Perilous Polities? Regime Transition and Conflict 1950-2000

While evidence continues to mount that democracies resort to military force reluctantly, the transition to democracy may in fact be a dangerous and conflictual one. With the eyes of the world now focused squarely on democratization, a reassessment of the relationship between regime change and inter-state conflict seems fitting. To date, the evidence remains mixed. No clear consensus has emerged on whether regime transition either increases or decreases conflict propensities. The research here builds on models of democratization and conflict by including a more fully specified vector of conflict variables and by using an updated set of cases. Further, interaction effects are explored to assess whether factors such as power or contiguity differentially impact the conflict propensity of transitioning states. Employing a generalized estimating equation with logit and poisson specifications, the results show that change towards democracy decreases the probability of involvement in militarized inter-state disputes and wars. However, uneven or rocky transitions are found to increase conflict likelihood

Critical Events, Commitment, and the Probability of Civil War

This dissertation investigates how political instability is related to the probability of civil war. According to the literature in comparative politics, regime breakdown is caused by critical events such as economic decline, defeat in interstate war, death of a leader in office, or changes is the international balance of power. Drawing on Powell (2004, 2006), I conceptualize such critical events as shifts in the domestic distribution of power that can lead to a bargaining breakdown and, in consequence, military conflict. Following a shock to government capabilities, current leaders and the opposition are bargaining for a share of authority. The government has incentives to grant concessions to other groups within the state, yet such promises are not credible given that the leadership may regain its strength. Similarly, opposition groups lack the ability to make credible commitments as they expect to be more powerful in the future. Both the government and opposition groups could benefit from striking bargains, but cannot credibly commit because of incentives to renege on agreements in the future. Unable to commit, both actors may use force to achieve their preferred outcome. The dissertation then shifts the focus to solutions to such commitment problems. I expect that (1) the institutional structure of government and opposition groups and (2) the distance between groups have important consequences on the range of feasible agreements during this bargaining process. The arguments are tested in a statistical study of all countries for the 1960-2004 time period and in a small-sample analysis of democratization processes in Algeria and Chile. Findings show that critical events increase the probability of civil war as hypothesized and empirical evidence also provides strong support for the proposed solutions to the commitment problem

Fear of campaign violence and support for democracy and autocracy

Election violence is common in many developing countries and has potentially detrimental implications for democratic consolidation. Drawing on political psychology, we argue that citizens’ fear of campaign violence undermines support for democracy while increasing support for autocracy. Using individual-level survey data from 21 electoral democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find robust support for our argument. Citizens fearing campaign violence are less likely to support democracy and multi-party competition, more likely to favor a return to autocracy, and less likely to turn out to vote. Our findings have important implications for democratic survival and provide further impetus for reducing electoral violence