temptations of expansionism. Near certainty of victory, not normative commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes, describes when democracies go to war.
The democratic propensity to try hard makes it difficult for either side of a democratic dyad to over- whelm the other. Being unable to guarantee victory, both sides seek to avoid what is likely to be a bloody and protracted conflict. The exception arises when one party in the dyad is much weaker than the other. In that case, large democracies are not immune from attacking small ones, but small democracies are expected to sue for peace rather than fight back. This follows in the model because democracies need a high probability of victory in order to fight. Therefore, large democracies are prepared to fight weak adversaries, including de- mocracies, but the weak democrats, having a low probability of victory, are unwilling to fight back. This results in cases of low-level, one-sided attacks by large democracies against small ones (e.g., the United States attacked the Dominican Republic in 1965), a phenom- enon widely observed in the historical record. This also explains why democracies can be imperialist powers.
Democrats need to be more certain of victory than do autocrats before they attack, but this is not to say that democratic states are necessarily more dovish than autocratic regimes. Although democrats must be con- fident of victory before initiating conflict, their in- creased effort means that often they can overwhelm other states. In the Appendix we formally show that the size of a negotiated settlement, X, sufficient to buy off A and prevent A from attacking is not a simple monotone in the size of the winning coalition. Simply because democrats are more selective in their conflicts does not always make them less aggressive. Rather, whether large or small winning coalition systems are more aggressive is a function of the specific conditions.
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An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace December 1999
Under some circumstances autocrats may be more dovish, under other conditions they may be more hawkish. Our institutional explanation has two oppo- site components. First, leaders with large winning coalitions typically try hard during conflict, dedicating additional resources to the war effort, which allows them to overwhelm other states. Second, democratic leaders with large winning coalitions need to be more certain of victory than their autocratic counterparts before initiating conflict. Given these two competing influences, we cannot say whether in general democrats are more hawkish or dovish than autocrats, but the combination of these two effects leads to the implica- tion that democratic nations generally do not fight one another.
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