Peace Between Participatory Polities: A Cross-Cultural Test of the “Democracies Rarely Fight Each Other” Hypothesis
- 1 July 1992
- journal article
- Published by Project MUSE in World Politics
- Vol. 44 (4) , 573-599
- https://doi.org/10.2307/2010488
Abstract
Evidence is accumulating that, in the modern international system, democracies rarely fight each other. But the reasons for the phenomenon are not well understood. This article explores a similar phenomenon in other societies, using cross-cultural ethnographic evidence. It finds that polities organized according to more participatory (“democratic”) principles fight each other less often than do polities organized according to hierarchical principles. Stable participatory institutions seem to promote peaceful relations, especially if people perceive that others also have some control over politics.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and WarAmerican Political Science Review, 1992
- Controlling the SwordPublished by Harvard University Press ,1990
- The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political LifeAmerican Political Science Review, 1983
- Applied RegressionPublished by SAGE Publications ,1980
- Migration, External Warfare, and Matrilocal ResidenceBehavior Science Research, 1974
- An Evaluation of Alternative Theories of Matrilocal Versus Patrilocal ResidenceBehavior Science Research, 1974
- The Assignment of Numbers to Rank Order CategoriesAmerican Sociological Review, 1970
- Some correlates of beliefs in the malevolence and benevolence of supernatural beings: A cross-societal study.The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1959
- Majuro, a village in the Marshall Islands / Alexander SpoehrPublished by Smithsonian Institution ,1949
- Rechtsverhältnisse von eingeborenen Völkern in Afrika und OzeanienPublished by Springer Nature ,1903