The Deterrent Value of Democratic Allies

Volume 57, Issue 3, pages 545–555, September 2013

Abstract:

"Despite its theoretical and empirical importance, no studies to date have examined the deterrent value of democratic allies. To fill this void, this study concentrates precisely on this issue. The general premise is that challengers select targets based on their expectations about the reliability of their allies. These expectations are, in turn, based on the magnitude of political costs that an ally's leader would pay for failing to honor its international commitments. In democracies, the domestic audience would punish a leader for failing to defend an ally, but only if they care about the issue at stake. For this reason, I argue that democratic allies only effectively deter challenges against those partners that are of a greater strategic importance. In the absence of such strong interests, targets with democratic allies are more likely to be challenged. I find strong support for this argument in a quantitative test from 1816 to 2002. This study also suggests that the findings from previous tests of democratic alliance reliability may need to be interpreted through the lenses of sample selection bias. Challengers initiate disputes when democratic allies have low interests, suggesting the potential for a biased sample that primarily includes the most unreliable democratic allies.
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