Regime Type and State Behavior in Threat and Opportunity Crises: A Monadic Study of the Democratic Peace Theory, 1918-1994

Abstract

A large body of research points to the importance of the Democratic Peace (DP) theory in understanding war and stability in world politics. This study examines both the institutional-structural and normative-cultural aspects of the DP thesis at the monadic level. In order to understand state behavior in the realm of international crises, our analysis: (1) identifies two types of crises. The first, an opportunity crisis, describes a situation in which some state-actors are stress-free and others are stress-induced. By contrast, a threat crisis denotes a confrontation in which all participating states interact under stress; (2) differentiates between international crises that were initiated in the midst of a full-scale war from non-intra-war crises; and (3) compares the relative contribution of the institutional/structural and normative/cultural DP explanations. Findings indicate that the behavior patterns of democracies were very similar to those of non-democratic states, especially in opportunity crises. In these crises, the rules of an anarchic international system override the liberal domestic code of behavior. By contrast, in threat crises, internal barriers to the use of violence appeared to be the most effective.