Democratic Jihad? Military Intervention and Democracy

Gleditsch, Nils Petter ; Christiansen, Lene Siljeholm ; Hegre, Hå ; vard

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT;    ALLIANCES;    APARTHEID;    ARMED CONFLICT;    ARMED CONFLICTS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4242
RP-ID  :  WPS4242

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Democracies rarely if ever fight oneanother, but they participate in wars as frequently asautocracies. They tend to win the wars in which theyparticipate. Democracies frequently build large alliances inwartime, but not only with other democracies. From time totime democracies intervene militarily in ongoing conflicts.The democratic peace may contribute to a normativejustification for such interventions, for the purpose ofpromoting democracy and eventually for the promotion ofpeace. This is reinforced by an emerging norm ofhumanitarian intervention. Democracies may have a motivationto intervene in non-democracies, even in the absence ofongoing conflict, for the purpose of regime change. Therecent Iraq War may be interpreted in this perspective. Astrong version of this type of foreign policy may beinterpreted as a democratic crusade. The paper examines thenormative and theoretical foundations of democraticinterventionism. An empirical investigation of interventionsin the period 1960-96 indicates that democracies intervenequite frequently, but rarely against other democracies. Inthe short term, democratic intervention appears to besuccessfully promoting democratization, but the targetstates tend to end up among the unstable semi-democracies.The most widely publicized recent interventions are targetedon poor or resource-dependent countries in non-democraticneighborhoods. Previous research has found thesecharacteristics to reduce the prospects for stabledemocracy. Thus, forced democratization is unpredictablewith regard to achieving long-term democracy and potentiallyharmful with regard to securing peace. But short-termmilitary successes may stimulate more interventions untilthe negative consequences become more visible.