DRG LEARNING, EVALUATION, AND RESEARCH (DRG-LER) ACTIVITY USAID DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE PRIMER SERIES TASKING N053 Contract No. GS-10F-0033M/AID-OAA-M-13-00013 March 2018 This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by NORC at the University of Chicago. Author views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. CONTENTS 1. DEMOCRACY, PEACE, AND CONFLICT 2. DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH 3. AUTOCRATIC RESILIENCE 4. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REQUISITES FOR DEMOCRACY 5. WHAT IS DEMOCRACY 6. WHY PREFER DEMOCRACY 7. POLITICAL CULTURE AND DEMOCRACY 8. DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONS Democracy, Peace, and Conflict This primer summarizes the state of the research on democracy, peace, and conflict. It provides an evidence-driven basis for assessing how democratic values and institutions affect the prospects of war and peace. Key Points . No two established democracies have ever . Genocide and mass political killings are rare waged war with one another. in democracies, but terrorism is not unusual. Democracies do, however, have a significant . Governments of partially democratized history of war and conquest against non- countries seeking to consolidate their democracies. domestic authority sometimes invoke nationalism and engage in war mongering. Democracies are more reliable military allies, and are more likely to win wars, than non- . Democracy brings many pacific benefits democracies both internationally and domestically, but a sudden process of democratization could . Civil war is a risk where state capacity is increase violence if it weakens state weak, whether the regime is democratic or institutions and leaves a vacuum of state not. power International and Domestic absence of war may overlook other kinds of hostility Dimensions between states. Democracy generally reduces domestic conflict and Internal Violence it significantly contributes to the peaceful resolution If democracy is a political system whereby of international disputes. Both of those empirical competing interests peacefully arrive at widely trends, however, are contingent upon important accepted and binding decisions, then there are good qualifiers that may not reflect the conditions in reasons to expect it to reduce domestic levels of countries where USAID works and should not violence. However, the relationship between obscure related conflict risks. For example, democracy and conflict depends on the type of democracies rarely perpetrate mass atrocities. But violence concerned, the stage of the country’s they are no less likely than dictatorships to democratic development, and exacerbating experience civil war, and they are much more likely circumstances such as post-conflict conditions. to experience terrorism. Moreover, other types of Since autocrats often justify their heavy-handed rule violence related to electoral competition, citizenship for presumed advantages in generating stability, it is rights disputes or informal security actors may fall important to parse out this complex relationship. below the threshold of war but still generate political In terms of civil war, democracy does little to uncertainty, trauma and institutional instability. deter its onset. Research shows that after Similarly, the finding that countries do not go to accounting for national income levels, democracies war against each other only holds if they are and non-democracies are equally likely to established democracies. The evidence for this experience civil war. Rather than the political regime, “democratic peace” is robust. But the reasons for it a state’s institutional capacity—which can be strong remain a subject of ongoing debate, and the Democracy, Peace, and Conflict or weak in both democratic and autocratic compared to other predictors of massacre such as contexts—better predicts the onset of civil war. education, culture, ethnicity, race, religion, and Consistent with this argument, civil wars are most economic development.7 Further research finds that frequent in mixed and unconsolidated political while the collapse of government generally produces regimes rather than in strong autocracies or genocide, state breakdown in the authoritarian democracies.1 A surprising number of these wars, context is three and a half more times likely to spur estimated at about one third since World War II, mass political murder.8 David Hamburg, one of the have been blamed on clashes between domestic leading scholars on preventing mass violence, and migrants seen as outsiders and “sons of the soil” co-chair of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing with a claim to local indigeneity.2 Countries with Deadly Conflict, argues that democracy is a crucial poorly defined or discriminatory citizenship rights are institutional pillar for preventing genocide and other thus vulnerable to such conflicts.3 forms of mass violence.9 When it comes to terrorism, democracies seem to be at a disadvantage. A seminal study found that The Rocky Road to Democracy terrorist groups were 3.5 times more likely to be Democracy generates domestic and international 4 present in democracies. Such symptoms of peace, but the process of democratization might not extremism or feelings of disenfranchisement do so. For example, there is a risk of civil war in undermine democratic institutions. For example, transitions from autocracy to democracy if state there is evidence that political parties become more institutions break down. Overall, civil wars are more ideologically polarized, and that terrorist attacks likely under weak state institutions than under either increase just prior to elections as terrorists seek to strong autocratic or democratic rule. 5 influence or deter voters. Democracies with Similarly, governments of newly democratizing legislatures elected through proportional countries with under-developed political institutions representation have fewer terrorist groups since the (for example, unstable elections, weak multiparty electoral system promotes the participation of competition, and restricted press freedoms) often minority views. “Majoritarian” models (where a single have an incentive to consolidate their domestic party controls the cabinet) that impede the formal popularity by initiating nationalistic wars.10 These participation of those viewpoints in governments violent conflicts can actually lead to terrible loss of seem to contribute to alienation and then human life and delay future progress toward 6 radicalization. Outside of Europe, the United States, consolidated democracy. The original formulation of Israel and a handful of other countries, research with this theory is buttressed by a range of quantitative large cross-national samples remains limited though. and qualitative historical evidence. A critique of one Democracy does shield innocent civilians from leading study argues that the statistical relationship mass killing by the government. Rudolph Rummel between incomplete democratization and war shows that large-scale political killings are most disappears after removing a set of cases relating to clearly associated with totalitarian government, even . 1 James Fearon and Laitin 2003: 84-85. 2 Fearon, James D., and David Laitin. 2011. "Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War." World Development no. 39 (2): 212-220. 3 Keller, Edmond J. 2014. Identity, citizenship, and political conflict in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 4 Enders, Walter, and Todd Sandler. 2012. The Political Economy of Terrorism. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 5 Berrebi, Claude, and Esteban F Klor. 2008. "Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the Israeli Electorate." American Political Science Review no. 102 (3): 279-301; Aksoy, Deniz. 2014. "Elections and the Timing of Terrorist Attacks." The Journal of Politics 76 (4): 899-913. 6 Aksoy, Deniz, and David B. Carter. 2014. "Electoral Institutions and the Emergence of Terrorist Groups." British Journal of Political Science no. 44 (01): 181-204. 7 Rudolph Rummel 1995. 8 Barbara Harff 2003, 66. 9 David Hamburg, 2010. 10 Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder 2005. 2 Democracy, Peace, and Conflict the Ottoman Empire prior to World War I.11 A non-democracies.17 Furthermore, fully-fledged rejoinder by the original authors argues that the democracies are even unlikely to engage in violent Ottoman cases should not be removed and that the conflict short of full-scale war. sum total of evidence still demonstrates that partial Evidence for the democratic peace is multifold democratization breeds nationalistic wars.12 and draws from statistical analyses, historical A positive correlation between democratic studies, and experiments embedded in public institutions and peace can also be corrupted where opinion polls.18 Nevertheless, it is not without its democracy remains incomplete, or where “hybrid” critics. One prominent view is that the democratic regimes mix formalities of democracy with practices peace is actually a “capitalist peace,” though the such as limits on freedom of the press or party evidence for this alternative perspective is registration. In an influential book, Paul Collier contested.19 Drawing on the economic tradition, the argues that holding elections in these illiberal capitalist peace proponents argue that economic countries at all risks violence.13 Another study found development, financial and economic integration in that 19 percent of all elections