Iraq and the Democratic Peace: Who Says Democracies Don't Fight?

Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War by Edward D. Mansfield; Jack

Snyder
Review by: John M. Owen IV
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2005), pp. 122-127
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
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Review Essay

Iraq

and

the Democratic

Peace

Who SaysDemocracies Don't Fight?

fobn
M. Owen IV

Electing toFight: Why Emerging

Democracies Go toWar. BY EDWARD D.
MANSFIELD

AND

JACK

SNYDER.

MIT Press,2005,288pp. $32.95.

foreign policy, especially the Iraqwar-a

mess that could have been avoided if only
the president and his advisers had paid
more attention to those who devote their

livesto studyinginternationalrelations.
Seldom if ever has the hostility between
academics and the U.S. president been

so pronounced.Of course,political sci

The irony of this argument is that few

other presidents-certainly none since

Woodrow Wilson,

a former president of

theAmericanPoliticalScienceAssociation,

entists always seem to complain about

the occupant of theWhite House, and

scribbled away in the Oval Office-have

Republicansfareworse thanDemocrats:

tied theirforeignpoliciesmore explicitly

Herbert Hoover was called callous,Dwight

Eisenhower a dunce, Richard Nixon evil,
Ronald Reagan dangerous, and George
H.W. Bush out of touch. But professors
have consigned George W. Bush to a
special circle of their presidential hell.
And theWhite House seems to return

to thework of social science. The defining

act of Bush's presidency was grounded in
a theory that the political scientist Jack
Levy once declared was "as close as any
thing we have to an empirical law in

internationalrelations,"namely, that
democracies do not fight one another.
The theory,which originated in the

the sentiment.
According to the academics,Bush's

work of the eighteenth-centuryphiloso

chief transgressions have had to do with

pher Immanuel Kant and was refined in

JOHNM. OWEN IV isAssociate Professor of Politics at the University of

Virginia and the author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War:American Politics and
International Security.
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Iraqand theDemocratic Peace

the 1970S and 1980s by several researchers who refuse to take responsibility for the
consequences of their ideas?Or does
working independently,has, since the
Bush hatred trumpsocial science?
1990S, been one of the hottest research
The Bush administration's desire to
relations.
in
Although
international
areas
break with its predecessors and alter the
some skeptics remain and no one agrees
aboutwhy exactly itworks, most academics authoritarian status quo in theMiddle
East was admirable. But theWhite House
now share the belief that democracies
got its science wrong, or at least not com
have indeed made a separate peace.What
pletely right: the democratic peace theory
ismore, much research suggests that
they are also unusually likely to sign and does not dictate that theUnited States can
or should remake Iraq into a democracy.
honor international agreements and to
becomeeconomicallyinterdependent. In Electing toFight. Why Emerging
Democracies Go toWar, the veteran political
of Presidents
The administrations
scientists Edward Mansfield and Jack
made
Bill
Clinton
H.W.
Bush
and
George
Snyder make two critical points. Not only
frequent appeals to the theory in public,
is turning authoritarian countries into
and it seems to have informed their

democraciesextremelydifficult,much

supportfordemocratizationin former

more so than the administration seems to

has
have anticipated. The Middle East could
however,
rentBush administration,
gone much further in its faith in the idea, also become amuch more dangerous place
betting the farm that the theory holds and ifWashington and the rest of theworld
settle for amerely semidemocratic regime
will helpWashington achieve a peaceful,
in Baghdad. Such an Iraq,Mansfield and
stable, and prosperous Muslim world as,
communist lands and inHaiti. The cur

over time, Iraq'sneighbors,following

Iraq'sexample,democratize.The United

Snyder imply,would be uncommonly

States' realmotives for attacking Iraqmay

have been complex, but "regime change"
the replacement of Saddam Hussein's
gruesome tyranny with a democracy
was central toWashington's rhetoric by
the time it began bombing Baghdad in

Easternchinashop.Unfortunately,such

likely to startwars-a

an Iraqmay also be justwhat we are likely

to end up with.
ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACIES

At first glance, the realists' critique of the

Iraqwar is easier to understand than that
of the democratic peace theorists. Indeed,
holds that a country's
realism-which
type of government has no systematic

March 2003.
Why has a president who set his
defining policy around one of political
science's crown jewels come in for somuch
venom from the same academics who
endorse the idea?After all, a host of peer

effectson its foreignpolicy-is enjoying

reviewedjournalarticleshave implicitly
supported the president's claim that a
democratic Iraqwould not threaten the
United States or Israel, develop weapons

ofmass destruction,or sponsorterrorism.

Are professorssimplyperpetualcritics
FO R E

IG N

A F FA

IR S

bull in theMiddle

a revival inWashington these days, pre

cisely because of thewar. According to the
realists, the best way to have dealt with
Saddam would have been not to overthrow
him but to use coercive bargaining: to have
threatened him with annihilation, for ex
ample, if he ever used nuclear weapons.

November/December

2005

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[123

JohnM

Owen IV

Even thedemocraticpeace theory,

make itmore likely that their countries will
however,does not necessarilyprescribe startwars. In such places, politicians know
theuse of forceto transformdespotisms theycanmobilize supportby demanding
such as Iraq into democracies. Indeed, by territoryor other spoils from foreign
itself, the argument that democracies do
countriesand by nurturinggrievances
not fight one another does not have any

against outsiders. As a result, they push

practicalimplicationsfor the foreignpol

forextraordinarily
belligerentpolicies.

icymaker. It needs an additional orminor

premise, such as "theUnited States can
make Iraq into a democracy at an accept
able cost."And it is precisely thisminor
premise aboutwhich the academy has been

Even states that develop democratic in

the literature is equally murky on the costs

to the United States of trying to force
them to be free.
This lastpart of the puzzle is even more
complicated than it first appears. Enter
Mansfield and Snyder, who have been

Of course, politicians inmature

democracies are also often tempted to

stitutionsin the rightorder-adopting

the rule of law before holding elections
are very aggressive in the early years of

theirtransitions,although theyare less

skeptical.No scholarlyconsensusexists
so than the first group and more likely to
on how countriesbecomedemocratic,and eventuallyturninto fulldemocracies.

contributing to the democraticpeace

debate for a decade. Their thesis, first
published in 1995, is that although mature
democracies do not fight one another, de

mocratizingstates-those in transition
from authoritarianism to democracy
do, and are even more prone towar than
authoritarian regimes. Now, in Electing
toFight, the authors have refined their
argument. As they outline in the book,
not only are "incomplete democratizing"
states-those
that develop democratic

institutionsin thewrong order-unlikely

ever to complete the transition to democ
racy; they are also especially bellicose.
According toMansfield and Snyder,
in countries that have recently started to
hold free elections but that lack the proper

use nationalismandxenophobicrhetoric
to buttress their domestic power. In such
cases, however, they are usually restrained

by institutionalized
mechanismsof account
ability.Knowing that if they lead the
country into amilitary defeat or quagmire
theymay be punished at the next election,
politicians in such states are less likely to
advocate a riskywar. In democratizing
states, by contrast, politicians know that
they are insulated from the impact of bad
policies: if awar goes badly, for example,
they can declare a state of emergency,
suspend elections, censor the press, and
so on. Politicians in such states also tend
to fear theirmilitaries, which often crave
foreign enemies andwill overthrow civil
ian governments that do not share their
goals. Combined, these factors can
make the temptation to attack another

state irresistible.
Mansfield

and Snyder present both

mechanismsforaccountability
(institutions quantitative and case-study support for
their theory. Using rigorous statistical
such as an independent judiciary, civilian
control of themilitary, and protections for methods, the authors show that since
opposition parties and the press), politicians 1815,democratizing states have indeed
been more prone to startwars than either
have incentives to pursue policies that
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FOREIGN

AFFAIRS-

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democraciesor authoritarianregimes.
Categorizing transitionsaccordingto
whether theyended in fulldemocracies

Council on
Foreign Relations

(as in theU.S. case) or in partial ones (as

inGermany in 1871-1918
or Pakistan
throughoutitshistory), theauthorsfind
that in the early years of democratic tran

THE

INTERNSHIP

PROGRAM

sitions,partialdemocracies-especially
those thatget their institutionsin the
The Council on ForeignRelations is seeking
wrong order- are indeedsignificantly
talented individuals
who areconsideringa
careerin internationalrelations.
more likelyto initiatewars.Mansfield
andSnyderthenprovideseveralsuccinct
Interns are recruitedyear-round on a
storiesof democratizingstatesthatdid
semester basis towork in both theNew
in fact go towar, such as the France of

Napoleon III (1852-70),Serbiabetween

877and 19i4, Ethiopia and Eritrea between
1998 and 2ooo, and Pakistan from 1947

to thepresent.Inmost of thesecases,the
authorsfindwhat theyexpect:in these
democratizingstates,domesticpolitical
was intense.Politicians,
competition
vying
forpower,appeaseddomestichard-liners
by resortingtonationalisticappealsthat
vilifiedforeigners,and thesepoliciesoften
led towars thatwere not in the countries'
strategic interests.

York City andWashington, D.C., offices.

An intern'sduties generally consist of
administrativework, editing andwriting,
and event coordination.
The Council considersboth undergraduate
and
graduatestudentswith majors in International
Relations, Political Science, Economics, or
a relatedfield for its internshipprogram.
A regional specializationand languageskills
may also be requiredfor some positions. In
addition tomeeting the intellectualrequire
ments, applicantsshould have excellent
skills in administration,
writing, and research,
and a commandof word processing, spread
sheet applications,and the Internet.

would have
Although theirargument
been strengthenedby a fewcomparative
studiesof democratizingstatesavoiding To apply for an internship,please send a
war and of full democracies and authori

tarianstates startingwars,Mansfield
and Snyder are persuasive. In part this is

becausetheycarefullycircumscribetheir
claims.They acknowledgethatsomecases
are"falsepositives,"that is,wars started
by states that have wrongly been classified
as democratizing, such as the Iran-Iraq
War, started by Iraq in 1980. They also

answerthemost likelyobjectionsto their

argument.Some skeptics,forexample,
might counterthatMansfield andSnyder
get the causality reversed: it iswar or
the threat of it that prevents states from

resumeandcoverletterindudingthe semester,
days, and times available towork to the
InternshipCoordinator in theHuman Re
sourcesOffice at the address listedbelow.
Please refer to theCouncil'sWeb site for
specificopportunities.The Council is an
equal opportunity employer.
Council on ForeignRelations
Human ResourcesOffice
58East 68thStreet
New York, NY 10021
Tel: (212)434-9400

Fax: (=1) 434_9893

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Others
becomingmature democracies.
might arguethatdemocratizingstates

Owen IV
must strivetohelp democratizingstates
implementreformsin thecorrectorder.In

become involved inmore wars simply

particular, popular elections ought not to

becausetheirinternalinstabilitytempts

precedethebuildingof institutionsthatwill
check thebalefulincentivesforpoliticians

JohnM

foreign states to attack them-in other

words, that democratizers aremore sinned
against than sinning. Analyzing data

to call forwar. Mansfield

and Snyder are

from i816through1992,Mansfield and

well-intentionedorgan
unsparingtoward
izationsthathavepressuredauthoritarian

Snyder put paid to these alternative

governments to rush to elections in the

explanations.Bad domestic institutions

past-often with disastrousconsequences.

usually precede wars, rather than vice

versa, and democratizing states usually
do the attacking.
Where does Electing toFight leave
realism, the dominant theory of inter

As the authors show, for example, itwas

organizations such as theWorld Bank
and the National Democratic Institute
that pushed Burundi and Rwanda to in
crease popular sovereignty in the early
that, asMansfield and
1990s-pressure
Snyder argue, helped set off a chain of

nationalconflict?The quantitativedata

support the realist claims that major

Acknowledging
eventsthatledtogenocide.
powers aremore likely to go towar than
their intellectual debt towriters such as
minor ones and that the more equal are
Huntington (particularlyhis
are
Samuel
more
likely
the
powers,
the great
1968 book Political Order in Changing
wars among them. But democratization
makes war more likely even after one takes Societies) and Fareed Zakaria, Mansfield
thesefactorsintoaccount.Furthermore, and Snyder have written a deeply conser
vative book. Sounding likeEdmund Burke
the case studies suggest that democra
on the French Revolution but substituting
more
than
lose
often
tizing states very
statistics and measured prose for rhetorical
they gain from the wars they begin,
power, the authors counsel against abruptly
which implies that they do not respond
empoweringpeople,sinceprematureelec
to international incentives as rationally
tionsmay well usher in domestic upheavals
as realismwould expect. That said, not
that thrust the state outward against
withstanding its preference for viewing
its neighbors.
states from the inside, theMansfield
Snyder theory is still "realist"in the general
BACK IN BAGHDAD
sense that it assumes that politicians and
This brings the conversation back to Iraq,
other actors are rationally self-interested.
Their self-interestsimplyinvolvesbuild and in particular the notion that theUnited
States can turn it into a democracy at an
ing and maintaining domestic power as
acceptable cost. In effect,Mansfield and
well as external security-and sometimes
have raised the estimate of these
to
Snyder
in
order
trading some of the latter
costs by pointing out one other reason this
gain the former.
effort may fail-a reason that few seem to
The authors' conclusions for foreign
have
thought of. Forget for amoment the
policy are straightforward. The United
States and other international actors should harrowing possibility of a Sunni-Shiite
continue to promote democracy, but they Kurdish civil war in Iraq. Set aside the
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Iraqand theDemocraticPeace
prospectof a Shiite-dominated state
aligning itself with Iran, Syria, and
Lebanon's Hezbollah. What if, follow
ing the departure of U.S. troops, Iraq
holds together but as an incomplete
democratizer, with broad suffrage but
anemic state institutions? Such an Iraq
might well treat its own citizens better
than the Baathist regime did. Its treat

because Iraqis were dying but who are

silent about the Iraqis who are dying

now ought to reconsidertheirproud

aloofness from the war. An aggressive
Iraq, prone to attack Kuwait, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Syria, or Israel, is in no one's
interest. The odds may be long that Iraq
will ever turn into amature democracy
of the sort envisaged by the Bush admin

ment of its neighbors,however,might

istration.
But thoseodds are lengthened

be just as bad.
Although Saddam was an unusually
bellicose and reckless tyrant, attacking
Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990 and
engaging in foolish brinkmanship with
the United States, asMansfield and
Snyder imply, a democratic Iraq may
be no less bellicose and reckless. In the

by the refusal of those states in Europe

and theMiddle East that could make a

differenceactuallyto do so.O

near future, intenselycompetitiveelites

there-secularists, leftists,moderates,
and both Shiite and Sunni Islamists

could compete forpopularityby stirring

up nationalism against one or more of
Iraq's neighbors. And Iraq lives in a

dangerousneighborhood.
Already,Iraqi
Shiite parties have been critical of Sunni

dominatedJordan;IraqiSunni parties,
of Shiite-dominated

Iran; and Iraqi

Kurdish parties,of Turkey.

One hopes that theWhite House
contemplated this scenario prior to
March 2003. Whether
it did or not,

the possibilitymust be considerednow,

by U.S. civilian and military leaders,
academics, and U.S. allies who agree
with those academics. IfMansfield and
Snyder are correct about the bellicose

tendenciesof young, incompletelyde

mocratized states, the stakes of Iraq's
transition are higher than most have
supposed. They are high enough, in
fact, that those who called so loudly
in the l990S for an end to UN sanctions
F O R E IG N A F FA IR S November/December

2005

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