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Democracies at War

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Why do democracies win wars? This is a critical question in the study of international relations, as a traditional view--expressed most famously by Alexis de Tocqueville--has been that democracies are inferior in crafting foreign policy and fighting wars. In Democracies at War , the first major study of its kind, Dan Reiter and Allan Stam come to a very different conclusion. Democracies tend to win the wars they fight--specifically, about eighty percent of the time.


Complementing their wide-ranging case-study analysis, the authors apply innovative statistical tests and new hypotheses. In unusually clear prose, they pinpoint two reasons for democracies' success at war. First, as elected leaders understand that losing a war can spell domestic political backlash, democracies start only those wars they are likely to win. Secondly, the emphasis on individuality within democratic societies means that their soldiers fight with greater initiative and superior leadership.


Surprisingly, Reiter and Stam find that it is neither economic muscle nor bandwagoning between democratic powers that enables democracies to win wars. They also show that, given societal consent, democracies are willing to initiate wars of empire or genocide. On the whole, they find, democracies' dependence on public consent makes for more, rather than less, effective foreign policy. Taking a fresh approach to a question that has long merited such a study, this book yields crucial insights on security policy, the causes of war, and the interplay between domestic politics and international relations.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 21, 2002

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Dan Reiter

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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Profile Image for Othón A. León.
100 reviews3 followers
November 9, 2019
Overall this D. Reiter & A. Stamm's book is a good one, much better than the other book of A. Stam's "Win, Lose or Draw". Nevertheless, a couple of affirmations almost destroyed my faith: the Vietnam war was a "draw" fro the U.S. and the Schlieffen plan was an attrition and not a maneuver strategy, particularly, are in my opinion, wrong.

Reiter and Stam’s book focus on outcomes, but it does not approach causes, nor consequences, nor possible solutions, so it does not contribute to avoid armed conflict; the main argument of this book is that democracies are more likely to win wars, which implies that democracies should pick their conflicts better, suggesting that there are political, economic, and social gains for decisions makers in the state apparatus of democracies; i.e. This book does not show reasons (correlation) of going to war.

By explaining how initial decisions in conflictual situations among the states, and military operations affect the outcome, the authors show in which aspects democracies (and non-democracies) should direct their attention to succeed in war.

Some democratic leaders doubt about the capacity of democracies of waging wars. The theory of the book contradicts what key decision makers of democratic regimes, such as John F. Kennedy during the 1962 Missiles Cuban Crisis or Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, have expressed about the probabilities of losing an armed conflict, because of the restraints that a democratic regime imposes on the decision makers, which implies that the theory of these authors explains the phenomenon (of democracies winning wars) to a certain extent. The theory and arguments of this book do not match practice, at least not completely.

The theory of “selection effects” (P. 11) does not thoroughly support the obtained results, only partially, more information would be needed to make it effective. This is explained by the fact that the research method is not comprehensive, as a consequence results are partial; the empirical findings they use show that democratic victory can be measured when applying variables, yes, however, they use only several them (alliances, terrain, strategy, etc.), during a period, which limits the efficiency of the findings.

Their theory (that democracies win wars) doesn’t show a correlation between outcomes and information held by leaders at the moment of taking decisions (what, when, why), which would be a variable that could explain differences not only in the outcome but also in the initiation of hostilities.

The work is repetitive, e.g. the authors explain (at least) twice, in the same way, two theories: the “selection effects” and the “war-fighting explanation”. The authors waste the attention of the reader that is pointed towards the verification of the theory by going back to the same points.

The research doesn’t show in which ways pursued goals by democracies, otherwise achieved by the means of military intervention, could be gained without armed intervention, which would be a contribution to research; i.e. the 1962 Cuban Missiles Crisis and in particular, Black Saturday, October 27th (considered being the most dangerous hours lived in history) which had a positive outcome, avoiding military conflict between a democracy and two non-democratic states, cannot be tested by Reiter et al. ideas in this book.

Another flaw in the book is that the authors do not consider that if leaders fight, except sometimes, it is because they think they can win in each case that they have gone into military intervention mode; under these circumstances, the founding argument of this book, the “selection effects” idea, loses validity to a degree, at least. The proposition that leaders of democratic nations can estimate the outcomes of a war in advance goes beyond what the authors suggest; more correlated data is needed to validate the idea that selection wars, wins wars.

The two arguments that Reitman et al. use to sustain that democracies win wars cannot be sustained; first they propose that democracies fight better, which could be in itself a contradictory proposition: if it is so (democracies perform better in the battlefield), why do they need to estimate their chances? ((they always would win when facing non-democratic enemies, which has not always been the case). This argument needs more sustain to hold, in particular, it should consider particular cases and circumstances to show when, where, and how this is the case, however, this would be an extra reason for democracies for going to war. “Combat is not merely a grim reaper’s arithmetic of men and munitions” (p. 195) is a proposition that contradicts everything that the authors propose in this work, because that is exactly what they reduce to their conclusions: a statistical analysis that comes down to men and their circumstances and their resources at the moment they go to fight. The second idea, democracies are more likely to win wars because of the nature of democracy itself (the skeleton of democracy), is also general, more poetical that practical; institutions differ from state to state, the authors could study particular similar and different cases to approach an operational theory of this second idea (the skeleton of democracy wins wars).

An affirmation of the authors is that democracies do not come to the rescue of other democracies. History and facts show otherwise; democratic alliances and their consequences are all over around us. Transgovernmentalism is around us and it is the outcome of democracies coming to the rescue of other democracies; i.e. in the political arena, the United Nations (and all of its multiple branches), in the military one, NATO, the North American Defence Agreement, etc. in the financial one, the World Bank (and its multiple branches), the IMF, they all show that even if they method of the authors translate into the denial of this phenomenon, it exists, and it is explained by the proposition that they attempt to destroy.

Other factors considered by the authors, such as economic or military power as useless, show in practice that they matter when a democratic regime goes to war (multiple examples exist); the authors could have separated the cases and circumstances in which such elements matter; that would be a very different proposition. Another flawed argument in this book is that democracies are more likely to win wars because they manage “better” their resources. First, the authors do not clarify in which sense and cases democracies do this (manage better) neither explain the precise meaning of their proposition; it is vague. i.e. are the democracies better at managing symbolic, material and/or human resources? Which ones are strategic, which ones are tactical, which ones are peripheric? These are questions not tackled. Second, not all democracies are better administrators of their resources; military, democratic disasters show otherwise.
57 reviews
April 7, 2011
Endlessly repeating four points in order to make an article-length argument into a 280 page book just didn't work. It's too bad too, because it would have made an excellent journal article. It just didn't work as a book.
36 reviews
April 1, 2023
Apart from an awkward conclusion that Bush II doesnt seem to be an interventionist, an interesting extended research into democracies at war.

TLDR: being accountable to the people is a constraint that actually aligns with one of Sun Tzu's art of war takeaways: dont pick a fight unless you're confident you'll win. As well as this, democracies produce the leadership and initiative autocracies don't.

I would have liked them to look further into per soldier impact regarding training and equipment; as soldier deaths have a huge impact on war preference it would seem democracies incentise well equipped and armoured soldiers. But this is only covered regarding tech and if they produce more war equipment.
Profile Image for Kw Estes.
97 reviews10 followers
November 5, 2015
As scholar: outdated theories and analytical focus.

As instructor: I find this to be a useful text for my Intro to Political Science course, particularly towards the end of the semester. It gives the students a good sense of the hypothesis-testing approach favored by mainstream American political science, in addition to providing an introduction to IR and some of its jargon.
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