Toward a democratic civil peace? Democracy, political change, and civil war, 1816-1992
- 2001
Coherent democracies and harshly authoritarian states have few civil wars, and intermediate regimes are the most conflict-prone. Domestic violence also seems to be associated with political change, whether toward greater democracy or greater autocracy. Is the greater violence of intermediate regimes equivalent to the finding that states in political transition exprerience more violence? If both level of democracy and political change are relevant, to what extent is civil violence related to each? base on an analysis of the period 1816-1992, we conclude that intermediate regimes are most prone to civil war, even when they have had time to stabilize from a regime change. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in trun are less stable than democratic civil peace is not onluy more just than the autocratic peace but also more stable
Coherent democracies and harshly authoritarian states have few civil wars, and intermediate regimes are the most conflict-prone. Domestic violence also seems to be associated with political change, whether toward greater democracy or greater autocracy. Is the greater violence of intermediate regimes equivalent to the finding that states in political transition exprerience more violence? If both level of democracy and political change are relevant, to what extent is civil violence related to each? base on an analysis of the period 1816-1992, we conclude that intermediate regimes are most prone to civil war, even when they have had time to stabilize from a regime change. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in trun are less stable than democratic civil peace is not onluy more just than the autocratic peace but also more stable
