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Edward D. Mansfeld andJack Snyder
THB DeNcBns orTnnNSrTroN
The idea that democracies never fight wars
against each other has become an axiom for
many scholars. It is, as one scholar puts it, "as
close as anything we have to an empirical law
in international relations."l President Bill
Clinton invoked this law to explain why promoting
democracy abroad was a pillar of his
foreign policy. A premise of President George
W. Bush's strategic doctrine is that U.S. security
may even require preventive wars to unseat
dangerous despots so as to build the "infrastructure
of democracy'' abroad and create a
"balance of power that favors freedom."2 Declaring
that U.S. security from terrorism depends
on the success of democracy in Iraq and
its neighbors, Bush argued that "sixty years of
Western nations excusing and accommodating
the lack of freedom in the Middle East
did nothing to make us safe-because in the
long run, stability cannot be purchased at the
expense of liberty."3
It is probably true that
^
world in which
more countries were mature, stable democracies
would be safer and preferable for the
United States. But countries do not become
mature democracies overnight. They usually
go through a rocky transition, where mass
oolitics mixes with authoritarian elite politics
in a volatile way. Statistical evidence correring
the past two centuries shows that in this transitional
phase of democratization, countries
become more aggressive and war prone, not
less, and they do fight wars with democratic
states. This danger is greatest when states embark
on a transition prematurely, when they
lack the strong political institutions that are
needed to make democrarywork Under these
conditions, fearfi.rl old elites and ambitious
new politicians have the motive and the oppornrnity
to use nationalist appeals to rally support
from newly empowered masses.
The 1990s bore out this historical pattern
of democratization, nationalism, and war. In
the decade following the collapse of the Berlin
t6r
162 Eowenn D. MeNsprBLD AND Tecr SNyten
Wall, armed violence was intense in a number
of regions that had just begun to experiment
with electoral democracy and increased pluralism
of public debate, including such hotbeds
of ethnic warfare as the former Yugoslavia,
the post-Soviet Caucasus. and Burundi in
Ceniral Africa.a At the close of the millennium,
this trend showed no signs of abating.
Ethiopia and Eritrea, both adopting electoral
forms of government in the 1990s, fought a
bloody border war in 1999-2000.s The nucleararmed,
elected regimes of India and Pakistan
fought a war in 7999 inthe mountainous borderlands
of Kashmir. Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin ascended to the presidency of Russia's
shaky new democracy by riding the popularity
of his war in 1999-2000 against the unruly
autonomous region of Chechnya.6 After
the fall of the Suharto dictatorshio in Indonesia,
elections and referenda led quickly
to violence and international intervention in
the province of East Timor, a former Portuguese
colony seeking national independence
tn 7999, and to ethnic mayhem elsewhere in
Indonesia.
The following evidence, which has been
updated from an article we published tn Foreign
Affairs in 7995, should raise questions
about the U.S. policy of promoting peace by
promoting democratrzation.T The expectation
that the spread of democracy will probably
contribute to peace in the long run, once new
democracies mature, provides little comfort to
those who may face a heightened risk of war
in the short run. Pushing unsetded Islamic societies
and a nuclear-armed great power like
China to democratize is like spinning a roulette
wheel many of the possible outcomes are undesirable.
The roulette wheel is already spinning
for Iraq and Iran and perhaps will be
soon for other geopolitically significant states.
Washington and the international community
should be realistic about the dangers of fomenting
democratization where conditions
are unripe. The building of institutions that
are needed to make democracy work should
precede the unleashing of mass electoral politics,
or else the risk ofviolence will increase.
These arguments apply to both external
wars and civil wars. In states lacking the institutional
infrastructure needed to manage democratrzation,
this process increases the risk
of nationalist politics that often stimulates con.
,,i
flict abroad. For many of the same reasons, in
ethnically divided countries, nationalist poli tics
occurring during the early stages of a democratic
transition can lead to domestic violence.
Most ofthe evidence presented in this chapter
centers on external wars during the past two
centuries. Nonetheless, we also draw on some
cases of ethnic nationalist violence that include
civil wars to illustrate our argument, since
democratizing regimes are also disproportionately
prone to internal conflict, and the underlying
causal processes through which democratrzatron
encourages external and civil wars
have much in common.8
TnBEvroBNcn
In eadier research, we conducted some preliminary
statistical tests of the relationship between
democratization and war.9 Since then,
the data and measures ofregime type on which
we relied have been updated and extended.lO
Here, we use these moie recent data and measures
to reevaluate the argument that democratic
transitions promote war.
Our statistical analvsis relies on the classifications
of regimes and wars used by most
scholars studying the democratic peace. Starting
with these standard data, we classi$r each
state as a democracy, an autoctacy, ot an
'(anocracy''-that is, a mixed regime with both
democratic and autocratic features. Initially,
this classification is based on a composite index
developed by Keith Jaggers and Ted Robert
Gurr that emphasizes the constitutional consffaints
on the chief executive, the competitiveness
of domestic politics, the openneis of the
process for selecting the chiefexecutive, and the
strength ofthe rules governing participation
Tuneur,aNr TneNsrtroNs 163
in politics.ll However, we also classify each
state's regime type based on three of the components
that make up this index the openness
ofthe process for selecting the head ofstate,
the extent ofthe constraints on the chiefexecutive,
and the competitiveness ofpolitical participation.l2
In the following tests, we analyze
separatelyJaggers and Gurr's composite index
and each of the three component factors just
mentioned.
In these tests, we distinguish between two
phases in the process of democratizalon: the
transition from autocracy to a partially democratic
regime-which we refer to as incomplete
democratyzation-and the shift to a frrlly
institutionalized democracy-which we refer
to as complete democratization. Our argument
is that hostilities are more likely to break out
when states have made only an incomplete
democratic transition. When militarv. communist,
colonial, dymastic, or other autiroritarian
regimes break down and mass politics begins,
democratic procedures are likely to be
intermittent, subject to manipulation by both
rising and declining elites, and animated by
nationalist or other populist ideologies that grve
rise to international frictions.
Because we view democtatization as a
gradual process rather than a sudden change,
we test whether a transition over a five-year
period is associated with the outbreak of an
external war in the year following that period.
We code each state as democratic, autocratic,
or anocratic at the beginning and then again
at the end of each five-year period. An incomplete
democratic transition occurs if a
state changes from an autocracy to a mixed
regime during this period. A complete democratic
transition occurs ifa state shifts from
either an autocracy or a mixed regime to a
democracy. War is measured in the year immediately
after each five-year period. We analyze
the outbreak of all external wars, those
between nation-states as well as imperial and
colonial wars launched by a state against a nonstate
actor.13
Our argument is that the effects of democratrzation
on war will be stronger and more
pronounced in countries having less institutional
strength and centralization. Incomplete
democratrzation occurring in the face ofweak
governmental institutions undermines the
state's abilityto manage elite interests and newly
politicized mass groups. Political institutions
are unable to resolve or suppress the conflicts
of interest stemming from growing demands
for political participation, thereby creating
various dynamics that encourage belligerence
abroad. Unless the state has the rare luck to
inherit fairly strong political institutions at the
outset ofthe transition from autocracy, turbulence
is hard to avoid during this first step on
the road to democracy.
To measure the extent of institutional
strength and centralization, we rely on an
eleven-point index-ranging from 0 to 10created
by Gurr and his colleagues.1a The
index takes on higher values where a regime
has more clearly established rules regulating
political competition and where it enjoys a
more centralized grip on the reins of domestic
power. Under these conditions, the regime
should be better able to manage the rivalry of
elite factions and minimize the adverse consequences
of interest-group logrolling.
Since our argument is that incomplete democratic
transitions are more likely to stimulate
the outbreak of war in countries marked by
weak and fragmented institutions, we analyze
this index of institutional strength as well
as its interaction with our measure of incomplete
democratrzation. We also analyze the
interaction between this index and our measure
of complete democratization to determine
whether the effects of all aspects of democratizatron
depend on the strength of domestic
institutions.
While our focus is on democratization, rt
is also important to assess the effects of autocraitzation
on war. It is only through such an
analysis that we can determine whether the
effects of democratization stem from a more
_t0*1" "" _ *_-_._* _ *_.-*"* "- Boy+lpP_.Jt4{tis_{Lsk?*}toJasr-s|tI-p"pB
Figure 1. Predicted Probability of War byTiansition T1pe, Based on the Composite Index
0.18
0.16
0.14
o
= A 1n
A U.Ud
.6
€ 0.06
d
0.04
0.02
0.00
45
Institutional Strength
sm€w No Tlansition
+ Incomplete Democratization
- 't-' Incomplete Autocratization
"-X--- Complete Democratization
'.<1" " Complete Autocratization
\
^-. \
t--.-\
x----'-------x---------
-
---^-\
flh**+6s+*Fsel{}4*x.."'."*.*".'
general tendency for regime change of any
q?e to promote conflict. We therefore create
two variables, one indicating whether a country
underwent a complete autocratic transition
(i.e., a transition from either democracy or
anocracy to autocrac/)r and a second indicating
whether it underwent an incomplete autocratic
transition (i.e., from democracy to anocracy)
during each five-year period. Finally, we anaIyze
the interaction between each qpe of autocratizatron
and our measure of institutional
strength and centralizatron to assess whether
the influence of autocratization on war depends
on the strength and coherence ofdomestic
institutions.
Our tests span the period from 1816 to
7992,rhe years that the data sets used to measure
regime type and war have in common. We
use logistic regression to estimate the effects
of democratization and autocratrzatton orr
war.15 The results of these tests (which are
not presented here to conserve space) strongly
support our argument that incomplete democratrzaionis
a potent impetus to warwhen domestic
institutions are weak.16
Furthermore, our results refute the view that
transitional democracies are simply inviting
targets of attack due to their temporaryweakness:
in fact, they tend to be the initiators of
war. We also exclude the possibiJity that the ef:
fect of demo craizalonon war actually reflects
the influence of war on democratization: our
findings indicate that war has very litde bearing
on either the occurrence of democratic
transitions orwhether those transitions that do
occur yield coherent democratic institutions.
To illustrate the substantive effects of incomplete
democtatyzatron on the outbreak of
war, figures I,2,3, and 4 show the predicted
probability of a given state becoming involved
in awar, based on the composite indor and the
three component measures of regime type.
Using the results of the logistic regressions, we
calculate the probability of war for each type
ofregime change analyzedhere. For each type,
the predicted probability of war is derived
Figure 2. Predicted Probability of War byTransition Type, Based on the Competitiveness
of Political Participation
B
o
i.
I
.o
E
'lJ
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.10
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.00
Figure 3. Predicted Probability of War byTransition T1pe, Based on the Openness
of Executive Recruitment
i"
I
-d
'o
0.40
0.35
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
@ NoTiansition
+ IncompleteDemocratization
- 't
-' Incomplete Autocratization
---X--- Complete Democratization
".a,)-. Complete Autocratization
,u@ NoTiansition
+ IncompleteDemocratization
- "l-' Incomplete Autocratization
--'X--- Complete Democratization
*.r1" Q6mplsle Autocratization
199 - - -*,.-""" -"*"." -- -* "_ - " " 9*y+s"*P,M*Ng***tlA"f,FNppl
Figure 4. Predicted Probabfity of War byTransition Type, Based on the Constraints
on the Chief Executive
0.16
0.14
n 1)
B
o o 10
n
=-a
-8 o.os
I
'o
I 0.06
.9
A o.o+
!***s*ss$4$s*44&43
0.02
-------n--"""-"'*
45
Institutional Strength
@ NoTiansition
--e Incomplete Democratization
- "l-
Incomplete Autocratization
--x--- Complete Democratization
sss \d' Complete Autocratization
only for the range ofvalues of our measure of
institutional strength that actually appears in
the data.I7
These figures showthat, regardless ofwhich
measure of regime fype we anaTTrzerincomplete
democratization coupled with weak institutions
(i.e., a low score on our measure ofinstitutional
strength) is more likely to stimulate
war than any other conditions that we consider.
Furthermore, these results do not reflect a more
general tendency for either all qpes of democratization
(both complete and incomplete) or
all types ofregime change (both democratrzation
and autocratizatron) to precipitate hostilities.
Although there is some scattered evidence
that other kinds of regime change also promote
antagonism, the effect of each of these
changes is weaker, smaller, and less consistent
across our four measures of regime type than
is the effect of incomplete democratization.
Thus, these findings offer substantial support
ror our argument.
NRlroNerrsM AND DEnaocnarrzATroN
The connection between democratrzation and
nationalism is striking in both the historical
record and today's headlines. Data limitation
precluded the direct measurement of nationalism
in our statistical tests. Nonetheless. historical
and contemporary evidence strongly
suggests that rising nationalism often goes
hand in hand with the early phases of a transition
toward democracy. It is no accident that
the end of the Cold War brought both a wave
of democratizairon and a revival of nationalist
sentiment in the former communist states.
In eighteenth-century Britain and France,
when nationalism first emerged as an explicit
pottical doctrine, it meant selFmle by the people.
It was the rallying cry of commoners and
rising commercial classes against rule by aristocratic
elites, who were charged with the sin of
governing in their own interests, rather than
those ofthe nation. Indeed, drmastic rulers and
Tunsur,BNr TneNsrtroNs 167
imperial courts had hardly been interested in
promoting nationalism as a banner of solidarity
in their realms. They typically ruled over a
linguistically and culturally diverse conglomeration
of subjects and claimed to govern by
divine right, not in the interest of the nation.
Often, these rulers were more closely tied by
kinship,language, or culture to elites in other
states than to their own subjects. The position
of the communist ruling class was strikingly
similar: a transnational elite that ruled over an
amalgamation of peoples and claimed legitimacy
from the communist party's role as the
vanguard ofhistory, not from the consent of
the governed. Popular forces challenging either
traditional dynastic rulers or communist
elites naturally tended to combine demands
for national self-determination and democratic
rule.
This concoction of nationalism and incipient
democrattzation has been a volatile brew,
leading in case after case to ill-conceived wars
of expansion.The earliest instance remains one
of the most dramatic.In the French Revolution,
the radical Brissotin parliamentary faction
polarized politics by harping on the king's
slow response to the threat of war with other
dynastic states. In the ensuing wars of the
French Revolution, citizens flocked to join the
revolutionary armies to defend popular self:
rule and the French nation. Even after the
revolution turned profoundly antidemocratic,
Napoleonwas able to harness this popular nationalism
to the task of conquering Europe,
substituting the popularity of empire for the
substance of democratic de.
After this experience, Europe's ruling elites
decided to band together in 1815 in the Concert
of Eurooe to contain the twin evils of
nationalism and democ ratizatron. In this
scheme, Europe's crowned heads tried to unite
in squelching demands for constitutions, electoral
and social democracy, and national selfdetermination.
For a time nationalism and democratrzvt:ron
were both held back" and Europe
enjoyed a period ofrelative peace.
But in the long run, the strategy failed in the
face of the economic changes strengthening
popular forces inWestern and Central Europe.
British and French politicians soon saw that
they would have to rule by co-opting nationalist
and democratic demands, rather than suppressing
them. Once the specter of revolution
returned to Europe in 1848, this reversal of
political tactics was complete, and it led quickly
to the Crimean War. British foreign secretary
Palmerston and French emperor Napoleon III
both tried to manage the clamor for a broader
political arena by giving democrats what they
wanted in foreign affaks-a "liberal" war to
free imprisoned nations from autocratic rule
and, incidentally, to expand commerce.
But this was just the dress rehearsal for history's
most potent combination of mass politics
and rising nationalism, which occurred in
Germany around the turn of the twentieth
century. Chancellor Ottovon Bismarclg counting
on the conservative votes of a docile peasantrygr^nted
universal suffrage in the newly
unified Reich after 1870; but in foreign and
military affairs,he kept the elected Reichstag
subordinate to the cabinet appointed by the
kaiser. Like the sorcerer's apprentice, however,
Bismarck underestimated the forces he was
unleashing. With the rise of an industrial sociery
Bismarck's successors could not control
this truncated democracy, where over 90 percent
of the population voted. Every group was
higlrly politi€rzed,yet none could achieve their
aims through the limited powers of the Reichstag.
As a result, people organized direct pressure
groups outside electoral party politics.
Some of these clamored for economic benefits,
but many of them found it tactically usefirl
to cloak their narrow interests in a broader vision
of the nation's interests.This mass nationalist
sentiment exerted constant pressure on
German diplomacy in the Wilhelmine years
before 7914 and pushed its vacillating elites
toward war.
Democratization and nationalism also
became linked in Japan on the eve of the
168 Eowam D. MeNsneLD AND Tecr SNyoBn
Manchurian invasion in 7937. During the
7920sJapan expanded its suffrage and experimented
with two-party electoral competition,
though a council of military elder statesmen
still made the ultimate decisions about who
would govem. These semielected govemments
ofthe 1920s supported free trade, favored naval
arms control, and usually tried to rein in the
Japanese army's schemes to undermine the
Open Door policy in China. During the 7920s,
young radicals in the army developed a populist,
nationalist doctrine featuring a centrally
planned economywithin an autarkic, industrialized,
expanded empire, while scapegoating
Japan's alleged internal and external enemies,
including leftist workers, rich capitalists, liberals,
democrats, Americans, and Russians.
After the economic crash of the late 1920s, this
nationalist formula became persuasive, and
theJapanese military had litde trouble gaining
popular support for imperial expansion and
the emasculation of democracy. As in so many
previous cases, nationalism proved to be away
for militarist elite groups to appear populist in
a democratizing society while obstructing the
advance to fi,rll democracy.
The interconnection among nationalism,
incipient democratization, and war was likewise
present among some of the postcommunist
states in the 1990s. Shortly after the
breakup of the Soviet Union, one-quarter of
Russia's voters, disgruntled by economic distress,
backed the tough-talking nationalist
party of the anti-Semite Vladimir Zhirinovsky
in the 1993 parliamentary elections. Before
long, more mainstream politicians learned to
co-opt popular nationalist issues. Following a
series of mysterious terrorist bombings in Moscow,which
were attributed to "Chechens," and
Chechen bandit raids into Russian territory in
the summer of 1999, President Boris Yeltsin's
new prime minister, Vladimir Putin, used a
highly popular military intervention in Chechnya
to position himself as Yeltsin's successor.
The early stages of democratization were
also implicated in the violent breakup of communist
Yugoslavia. Especially in Serbia, the
political and military elites of the old regime,
facing pressure for democratwation, cynically
but successfi,rlly created a new basis for popular
legitimacy through nationalist propaganda
in the mass media they controlled. In the climate
of opinion that this manipulation fostered,
Serbian elections in the late 1980s and
1990s became contests among different varieties
of nationalists, each trying to outbid the
others to claim the mantle of the true defenders
ofSerbdom against its ethnic foes.
THB S OncBRER'S APPRENTICE
Although the early stage of dem ocraLtrzatron
increases the likelihood ofwar in countries with
weak political institutions, the average voter in
such states does not necessarily want war. Public
opinion in democratizing states often starts
off highly averse to the costs and risks ofwar.
In that sense, the public opinion polls taken in
Russia in early !994were typical. Respondents
said, for example, that Russian policy should
make sure the rights of Russians in neighboring
states were protected, but not at the cost of
military intervention. Notwithstanding the
ambivalence of the Russian public's view of
the Chechen problem during the 1990s, by
7999 the Russians had been primed by inflammatory
media coverage and the Putin government's
military faits accomplis to adopt a more
belligerent stance toward the perennially troublesome
Chechens.
Numerous historical and recent cases point
to the effectiveness ofcalculated elite efforts
to whip up belligerent nationalism among an
initially pacific population during the earliest
stages of a democratic ffansition. For example,
Napoleon III successflrlly e4ploited the domestic
prestige from France's share of the victory
in the Crimean War to consolidate his rule,
despite the popular reluctance and war weariness
that had accompanied the war. Having
learned this lesson well, Napoleon tried this
tactic again in 1859. On the eve ofhis military
TuRsur,BNt TneNsrtroN s 169
intervention in the Italian struggle with Austria.
he admitted to his ministers that "on the
domestic front, the war will at first awaken
great fears; traders and speculators of every
stripe will shriek, but national sentiment will
fbanish] this domestic fright; the nation will be
put to the test once more in a struggle that will
stir many aheart,recall the memory of heroic
times, and bring together under the mande of
glory the parties that are steadily driftingaw^y
from one another day after day."ts Napoleon
was trying not just to follow opinion but to
make opinion bellicose, in order to stir a national
feeling that would enhance the state's
ability to govern a split and stalemated political
arena.
Much the same has happened in contemporary
Serbia. Despite the memories offascist
Ustashi Croatian atrocities in World War II,
intermarriage rates between Croats and Serbs
living in Croatia were as high as one in three
during the 1980s. Opinion was turned warlike
by propaganda campaigns in state-controlled
media that, for example, carried purelyinvented
reports of rapes of Serbian women in Kosovo,
and even more so by the fait accompli of
launching the war itself. V. P. Gagnon argues,
moreover, that nationalist propaganda served
not so much to whip up ethnic hatred as to
discredit liberal democratic critiques of the nationalist
Croatian and Serbian regimes.le
In short, democratizing states are war
prone, not because war is popular with the
mass public, but because domestic pressures
create incentives for elites to drum up nationalist
sentiment.
THnCeusssoFWARS
OFDEMOCRATIZAIION
Democraization often goes hand in handwith
a s)rndrome ofweak central authority, unstable
domestic coalitions, and high-energy mass
politics. It brings new social groups and classes
onto the political stage. Political leaders, finding
no way to reconcile incompatible interests,
resort to shortsighted bargains or reckless gambles
in order to maintain their governing coalitions.
Elites need to gain mass allies to defend
their weakened positions. Both the newly ambitious
elites and the embatded old ruling
groups often use appeals to nationalism to stay
astride their unmanageable political coalitions.
Needing public support, they rouse the
masses with nationalist propaganda but find
that their mass allies, once mobilized by passionate
appeals, are difficult to control. So are
the oowerfi.rl remnants of the old order-the
mili?ary, for example-which promote militarism
because it strengthens them institutionally.
This is particularly true because the
early stages of democratization may weaken
the central government's ability to keep policy
coherent and consistent. Governing a society
that is democratritngrslike driving a carwhile
throwing awaythe steeringwheel, stepping on
the gas, and fighting over which passenger
will be in the driver's seat. The result, when
political institutions are weak, is often war.
Political Stalemate
and Imperialist Coalitions
Democratrzation creates a wider spectrum of
politically significant groups with diverse and
incompatible interests.In the period when the
great powers were first democratizing, kings,
aristocrats, peasants, and artisans shared the
historical stage with industrialists, an urban
working class, and a middle-class intelligentsia.
Similarly, in the postcommunist world,
former party appar^tchiks, atavistic heavy industrialists,
and downwardly mobile military
officers share the stage with populist demagogues,
free-market entrepreneurs, disgruntled
workers, and newly mobilized ethnic
groups. In principle, mature democratic institutions
can integrate even the widest spectrum
of interests through competition for the
favor of the average voter. But where political
parties and representative institutions are still
in their infancy, the diversity of interests may
make political coalitions difficult to maintain.
170 Eoweno D. MeNsnBLD AND Tecr SNyopnry-""-%"-ry@--^."...ffi-:ry'"'*Often
the solution is a belligerent nationalist
coalition.
In Britain during the period leading up to
the Crimean War, neither the Whigs nor the
Tories could form a lasting governing coalition
because so many groups refused to enter
stable political alliances. None ofthe old elites
would coalesce with the parliamentary bloc of
radicals elected by urban middle-class and Irish
voters. Moreover, protectionist Tories would
not unite with free-trading Whigs and Peelite
Tories. The social and political mid-Victorian
equipoise between traditional and modem Britain
created a temporary political stalemate.
Lord Palmerston's pseudoliberal imperialism
turned out to be the only successful formula
for creating a durable ruling coalition during
this transitional period of democratizalon.
The stalemate in Wilhelmine-era electoral
politics was even more serious. In principle,
coalitions of the left and the right might have
formed a two-party system to vie for the favor
of the average voter, thus moderating policy.
In fact, both the left and the right were too internally
divided to mount effective coalitions
with internally consistent policies. Progressives
dreamed of a bloc extending "from Bassermann
to Bebel," from the liberal-democratic middle
classes through the Marxist working classes,
but the differences between labor and capital
chronically barred this development. Conservatives
had more success in forging a"marrrage
of iron and rye," but fundamental differences
between military-feudalJunkers and Ruhr industrialists
over issues ranging from the distribution
of tax burdens to military strategy made
their policies incoherent. Germanywound up
with plans for a big army and a costly nar.y,
and nobody willing to pay for it.
Inflexible Interests
and Short Time Florizons
Groups threatened by social change and democratizatton,
including still-powerfirl elites,
are often compelled to take an inflexible view
of their interests, especially when their assets
cannot be readily adapted to changing political
and economic conditions. In extreme cases,
there may be only one solution that will maintain
the social position of the group. For Prussian
landowners, it was agricultural protection
in a nondemocratic statel for the Japanese
military it was organizationil.autonomy in an
autarkic empire; for the Serbian military and
party elites, it was a Serbian nationalist state.
Since military bureaucracies and imperial interest
groups occupied key positions in many
authoritarian great powers, whether monarchal
or communist, most interests threatened
by democratization have been bound up with
military programs and the state's international
mission. Compromises that may lead down
the slippery slope to social extinction or irrelevance
have little appeal to such groups. This
adds to the difficulty of finding an exit from
the domestic political impasse and may make
powerfi.rl domestic groups impervious to the
international risks of their strategies.
Competing for Popular Support
The trouble intensifies when elites in a democratizing
society try to recruit mass allies
to their cause. Threatened elite groups have
an overwhelming incentive to mobilize mass
backers on the elites' terms, using whatever
speciai resources they might retain. These resources
have included monopolies ofinformation
(the Wilhelmine navy's unique "expertise"
in making strategic assessments), propaganda
assets (the Japanese army's public relations
blitz justifying the invasion of Manchuria),
patronage (Lord Palmerston's gifts of foreign
service postings to the sons ofcooperativejournalists),
wealth (the Krupp steel company's
bankrolling of mass nationalist and militarist
leagues), organizational skills and networks
(the Japanese army's exploitation of rural reservist
organizattons to build a social base), and
the ability to use the control of traditional political
institutions to shape the political
"g..rduand structure the terms of political bargains
(the Wilhelmine ruling elite's agreement to
TuRsur-BNt TRaNs rtroNs t7l
eliminate anti-Catholic legislation in exchange
for Catholic support in the Reichstag on the
naval budget).
This elite mobfization of mass goups takes
place in a highly competitive setting. Elite
groups mobilize mass support to neutralize
mass threats (e.g., creating patriotic leagues to
counterworkers movements) and counter other
elite groups'successful efforts at mass mobihzation
(such as the German Navy League, a
political counterweight to the Junker-backed
Agrarian League). The elites'resources allow
them to influence the direction of mass political
participation, but the imperative to compete
for mass favor makes it difficult for a single
elite group to control the outcome of this
process. For example, mass groups that gain
access to politics through elite-supported nationalist
organizatrons often try to outbid their
erstwhile sponsors. By 7971, German popular
nationalist lobbies were in a position to claim
that if Germany's foreign foes were really as
threatening as the ruling elites had portrayed
them, then the government had sold out German
interests in reaching a compromise with
France over the Moroccan dispute. In this
way, elite mobilization of the masses adds to
the ungovernability and political impasse of
democratizing states.
Ideology takes on particular significance in
the competition for mass support. New entrants
to the political process, lacking established
habits and reliable information, may be
uncertain where their political interests lie.
Ideology can yield big payoffs, particularly
when there is no efficient and free marketplace
of ideas to counter false claims with reliable
facts. Elites try out all sorts of ideological appeals
depending on the social position they
are defending, the nature of the mass group
they want to recruit, and the kinds of appeals
that seem politically plausible. A nearly universal
element of these ideological appeals,
however, is nationalism, which has the advantage
of positing a community of interest uniting
elites and masses. This distracts attention
from class cleavages that divide elites from the
masses they are trylng to recruit.
The Weakening of Central Authority
Aweakening ofthe state's authorityin the early
stages of democratrz tion deepens the political
impasse and the recklessness of the ruling
elite.The autocrat can no longer dictate to elite
interest groups or mass groups. In many such
transitions, democratic institutions lack the
strength to integrate these contending interests
and views. Parties are weak and lack mass
loyalty. Elections are rigged or intermittent.
Institutions of public political participation
are distrusted because they arc subject to manipulation
by elites and arbitrary constraints
imposed by the state, which fears the outcome
of unfettered competition.
Among the great powers, the problem was
not excessive authoritarian power at the center,
but the opposite. The Aberdeen coalition
thatbrought Britain into the CrimeanWarwas
a makeshift cabinet headed by a weak leader
with no substantial constituency. Likewise, on
the eve ofthe Franco-PrussianWar, Napoleon
III's regime was in the process of caving in to
its liberal opponents, who dominated the parliament
elected in 1869. As Europe's armies
prepared to hurde from their starting gates in
Jrtly L974,Austrian leaders, perplexed by the
contradictions between the German chancellor's
policy and that of the German military
asked, "Who rules in Berlin?" Similarly, the
1931 Manchurian incident was a fait accompli
by the localJapanese military; Tokyo was
not even informed.
In each ofthese cases, the weak central leadership
resorted to the same sffategies as did the
more parochial elite interests, using nationalist
ideological appeals and special-interest payoffs
to maintain their short-runviability, despite the
long-run risks that these strategies unleashed.
Prestige Strategies
One of the simplest but riskiest strategies for
a hard-pressed regime in a democratizing
172 Eowem D. MeNsprBLD AND Tecr SNroBn
country is to shore up its prestige at home by
seeking victories abroad. During Russia's Chechen
interventions in the 1990s, newspaper
commentators in Moscow and the West were
reminded of Russian interior minister Viacheslav
Plehve's fatefirl remark in 7904, on the
eve of the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, that
what the tsar needed was "a short, victorious
war" to boost his prestige.Though this sffateg'y
often backfires, it is a perennial temptation as
a means for copingwith the political strains of
demo cr attzation. German chancellor Johanne s
Miquel, who revitalized the imperialistprotectionist
"coalition of iron and rye" at the
turn ofthe century, told his colleagues that
"successes in foreign policywould make a good
impression in the Reichstag debates, and political
divisions would thus be moderated."20
The targets of such strategies often share this
analysis. Richard Cobden, for example, argued
that military victories abroad would confer
enough prestige on the military-feudal landed
elite to allow them to raise food tariffs and
snuff out democracy: "Let John Bull have a
great military triumph, and we shall have to
take off our hats as we Dass the Horse Guards
for the rest of our lives.-"2l
Prestige strategies make the country r,rrlnerable
to slights to its reputation. Napoleon
III, for example, was easily goaded into a full
declaration of war in 1870 by Bismarck's insulting
editorial work on a leaked telegram
from the kaiser. For those who want to avoid
such diplomatic provocations, the lesson is to
make sure that compromises forced on the
leaders of democratizing states do not take away
the fig leaves needed to sustain their domestic
prestige.
MeNRcrNcrHE DANGERS
INTODAY'S Wonro
Though mature democratic states have never
fought wars against each other, promoting
democracy may not promote peace because
states are especiallywar prone when they start
making a transition toward democracy before
the requisite institutions are in place.This
does not mean, howeveg that democratization
should be squelched in the interests of
peace. Rather, it means that proponents of democratrzatron
should carefirllyweigh the timing
of their efforts to promote democratization.
In particular, they should try to encouruge a
sequence of transition that begins with institution
building and culminates in unfettered
electoral competition. This sequence, where it
is feasible, is likely to minimize the undesirable
side effects of democratization.
Ofcourse, democraination does not always
lead to extreme forms of aggressive nationalism,
just as it does not always lead to war. But
it makes those outcomes more likely. Cases
where states democratyzed without triggering
a nationalist mobilization are particularly interesting,
since they may hold clues about how
to prevent such unwanted side effects. Among
the great powers, Great Britain followed the
smoothest path toward democracy because it
created the necessary institutions-a free press,
a legislative body, the rule of law, an effective
state apparatus-before opening up electoral
competition under wide suffrage. Similarly,
South Africa has had a reasonably smooth
transition to mass democracy because the institutions
needed for effective democracy were
created for the white minority under the apartheid
regime. They got the sequence right. In
contrast, Burundi, where international donors
abruptly pressed elections on its ethnic Tutsi
minority dictatorship in 7993, had none of
these institutions to build on. Within months
of the election, more than one hundred thousand
people were killed in ethnic strife.
Where the needed institutions are lacking,
they can sometimes be built quickly and easi1y.
This has been the case in countries that are
relatively rich, where literacy and citizen skills
are high, or where past experiments with democracy
left alegacy of legal, administrative,
orjournalistic institutions that could have new
life breathed into them.These conditions have
Tunsur.nNt TneN srtroNs 173
facilitated peaceful transitions in much of
South America, Northeastern and Central Europe,
Korea, andtiwan.
All too often, however, building the needed
institutions has proved exceedingly diffi cult.
Where many citizens are illiterate, per capita
income is low; society is ethnically divided, religious
sects or other illiberal groups dominate
civil society, powerfi.rl spoilers fear democracy,
nationalist mythmakers control the media,
and/or oil revenue makes the state unaccountable
to taxpayers, the path of democratization
is likely to be neither smooth nor peacefirl. In
such hard cases, some of the preconditions of
effective democracy, including reformed state
institutions, need to be put in place before mass
electoral politics are unleashed. Premature electoral
competition is often an occasion for violence
and tends to play into the hands ofnationalist
demagogues and ethnic or sectarian
politicians.
Many of the countries that are still on the
"to do" list of democracy promotion are lacking
in most of the preconditions for an easy
transition. Many Islamic countries that figure
prominently in the Bush administration's efforts
to promote democracy are particulady
hard cases. While we do not claim to be able
to foretell the future ofdemocratrzatronin these
troubled states, our findings suggest that their
path toward electoral politics will be fraught
with risk.
Although democratization in the Islamic
world might contribute to peace in the very
long run, Islamic public opinion in the short
run is generally hostile to the United States,
reluctant to condemn terrorism, and tolerant of
forcefirl measures in disputed areas. Although
much of the belligerence of the Islamic public
is fueled by resentment of the U.S.-backed authoritarian
regimes underwhich many of them
live, renouncing these authoritarians and pressing
for a quick democratic opening is unlikely
to lead to peacefi;l democratic consolidations.
On the conffary, unleashing Islamic mass opinion
through a sudden democra(na(ton might
raise the likelihood of war. A11 of the risk
factors are there: The media and civil society
groups are inflammatory as old elites and rising
oppositions try to outbid each other for the
mantle of Islamic or nationalist militancy.22
The rule of law is weak, and existing corrupt
bureaucracies cannot serve a democratic adminisffation
properly. The boundaries of states
are mismatched with those of nations, making
any push for national self-determination
fraught with peril. Per capita incomes,literacy
rates, and citszenskills in most Muslim Middle
Eastern states are below the levels normally
needed to sustain democracy.23
In the Arab world, in particular, states
commonly gain their popular legitimacy not
through accountability to their own citizens
but by acting demagogically in the pulported
interests of the Arab nation as a whole, which
often means taking a belligerent stand on
Palestinian issues.24 When Iraq attempted to
make a democratic ffansition in the late 1940s'
the elected leaders of its weak state felt compelled
to grant militarybasing rights to its former
colonial ruler, Britain; they then took an
inflammatory stance against Israel to try to recoup
their diminished nationalist credibility
in the eyes of their urban Arab nationalist
constituents. This vocal stance by Iraq's flawed
democratic regime pushed the more moderate
monarchies in the Arab frontline states
to reject compromise on the creation of an
Israeli state, opening the door to the 1948
Arab-Israeli war and the deepening entrenchment
of the Arab-Israeli rivalry.
We do not argue that Islam is culturally
unsuited for democracy, but rather that the institutional
preparations for democraqy are weak
in most Islamic states. Thus, sudden increases
in mass political participation are likely to be
dangerous. Evidence of this is found in the
theocratic pseudodemocracy established by the
Iranian Revolution; it relendessly pressed the
offensive in a bloody war of attrition with Iraq
and supported violent movements abroad. A
quarter of a century later, Iranian electoral
174 Eoweru D. MeNsprBLD AND Tecr SNroBn%'.". .
-r'''*@
politics still bears the imprint of incomplete
democrattzation. With liberal democratic reformers
barred from running for office, Iranian
voters looking for a more responsive government
turned in the June 2005 presidential
election to the religious fundamentalist populist
mayor ofTehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
a staunch proponent ofthe Iranian nuclear program.
The use of nationalism as part of a popular
appeal in an electoral system that rules
out liberal alternatives is a common tactic.
This does not necessarily mean that all steps
toward democracy in the Islamic world would
lead to disaster. Etel Solingen argues, for example,
that reforms leading toward "democratruation
from above," combined with economic
liberalization, have been consistent with support
for peacefirl policies in such Arab states
asJordan,Tunisia, Morocco, and Qtar. "The
more consolidated democratizing regimes become,"
she notes, "the less likely they are to
experiment with populism and war."25 Consistent
with our argument, these modest success
cases indicate that the most promising sequence
for democratnation in such settings
begins with reforms of the state and the economy,
togetherwith limited forms of democratic
participation, rather than a headlong jump
into popular elections before the strengthening
of the institutions-such as efficient and
evenhanded public administration, the rule
of law, professional journalism, and political
parties-that are needed to make a democratic
system work.
Islamic democratization is hardly the only
such danger on the horizon. A future democratic
opening in China, though much hoped
for by advocates of human rights and democratizatron,could
produce a sobering outcome.25
China's communist rulers have presided over
a commercial expansion that has generated
wealth and a potentially powerfirl constituency
for broader political participation. However,
given the huge socioeconomic divide between
the prosperous coastal areas and the vast impoverished
hinterlands, it seems unlikely that
economic developmentwill lead as smoothlyto
democratic consolidation in China as it has in
Taiwan. China's leadership showed its resistance
to pressures for democratic liberalization
in its 1989 crackdown on the student movement
at Tiananmen Square, but party elites
know that they need a sffonger basis ofpopular
legitimacy to survive the social and ideological
changes that economic change has unleashed.
Nationalism is a key element in their strategy.
China's demand to incorporateThiwan in
the People's Republic of China, its animosity
towardJapan, and its public displays of resentment
at U.S. slights are themes that resonate
with the Chinese public and can easily be
played on to rally national solidarity behind
the regime. At the same time, newly rising social
forces see that China's leaders permit more
latitude to expressions of nationalism than to
liberalism. Thus, some of the same intellectuals
who played a role in the Tiananmen prodemocracy
protests turned up a few years later
as authors of a nationalist text, The ChinaThat
Can Say N0.27
Like many other established elites who
have made use ofpopular nationalist rhetoric,
China's party leadership has walked a fine line,
allowing only limited expressions of popular
nationalist outrage after such perceived provocations
as the U.S. bombing of the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade, anti-Chinese pogroms
inJakarta, the U.S. spyplane incident of 2007,
and the Japanese bid for a permanent seat on
the UN Security Council. They realize that
criticism of external enemies can quickly become
transformed into popular criticism of
the government for not being sufficiendy diligent
in defense of Chinese national interests.
It is doubtfi.rl that they could maintain a finetuned
control over an aroused nationalist public
opinion if an incompletely democratiing
China becomes embroiled in a future crisis
withtiwan.
In short, the Bush administration's efforts to
force the pace of democrairzationin countries
that lack the preconditions for it risk playing
TuRsurBNrTReNsrtroNs 175
into the hand of nationalists, ethnic and sectarian
politicians, and other populist purveyors
of violent political strategies. Instead, democrary
promotion should be focused on countries
where conditions for it are ripe, or on the patient,
properly sequenced construction ofthe
institutional supports that undergird true democracy.
In the long run, the enlargement of
the zone of stable democracy will probably
enhance prospects for peace. In the short run,
much work remains to be done to minimize
the dangers of the turbulent ffansition.
Norps
Adapted from Edward D. Mansfield andJack Snyder,
"Democrairzairon and War," Foreign Afairs 74,
no. 3 (May-Ju ne 7995): 79-97 . Copyright @ 1995 by
the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. Used by permission.
Figures 5.1 through 5.4 are adapted from tables
that appeared in Edward D. Mansfield andJack
Snyyder, Elexing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies
Go to War (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
Used by permission of MIT Press. O Belfer Center
for Science in International AIfairs,John E, Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard.
1. Jack S. Ler,y, "Domestic Politics and War,"
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 78, no. 4 (Spring
1988):662.
2. Executive Office of the President , National
Security Strategy of the United ,Srares (September
2002),27,29.
3. George W Bush, "Remarks by the President
at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment
for Democracy," Washington, D.C., November 6,
2003, reported in David Sanger, "Bush Asks Lands in
Mideast to Try Democ ratrcWays," New York Time5
November 7,2003,1'1.
4. Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization
and Nationalist Conflict (NewYork W. W.
Norton,2000), chaps. 5 and 6.
5. In Peoples Wrsus States (Washington, D.C.:
United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000), 293,
Ted Robert Gurr codes Ethiopia as making a transition
to "anocract'' (a partially democratic, mixed
regime) in7994. On Eritrea, see Ruth Iyob, "The Eritrean
Experiment A Cautious Pragmatism?" Journal
ofMo dern African S tudies 3 5, no. 4 (Decemb er 7997) :
647-673.
6. Michael R. Gordon, "Russia Votes, Like It or
Not ChechnyaWar Fever Gives Pause in the West"'
Neru York Times, D ecember 21, 7999, 1'1, 422.
7. Edward D. Mansfield andJack Snyder, "Democratization
and War," Foreign Afairs 74, no. 3
(May-June t995):79-97 . We have updated the statistical
findings and added discussions ofrecent cases,
but the historical and conceptual discussion in this
chapter remains similar to that article. The firllest
statement of our work on the topic is Edward D.
Mansfield and Jack Snyder, Elexing to Figlrt: Why
Emerging Denotacies Go to War (Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press.2005).
8. For a more extensive analysis of how democntiza(tor
promotes civil violence, see Snyder, From
Voting to trliolence.
9. See Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder,
"Democratizatton and the Danger ofWar," International
Security 20, no. 1 (Summer 1995): 5-38.
10. See Keith Jaggers and Ted Robert Gurr,
"Tiacking Democracy's Third Wave with the Polity
IIIData," Journal of Peace Research32,no.4 (November
7995):469-482.
11. Ibid.
12. For the procedures used to code these variables,
see Mansfield and Snyder, Electing to Fight,
chap.4.
13. More specifically, we code each statet regime
type in year t-7 and then again in year /-6. We measure
incomplete and complete democratic transitions
bydeterminingwhether the state's regime type changed
between years t-6 ar'd t-I.War is measured ityear t.
On the definition of and data on external wars, see
Melvin Small and J. David Singer, Resort to Arms:
International and Cigil Wars, 1816-1980 (BeverIy
Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1982); and Singer
and Small, "Correlates ofWar Project: International
and Civil Wars Data, 7816-1992" (data set, stored
at the Inter-University Consortium for Political
and Social Research, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1994).
Note that the following results are much the same if
we focus only on interstate wars rather than all external
wars.
14. This variable measures the degree to which
domestic authority is concentrated in each state's central
government in year r-1. See Ted Robert Gurr,
t76 Eoweno D. MeNsprnLD AND Tecr Smoen
KeithJaggers, and Will H. Moore, "Polity II: Political
Structures and Regime Change, 1800-1986"
(codebook for data set, stored at the Inter-University
Consortium for Political and Social Research, Ann
Arbor, Michigan,1989),39-40. Here, we refer to this
variable as "institutional strength." Elsewhere, we
have referred to it as the domestic concentration of
authority (or "DomConcentration"). See Edward D.
Mansfi eld and Jack Snyder, "Democratic Transitions,
Institutional Capacity, and the Onset ofWar," International
Organization 56, no.2 (Spring 2002):297-
337;and Mansfield andSnyder, Electing to Fight, especially
chaps. 4-6.
15. In conducting these tests, we controlled for
whether each state is a major power in year t-1,
whether each state is involved in a civil war inyear t-
1, the distribution ofpower throughout the international
system, and the length of time since each state
last experienced the onset ofan external war.
16. These parameter estimates and a more detailed
explanation of our tests are presented in Mansfield
and Snyder, Elexing to Fight, chap.5.
17. Thus, for example, we do not present the predicted
probability of war for any type ofregime change
when our measure of institutional strength equals
zero because there is no case in the datawhere a regime
change took place and this measure was equal to zero.
We do present the predicted probability ofwarwhen
no regime change takes place and our measure of institutional
strength equals zero, since there are some
cases of this sort in the data. Note also that, for the
purpose of calculating these probabilities, we hold
constant the distribution of power at its mean and assume
that the state neither is experiencing a civil war
nor is a major power.
18. Alain Plessis, The Rise and Fa// of the Second
E mpire, 1 I 52*1 I 71 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 7985), 746-147 .
19. V. P. Gagnon, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia
and Croatia in the 1990s (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press,2004).
20. J. C. G. Rohl, Gerntany uithout Bismarck
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 7967), 250.
21. Richard Cobden, letter to John Bright, October
1, 1854, quoted in John Morley, Tlte Lfe of
Richard Cobden, abridged ed. (London:Thomas Nelson,
n.d.), 31!-372.
22. In"Islamism, Revolution, and Civil Society,"
Perspectiztes on Politics 7, no.2 (June 2003): 257-272,
especially 265, Sheri Berman draws parallels to belligerent
civil society in the flawed democracy of
Weimar Germany and stresses the "Huntingtonian
gap" between high demand for political participation
and ineffective state institutions.
23. In Human Deoelopment Report 2004 (New
York Oxford University Press,2004), the United Nations
Development Programme reports the following
percentage rates ofilliteracy among adults over age
fifteen: ATgeria, 31.1; Bahrain, I7.5; Egypt, 44.4;
kan, 22.9; Jordan, 9.1; Kuwait, 77.I; Lebanon, 13.5;
Libya, 18.3; Morocco, 49.3; Oman,25.6; Saudi Arabia,
22.1; Syria, 17.1; Tunisia, 26.8; United Arab Emirates,22.7;
and Yemen, 51. See also Daniela Donno
and Bruce Russett, "Islam, Authoritarianism, and Female
Empowerment What Are the Linkages?" World
Politics 56, no. 4 (July 2004):582-607.
24. Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics
(NewYork Columbia University Press, 1998).
25. Etel Solingen, Regional Orders at Century\
Daun: Global and Domestic Inifluences of Grand Stratag.y
(Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press,
1998).2r3.
26. For a balanced view that discusses many of
the following points, see David Bachman, "China's
Democraination: What Difference Would It Make
for U.S.-China Relations," in What If China Doesn't
Dernocratize? ed. Edward Friedman and Barrett McCormick
(Armon( N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe,2000).
27. Song Qurg, Zhang Zargzang, and Qlao
Bian, Zhongguo keyi shuo bu lThe China That Can
Say Nol (Beijing: Zhonghta gongshang lianhe
chubanshe. 1996).