Electing to fight : why emerging democracies go to war
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Bibliographic Information
Electing to fight : why emerging democracies go to war
（BCSIA studies in international security）
MIT Press, c2005
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Includes bibliographical references and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Does the spread of democracy really contribute to international peace?Successive U. S. administrations have justified various policies intended to promotedemocracy not only by arguing that democracy is intrinsically good but by pointingto a wide range of research concluding that democracies rarely, if ever, go to warwith one another. To promote democracy, the United States has provided economicassistance, political support, and technical advice to emerging democracies inEastern and Central Europe, and it has attempted to remove undemocratic regimesthrough political pressure, economic sanctions, and military force. In Electing toFight, Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder challenge the widely accepted basis of thesepolicies by arguing that states in the early phases of transitions to democracy aremore likely than other states to become involved in war.Drawing on both qualitativeand quantitative analysis, Mansfield and Snyder show that emerging democracies withweak political institutions are especially likely to go to war. Leaders of thesecountries attempt to rally support by invoking external threats and resorting tobelligerent, nationalist rhetoric. Mansfield and Snyder point to this pattern incases ranging from revolutionary France to contemporary Russia. Because the risk ofa state's being involved in violent conflict is high until democracy is fullyconsolidated, Mansfield and Snyder argue, the best way to promote democracy is tobegin by building the institutions that democracy requires -- such as the rule oflaw -- and only then encouraging mass political participation and elections. Readerswill find this argument particularly relevant to prevailing concerns about thetransitional government in Iraq. Electing to Fight also calls into question thewisdom of urging early elections elsewhere in the Islamic world and inChina.
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