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Alliances, Then Democracy: An Examination of the Relationship between Regime Type andAlliance FormationAuthor(s): Douglas M. Gibler and Scott WolfordSource: The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Feb., 2006), pp. 129-153Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27638478

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Alliances, Then Democracy

AN EXAMINATIONOF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

REGIME TYPE AND ALLIANCE FORMATION

DOUGLAS M. GIBLER

Department of Political Science

University of Kentucky

SCOTTWOLFORD

Department of Political Science

Emory University

Previous studies have not established a consistent link between regime type and alliance formation,

despite the relevance of the decision to ally in a number of arguments about regime type and alliance behav

ior. The inconsistency in these findings turns largely on choice of research design and variable definition;

when the dependent variable is alliance formation, democratic dyads are unlikely to ally, but when the

dependent variable is the presence of an alliance tie, democratic dyads are likely to be allied. Under a stan

dard research design, the authors find both claims to be true and propose a test of anexplanation for this ten

dency of autocratic states to democratize in alliances. They show that the presence of a defense pact with all

neighboring states reduces the likelihood that a state will be targeted with a territorial militarized dispute,

reduces the level of state militarization, and increases the likelihood of democratic transitions.

Keywords: Alliances; democracy; external threat; cooperation

IVecent studies of the relationship between domestic politics and alliance behavior

tend to focus on questions of the duration (Bennett 1997; Reed 1997) or the reliability

of alliance commitments (Leeds 2003; Gartzke and Gleditsch 2004), but consensus is

equally lacking on the issue of the link between regime type and alliance formation.

Without adequate explanations for and evidence of the processes that lead alliances to

possess particular mixes of regime types,our

explanations of events after the forma

tion of the alliance are incomplete. Accordingly, in this study, we (1) resolve an empir

ical debate regarding the propensity for democratic states to ally with one another and

(2) propose and execute a test of an explanation for this phenomenon that has implica

tions for other parts of the literature on alliances and domestic politics. Specifically,

AUTHORS' NOTE: We thank Ashley Leeds, Matt Gabel, and Kirk Randazzo for comments on earlier

drafts and presentations of this work. Replication data are available at http://www.uky.edu/~dgibler and

http://jcr.sagepub.eom/cgi/content/full/50/l/l 29/DC1/.

JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, Vol. 50 No. 1,February 2006 129-153

DO?: 10.1177/0022002705281360

? 2006 Sage Publications

129



130 JOURNALOF CONFLICTRESOLUTION

we argue that alliances often serve as mechanisms for reducing territorial threat and,

consequently, render transitions to democracy morelikely among their members.

We demonstrate that evidence connecting democratic dyads to alliance formation

turns critically on relatively few defense pacts, all formed in the postwar period when

some of the alliance members were not yet democratic. In turn, the treatment of these

cases influences substantially the quantitative evidence linking democratic dyads to

alliance, oftenproducing contradictory results across identical independent variables.

For example, studies demonstrating no link between dyadic democracy and alliance

formation often focus their empirical tests on the first year of alliance formation, while

others demonstrating a positive relationship usually estimate the probability of

observing a democratic, allied dyad during any year of the alliance. However, if allied

states tend to democratize after the formation of the alliances, then arelationship

between dyadic democracy and alliance should manifest even when this relationshipdid not exist at the time of formation.

Our results carry important implications for several current debates in international

relations. For example, some theories of cooperation derive from the likelihood for

democracies to prefer other democracies for formal commitments (Leeds 1999).

Cooperation in security is also linked to regional clustering of democracies (Gleditsch

2002) and to the tendency for increases in the strength of the democratic community to

affect the likelihood of democratization in other states (Kadera, Crescenzi, and Shan

non 2003). None of these stories, however, explains why democracy is negativelyassociated with alliance formation, while it remains positively associated with beingallied. In addition, answering questions of democracies'

reliabilityas alliance partners

depends critically on whether democracies do, in fact, seek out their own kind as alli

ance partners (Leeds 2003; Gartzke andGleditsch 2004). If however, states have a ten

dency to become democratic after the formation of the alliance, then the strategic char

acter of the decision toally may require

a newexplanation. Accordingly,

we offer a

new theory of regime type and alliance commitments that sheds new light on each of

these issues.

Instead ofregime type determining

the choice ofallies,

weargue

that certaintypes

of alliances preserve peace by reducing the territorial threat to member states, and as

the presence of territorial threat canhamper transitions to

democracy,1these alliances

may contribute to the democratization of their member states. We make this argument

in four parts. First, we outline extant studies demonstratinga

relationship between

regime type and alliance behavior that is inconsistent across changes in research

design. Second, we outline a theory that explains how alliances might increase the

chances for democratization, linking the experience of territorial threat to the internal

development of the state. Our third and fourth steps turn to providing empirical sup

port for the arguments that the relationship between democracy and alliance is present

1. Boix (2003, 228) makes one of the best recent points on this question, demonstrating that periodsof peace associated with "the settling of territorial claims" on the European continent enabled stable eco

nomic growth and diversification, which in turnmade possible the establishment of democratic governancein theWestern part of the continent. In a separate paper (Gibier 2005), we note that twenty of twenty-five of

Przeworski and Limongi's ( 1997) state-years that were most likely to be democracies yet remained dictator

ships had territorial claims or were targeted by territorial disputes.



Gibier, Wolford / ALLIANCES, THEN DEMOCRACY 131

inonly

a fewimportant cases,

and in thesecases,

member states oftendemocratize

after the alliance forms. We begin with a discussion of the few important cases in the

democracy-alliance relationship, showing that each alliance treaty contained provi

sions for the removal of territorial issues between member states and the resolution of

international borders, as well as collectivesecurity

in the event of an attack from out

side. Finally, we offer statistical evidence that the presence of a defense pact with all

neighboring states (1) reduces the probability that a state will be targeted by a territo

rialmilitarized interstate dispute, (2) reduces the level of militarization in a state, and

(3) increases the probability of transitions to democracy.

DEMOCRACY AND ALLIANCES

Siverson and Emmons (1991) first identified the relationship between formal alli

ances and democracy. Separating the Correlates of War alliance data into two samples,

1920 to 1939 and 1946 to 1965, they observed that democracies allied with each other

at a higher rate than with other regime types in both samples, but the bias was espe

cially pronounced during the early years of the cold war. The bias toward jointly demo

cratic alliance dyads held in their tests even after the addition of controls for power

status and contiguity.

Simon and Gartzke (1996) confirm the slight bias toward jointly democratic alli

ance dyads, but they also challenge the results of Siverson and Emmons (1991) as a

product of cold war bipolarity. Using a greatly extended temporal domain, 1815 to

1992, Simon and Gartzke demonstrate that the largest correlation between joint

democracy and alliance formation exists during the cold war years. Indeed, 7 percent

of the entire sample was either Warsaw Pact or North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO) alliance dyads, and the removal of these cases from the data dropped the cor

relation by 49 percent?from.25 to .13. These results and analyses

on similarities of

regime score among alliance dyads led Simon and Gartzke to argue that the slight bias

toward alliance in

jointly

democratic allied

dyads

is the

product

of overall distributions

of power in the system and the ideological nature of the cold war alliance system

(Simon and Gartzke 1996, 633), although this argument is never directly tested.

Lai and Reiter (2000) provide some resolution to the debate with themost compre

hensive tests to date of the factors predicting alliance in a dyad. Using the same tempo

ral domain as Simon and Gartzke (1996) but providing the first multivariate test of the

proposition, Lai and Reiter confirm that democratic dyads are not more likely to be

allied but also establish a positive relationship between regime type similarity and alli

ances during the cold war.2When the dependent variable is limited to defense pacts,

the relationship reverses, and democratic dyads aremore likely to ally during the cold

war years. However, the defense pact results may be driven by several large, multilat

2. Leeds et al. (2002) use a different alliance data set (the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions

[ATOP] data set) to show that democratic dyads are more likely to ally in the century and a half prior toWorld

War II, but Gibier and Sarkees (2004) point out that these results aremost likely due to one large multilateral

treaty not included in the Correlates ofWar data set. Even using the ATOP data set with all joiner states

included, democracies are not likely to ally with each other prior toWorld War II.




eral

European

and North/South American defense

pacts

as exclusion of theseregions

led to statistically insignificant results for the joint democracy variable.

Overall, the literature confirms a link between alliance formation and regime type,

but this relationship is not consistent across time, space, or research design. Indeed,

differences across these studies arelarge enough

to alter the direction of the coeffi

cients in empirical tests, but unfortunately,current theories relating regime type to alli

ances do not account for the variation in results across these studies.

The best theory we have to explain the relationship between regime type and alli

ance behavior ascribes the tendency toward cooperation for similar regime types to be

the product of domestic audience costs. Democracies suffer largercosts from reneging

on public international commitments, as defection is linked with political vacillationand leads to

punishmentat the polls. Therefore, democratic leaders tend to make more

credible commitments, making democracies attractive alliance partners for one

another. Conversely, autocratic leaders have greater autonomy at home and suffer

fewer costs from defection. This makes autocratic leaders prone to more commit

ments, but their commitments are likely to be less reliable. Leeds (1999) develops this

argument and finds support with data on cooperation; she also finds that democracies

tend to be themost reliable alliance partners, honoring their alliance commitments in

times of war (Leeds 2003). More recent studies have cast doubt on the empirical find

ing, however, as both Leeds and Gigliotti-Labay (2003) and Gartzke and Gleditsch

(2004) find that democracies are not systematically more likely to honor alliance com

mitments than other regimes. The theories underlying each result, however, dependon

an accurate accounting of whether and why democracies end up in alliances with each

other.

The reliability of democratic partnerships is also crucial formost contractual ver

sions of regime-based arguments. The level of open debate afforded by democratic

institutions increases transparency during international bargaining, and this transpar

ency allows outsiders to gauge the level of commitment held by domestic institutions

for any agreements that are reached with that state. In other words, the "contracting

advantages" of democracies make them moresought after partners and also make it

more likely that their agreements will last (Lipson 2003).

Nevertheless, neither audience costs nor contractual arguments adequately explain

why the expected relationship between regime type and alliance is inconsistent across

regions; nor can the theory explain the negative relationship between joint democracy

and alliance prior to 1945. These anomalies, combined with the inconsistencies across

research design, make us believe the nature of the relationship may be misunderstood.

Consider first the observation that democratic dyads are more likely to be allied

than other dyadic regime types. Unlike previous research, the research design used by

Lai and Reiter (2000) does not identify whether a specific alliance/orras in any given

year. Instead,the

dependentvariable measures whether a

dyadis

allied, makingit

unimportant whether the alliance was newly formed or in its fifth, tenth, or thirtieth

year. This research design ignores the effects that regime transitions have after states

arealready allied. As we argue later, if alliances remove territorial threat in the dyad,

then this type of peace is a factor determining whether contiguous states become dem




ocratic. The researchdesign

would then observe allieddyads during

lateryears

of the

alliance eventhough the alliance was formed with nondemocratic members.

While analyses by Siverson and Emmons (1991) and Simon and Gartzke (1996) do

differentiate between alliance formation and the continuation of alliances in a dyad,

both research designs yield little information on the joint effects of regime type and

contiguity. Siverson and Emmons disaggregate newly formed alliance dyads by both

regime type and contiguity but do not provide a method of assessing the relative

impact of each variable. Simon and Gartzke control for contiguity by eliminating all

contiguous, land border dyads from the data set, but this is obviously inappropriate for

yielding information regarding possible interactions between regime type, contiguity,

and alliance formation.

We argue that the alliance literature thus far points to the conclusion that a large por

tion of alliances, especially those during the cold war, are formed by contiguous states

and often remove territorial threat in the dyad. By effectively stabilizing the interna

tional borders, alliances eliminate one of themajor obstacles to democratization in the

state.We outline the rationale behind our argument in the following sections and begin

by showing how the existing alliance literature points toward this conclusion.

ALLIANCE FORMATION,ALLIED DYADS,AND BORDERS

That an alliance can serve as amethod of resolving border issues is not a new claim.

Gibier (1996,1997), for example, demonstrates thatmany alliances serve as territorial

settlement treaties, resolving territorial claims among the states involved in the alli

ances, and these alliances lead to peace much more often than not. Similarly, Powers

(2001) finds that multilateral economic unions often contain provisions for mutual

defense amid assurances of border sanctity; this level of peace allows for trade to

develop among the alliance members. Alliances providing for institutionalized mech

anisms of dispute resolution and border stability, in addition to incentives for trade,

may also increase the likelihood of democratic regime transitions (Pevehouse 2002).

Our argument, however, is somewhat different. Instead, we understand the forma

tion of an alliance between neighboring states as often signaling the acceptance of the

border that divides them, or at least the abeyance of latent claims. In turn, the alliance

functions?directlyor

indirectly?asa means of removing territorial threat in the

dyad. Territorial settlement treaties are explicit attempts to resolve border issues, but

other alliances may resolve territorial issues as well. When states form coalitions to

coordinate an attack, their territorial claims often become less important, and states

signaling resolve in order to deter attack aremuch less likely to force claims against

other states in their coalition. In other words, even alliances formed for external secu

rityconcerns can

have indirect effectson

the borders of allied states.3If external security

concerns are combined with coordinated efforts to assure alli

ance members of the sovereignty of their states and the inviolability of their borders,

democratization becomes morelikely. As we demonstrate later, the treaty terms of

three large, regional defense pacts carry explicit guarantees of international border

security for all states within the alliance aswell as pledges for common defense should




these guarantees be breached. Therefore, while these defense pacts may have served as

a signal of resolve against Soviet expansion or as attempts to integrate the states within

the alliance, the pledges for border security among alliance members combined to

eliminate the imminent territorial threat that leads to centralization of the state. Since

these defense pacts often include all neighboring states, the territorial integrity of the

alliance members is reinforced, making their borders stable in the face of all but the

most serious threats to regional and global territorial norms. But why is territorial

threat so inimical to the development of democratic government?

One hundred years ago, Otto Hintze ([1906] 1975) attributed the emergence of

"self-government" and decentralized political authority in states such as England,

Switzerland, and the United States to particular international conditions?defensible

and/or uncontested borders?and the exigencies of military organization associated

with defending territory. Continental states, whose borders were often contested and

difficult to defend, developed highly centralized state structures to mobilize mass

armies for national defense. Insular England and mountainous Switzerland, however,

needed only localized militias for territorial defense. These decentralized organiza

tional structures checked the development of extractive and coercive power at the cen

ter. Peaceful border relations, in effect, create the social conditions for democracy,

demanding less political centralization and less mass mobilization than sensitive or

unstable border relations. The exigencies of war and military organization thus condi

tion the internal organizationof the state.4

Conflict behavior is often associated with the organization of the state (Howard

1979; Mann 1988; Rasier and Thompson 1989; Tilly 1990), and in the century since

Hintze, a number of scholars have linked the necessities of war making and the

strength, scope, and size of the state (Titmuss 1959; Freid 1961; Desch 1996). Desch

(1996, 243), for example,asserts that persistent threats to

securitycreate a "maximal"

state, large in both size and scope, which dominates and extracts from society to a great

degree. As the level of international threat varies, the necessity of the state to extract

from society should vary as well, leadingto

changes in modes of stateorganization.

We extend thislogic

tosuggest

that thelarge standing

armies that result from an

increase in extractive and coercive central power stand in the way of decentralization

and, ultimately, democracy.

Thompson (1996) builds on this in his explanation of the democracy-peace rela

tionship. As states abandon expansionist foreign policies, often associated with drives

for regional hegemony, theyare able to reduce capability and authority concentration,

opening the way for domestic decentralization and liberalization. Suggesting that

regional stability encourages domestic liberalization by reducing the threat from out

3. Alliances are by no means the only method of resolving territorial issues. Mediation by regional

and international organizations, mediation by other third parties, and even changes in capabilities within the

dyad are all events that can spell the end of a territorial dispute.

4. Vasquez (1993, 141ff) echoes the early arguments of Hintze ([1906] 1975) in his assertions that

the socialized disposition to territoriality impels human collectivities to define their borders with aggressive

displays and to defend them with power politics behaviors. As borders stabilize and as territorial issues

become fewer, the circumstances under which states resort to power politics behaviors should fall accord

ingly (see also Maoz 1989).




side,he

identifiesa curvilinear

relationshipbetween

peace and democracy; thechances for democratization rise quickly following the abandonment of an

expansion

ist foreign policy and the beginnings of a regional zone of peace.

Each of the theories based on the international threat environment coincides well

with growing evidence that democracy obtains only when no domestic group has

enough political power to dominate the state and exclude others from power

(Przeworski 1988; Vanhanen 1990; Olson 1993; Boix 2003). The military presents the

likeliest path to political domination, and, ceteris paribus, a reduction in the political

power of themilitary should increase the likelihood of a democratic transition. Territo

rial threat in this sense links state-level theories of democracy via group competition to

theories of democracy via regional peace and diffusion (Gleditsch 2002).5Our explanation of the interaction between international threat and state develop

mentcomplements stories relating domestic transitions to external conflict. Mansfield

and Snyder (1995, 2002), for example, have found that incomplete democratic transi

tions that stall in the face of a weak institutional environment often lead to war. Domes

tic elites turn to nationalist rhetoric in order tomobilize followers and shore up politi

cal support, touching off nationalist bidding wars and frequently incoherent foreign

policies that result, ultimately, in a failed or stalled transition and the initiation of con

flict. Territorial grievances are plausible lightning rods around which elites might

build support for belligerent policies, and, asMansfield and Snyder note, Ecuador and

Peru democratized in fits and starts through the 1980s and 1990s in the shadow of a

disputeover their shared border. When transitions can occur in the absence of territo

rial issues, however, then threatened elites have one less "expedient strategy"

(Mansfield and Snyder 2002, 301) around which to galvanize nationalist support and

stall the transition at anincomplete stage.

We find confirming evidence for our argument linking alliances to a reduction of

territorial threat in the growing consensus that alliance ties decrease overall conflict

within the dyad (see, e.g., Bremer 1992; Oneal and Russett 1997; Reed 2000). Given

the strong effect territorial issues have on conflict (Holsti 1991 ;Vasquez 1993; Hensel

2001; Huth 1996; Huth and Allee 2003), it seems reasonable to

speculate

that the

allied peace may at least partially result from a reduction in territorial threat among

member states. The same interests that provided the rationale for the alliance may also

lead alliance members to forego their claims against the territories of other alliance

members, at least for the duration of the alliance.6

5. Note that this argument reverses the causal connection between democracy and conflict identified

by several authors (Mitchell and Prins 1999; Bueno deMesquita et al. 2003). Rather than joint democracy

leading to peaceful resolution of disputes, we argue that the processes generating democracy also remove the

hardest issues to resolve (territorial) from the agenda of these states. We develop this argument in much

greater detail inGibier (2005).

6. The resolution of territorial threats could indirectly be the result of external threat forcing internal

cohesiveness in the dyad or more directly result from provisions in the treaty. Of course, our argument does

not preclude the possibility that alliances may be provocative to states outside the alliance (Vasquez 1987,

1993). We only examine the tendency of defense pacts to remove territorial threat for contiguous states

within the alliance. Also significant is the unique nature of the alliances containing the bulk of democratic

dyads?few in number, the alliances containing democratic dyads are regional pacts, containing internal

security provisions. These are much different from the provocative, capability-aggregating alliances linked

to international war participation (Gibier and Vasquez 1998).




We are not the first toargue

that alliance tiesmight

beresponsible

for the diffusion

of democracy through time and space. Kadera, Crescenzi, and Shannon (2003), for

example, find that the presence of a strong democratic international community

increases the likelihood that democratic government will survive. They posit that alli

ance ties, specifically the reliability of democratic alliance partners, may be one of the

causal mechanisms that dampen conflict for these states. This may also help explain

why democracies tend to cluster regionally (Gleditsch, 2002), as democracies develop

within the bounds of regional collective security pacts.

It is not necessary to argue that there is an overt attempt by alliances as institutions,

or even the alliance members individually,to democratize neighboring members.

Rather, the alliance removes the threat to territory, effectively eliminating a major

obstacle to democratic government, and therefore, we should notnecessarily

see

direct action by alliance institutions such asNATO creating democracy (Reiter 2001

2002). Instead, we should see agradual increase in the number of democracies, devel

oping in the dyads that have allied.7

This interpretation would obviously explain the defense pact results obtained by

Lai and Reiter (2000), especially how their results were more robust for North Ameri

can and European dyads. Regional defense pacts,or defense pacts formed by contigu

ous states, often alleviate a source of threat to the territory of alliance members. This,

in turn, removes amajor obstacle to democratization as land armies and the centraliza

tion of the state become less important. As allied states turn democratic, the likelihood

of observing jointly democratic and allied dyads increases. The first step to confirmingour

argument, then, is the direction of the causal arrow?namely, whether contiguous

democracies areforming these alliances or are

becoming democratic after the alliance

forms.

Our theory also suggests that democratic dyads should be less likely to form alli

ances, as states sufferingno territorial threats would have few reasons to seek alliances

and as democracies would have little reason to control similar regimes via alliance.

While both research designs that focus on alliance formation demonstrate a small bias

favoring democratic alliance formation at the dyadic level, we believe this is due prin

cipally to research design. Simon and Gartzke (1996) exclude themain cases of inter

est to our theory by omitting all contiguous dyads, and a strong negative bias in these

cases could reverse their results, while Siverson and Emmons (1991) employ amuch

shorter temporal domain, with the end of their data (in 1965) coming well before most

democratization in alliances occurs. These assertions can be testedempirically.

If our

argument is correct, then theories of regime type and alliance preference misinterpret

the direction of the causal arrow?alliance formation influences regime type while

democracy does not affect alliance choice?suggesting that we should observe the

following dyadic relationships:

7. We realize that our argument is probabilistic since Bueno deMesquita (1981) and Ray ( 1990) note

that some alliances lead to conflict in the dyad. Interestingly for our argument, however, isBremer's (1992)

study showing that contiguity eliminates the significant relationship between alliances and war, once again

suggesting that contiguity is related to both alliances and conflict.




1. Democratic

dyads

are

unlikely

to form alliances.

2. But democratic dyadsare

likelyto be allied.

The rationale for hypotheses 1 and 2 is based on the predicted effects of external

threat on the centralization of the state.We expect that defense pacts signal thewillingness of alliance members to accept the territorial status quo. This acceptance reduces

territorial threat and the need formaintaining a highly militarized state that often ham

pers the transition from autocracy todemocracy. Stated as

hypotheses,we

expect the

following relationships to obtain for state-level analyses:

3. States in defense pacts with contiguous states are less likely to be targeted by territorial

militarized interstate disputes.

4. States in defense pacts with contiguous states will be less militarized than other states.

5. Autocracies in defense pacts with contiguous states will be more likely to experience

transitions to democracy.

RESEARCH DESIGN

DYADIC-LEVEL TESTS

Since we argue that the inconsistencies of the alliance literature thus far have been

products of differences in research design, we chose to adopt themodels and data used

by Lai and Reiter (2000) to test hypotheses 1 and 2 but slightly alter their dependent

variable in two simple ways. First, we updated Lai and Reiter's original dependent

variable, alliance in the dyad-year, by using the new Correlates ofWar formal alliance

data set (Gibier and Sarkees 2004). We also include a second dependent variable that

captures alliance formation. To code this variable, we include all dyads forming an

alliance during the year the original alliance treaty was signed; we exclude joiner

dyads. NATO provides a good example of our coding rules?the alliance was formed

in 1949, and all dyads part of the alliance in 1949 are coded as alliance formation

dyads for that year; all alliance formation dyads and all subsequent alliance dyad

years from 1950 on, including dyads that join NATO, are coded as allied dyad-years.8Tests on the first dependent variable confirm the research by Lai and Reiter, providing

evidence for our second hypothesis, while tests using the alliance formation dependent

variable assess the support for our first hypothesis.

For both analyses using alliance ties as the dependent variable, we include a one

year lag thatmeasures whether the dyad was allied in the previous year, expecting this

variable to have a positive effect in both models. As a large number of dyads engaged

inmultiple, overlapping regional and security alliances, the formation of an alliance to

cooperateon one issue will

likelyinfluence the

willingnessto

cooperateon other

issues. For example, the United States and Great Britain were allied via three different

alliances during the late 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s; the first alliance was dedicated

8. We also conducted analyses including joiner dyads as alliance formation cases; the inclusion of

these dyads does not alter the results that follow in any substantive way.




to cooperation in Europe (NATO), the second in Southeast Asia (Southeast AsiaTreaty Organization [SEATO]), and the third in theMiddle East (Baghdad Pact).9

We keep all of Lai and Reiter's (2000) independent and control variables for these

analyses. First, the effects of regime typeare assessed using

measures of joint democ

racy and regime similarity in the dyad. Regime type isbased on the 21-point combined

autocracy-democracy scores from Polity IV. Joint democracy is dichotomous and is

coded as 1 for all dyads possessing two states that score 5 or higher on this scale;

regime similarity is the absolute difference of the two regime scores (Lai and Reiter

2000, 213). The second group of independent variables captures cultural similarities

in the dyad. Using the Cultural Composition of Interstate System Members data set

from the Correlates ofWar project, they code dummy variables for dyads with similar

ethnicity, language, and religion (Lai and Reiter 2000, 214). The third group of inde

pendent variables captures the level of joint threat experienced by the two states of the

dyad. These variables include whether the states were onopposite sides of a milita

rized interstate dispute (MID), whether the states of the dyad had the same enemy in an

MID, and the total number of MIDs experienced by each state in the dyad; each of

these measures was coded using data from the ten years priorto each dyad-year (Lai

and Reiter 2000, 214). Finally, Lai and Reiter (p. 215) specify variables for overall

trade (the lower score of each state's exports and imports within the dyad divided by its

gross domestic product), the presence of at least onemajor power, distance between

capitals controlling for contiguity, and a learning measure based on Reiter's (1996, 84)

earlier work.10 We keep each of their variables, permittingan easier comparison

to

their results.

STATE-LEVEL TESTS

Our other three hypothesesare state-level expectations regarding the effects of alli

ances on regime type. Our principal variable of interest is the presence of a defense

pact with each neighboring state.As we hypothesized earlier, we believe that a defense

pact

can stabilize an international border, and this

will,

in turn, lead to reductions in ter

ritorial threat, reduced levels of militarization, and, eventually, democratization in the

state. We expectan absence of territorial threat to be achieved only when a state has a

defense pact with all its neighbors; we code this dummy variable as present only for

these cases and absent otherwise.

We employ three dependent variables to assess each part of our causal logic. First,

we examine whether borders stabilized via defense pactsremove territorial threat to

9. Almost 19 percent of the data (13,316 of 70,768 dyad-years) had multiple alliances; themultiplealliances ranged to a high of five in a total of 20 dyad-years. In 1,564 dyad-years, the dyad increased its num

ber of alliances (from zero to one, from one to two, etc.) from the previous dyad-year, and these are coded as

alliance formation dyads.10. A state is coded as 1 if it had a lesson favoring alliance, -1 if ithad a lesson favoring neutrality, and

0 if it had no lesson. A state is coded as having a lesson favoring neutrality if itwas neutral during World War I

or II and was not invaded or if itwas allied during thewar and was invaded. A state is coded as favoring alli

ance if itwas allied during aworld war and was not invaded or was neutral during thewar and was invaded

(Reiter 1996, 84). The dyadic learning variable varies from -2 to 2, according to the cumulative learning

experiences of each state in the dyad.




the dyad, and for these tests, we employ a dichotomous dependent variable that captures whether the state was the target of a territorial MID in a

given year.11 Second, we

argue that stable borders reduce the need for militarization of the state, and for these

analyses,we measure militarization as the percentage of total state

population serving

in the military. Both the population and themilitary personnel figures are from the

Correlates ofWar Composite Index of National Capabilities (CINC) data set. Third

and finally, we examine the effects that stable borders have on the likelihood of a dem

ocratic transition. We use a dichotomous measure of democracy, with states scoring

greater than 5 on the combined Polity IV scale labeled democracies.

We include several control variables in the state-level analyses. First, for all analy

ses, we add a control that captures the total percentage of countries in a Correlates of

War region that are democratic; this measure is derived by dividing the number of

democracies by the total number of states in each region. Regional democracy has

been shown to be one of the best predictors of democratic transition (Gleditsch 2002),

and we believe this clustering process may affect territorial disputes and militarization

as well.

For our analysis of factors affecting the likelihood of democratization, we include

in the post-1945 model the natural logarithms of the gross domestic product (GDP)

and the total population,a

dummy variable for major oil-exporting countries, and a

percentage estimate of the total state population that isMuslim. The democratization

literature has demonstrated that these variables often affect regime type, and we use

data from Fearon and Laitin (2003) to operationalize these controls. To test our argu

ment using a longer temporal domain, we replace the GDP and population measures

with the Correlates of War CINC score for each state; thismeasure is heavily corre

lated with GDP (see Organski and Kugler 1980) and also includes population esti

mates from 1816 to 2000. For themilitarization and democratization models, we also

add a dummy variable for states involved in amilitarized interstate dispute, as disputesare likely to increase the number ofmilitary personnel. We also include this variable as

a control in the democratic transition model, but the empirical evidence linking dispute

involvement to decreased likelihood of democratic transitions is weak(Reiter

2001

2002).12

SUMMARY STATISTICS:DEMOCRATICDYADS AND ALLIANCE

As the data in Table 1 demonstrate well, the evidence connecting regime type to

alliance formation is based on an incredibly small number of alliances containing the

bulk of democratic dyads. NATO dominates the relationship, with more than 55 per

cent (3,259 of 5,885) of the jointly democratic allied dyad-years found in this alliance,

and together, NATO, theOrganization of American States (OAS) defense pact, and the

1948 defense pact among Western European states account for more than 90 percent

11. We include only militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) initiated by contiguous states, as these are

the type of conflict most likely to constitute a threat to the home territory of the state.

12. Our substantive results in the democratic transition model do not change if this variable is omitted.



TABLE 1

Jointly Democratic Dyad-Years inAlliance, 1816-1992

Name of Alliance

Jointly

Democratic Signatories

Four Type II alliances with jointly democratic dyads

Nine ententes with jointly democratic dyads

Twenty-one defense pacts with jointly democratic dyads

Organization of American States (OAS)

Defense pact: United Kingdom, France, and the BENELUX states

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

2 of 17 (11.8)

13 of 245 (5.3)

19 of 183 (10.4)

3 of 171 (1.8)

9 of 9 (100)45 of 55 (81.8)

91/680 (13.4)

NOTE: Totals for each alliance are listed second; alliance percentages are listed in parentheses.

-4.(Z)




of the dyad-year cases.13 However, democracies do not seem to choose alliances con

sisting solely of other democracies, as only 1of the 37 alliances containing at least one

democracy consisted solely of democratic states at formation, and most of the eventual

democratic dyads become democratic many years after the formation of the alliance.

Excluding NATO and the 1948 Western European defense pact, democratic dyads

aregreatly outnumbered among their other alliance signatories, representing

fewer

than 10 percent of the alliance formation dyads that include them. The OAS, for exam

ple, includes only 3 democratic dyads out of 171 total alliance formation dyads in

1947. However, cross-sectional time-series research designs that focus on the dyad

year would conclude that the OAS included more than 28 percent of all jointly demo

cratic allied dyad-years, as many of its member states democratized after the

formation of the alliance.

NATO and the 1948 defense pact represent interesting cases for our argument.

While most signatories to these alliances had fairly strong democratic traditions, last

ing almost thirty years in many states, both alliances were formed by fledgling

regimes?among continental European states, the average regime in NATO was less

than five years old and less than four years in the 1948 pact. The older states in these

alliances?Britain in both pacts and the United States and Canada inNATO?shared

no land borders with the other alliance signatories. More important, theUnited States

was capable enough to provide common defense for NATO members, and both alli

ance treaties carried explicit terms accepting the status quo borders and providing for

collective security should borders be violated. As we argue in the last section, both of

these factors greatly reduced the need for large land militaries in the allied states;

indeed, most ofWestern Europe is now able to legislatively cap theirmilitary expendi

tures at a small fraction of their respective gross domestic products.

While democracies aremore likely to ally in defense pacts, thirteen alliances were

either neutrality/nonaggression pactsor ententes, and these alliances may provide

an

answer toLai and Reiter's (2000) study demonstrating that democratic dyads are not

likely to be allied prior to 1945. Almost all of these alliances were formed during this

periodand contained

provisions settlingthe distribution of

far-flungcolonies

amongnoncontiguous major

states. As such, these alliances would notprovide for a reduction

in threat to the territorial homeland of the alliance signatories, thereby stabilizing bor

ders, and the number of joint democracies therefore remains relativelyconstant

throughout these alliances. For example, the 1907 agreement signed by Entente Cordi

ale members Britain, France, andSpain

was anattempt

to limit German colonial

expansion in North Africa but provided no guarantees of homeland border stability.

Similarly, a bilateral agreement signed three years earlier promised French support to

Spain in pressing its disputed claims toMoroccan territory, but this agreement, too,

included no mention of cooperation against territorial threat on the Continent.

13. Ikenberry (2001) argues thatmany of the post-World War II alliances served as pacts of restraint

initiated by the victors. Following the war, the United States had a large power advantage over all rivals,

enabling a coordination effort with states of similar regime that all suffered direct costs from the war.




TABLE2

Probit Analyses of Alliance Formation

Dependent Variable

Data Set

Time Period

Model 1

Alliance Formation

All Dyads

1816-1992

Model 2

Alliance Formation

All Dyads

1816-1945

Model 3

Alliance Formation

All Dyads

1950-1992

Allied in previous year

Regime type

Joint democracy

Polity difference

Culture

Joint religion

Joint language

Joint ethnicity

Threat

Conflict relations

Joint enemy

Amount of threat

Other controls

Distance

Major power

Learning

Trade

Constant

Wald x (12)Pseudo-7?

.178 (.033)***

-.271 (.043)**-.013 (.002)***

.337 (.027)***

.444 (.034)***

-.165 (.047)***

.040 (.048)

.636 (.028)***

-.012 (.003)***

-.012 (.000)***

.287 (.035)***

.093 (.019)***

-2.345 (.040)***

411,033

3566.120***

0.215

.516 (.044)***

-.281 (.086)***.005 (.004)

.341 (.037)***

.455 (.041)***

-.116 (.055)**

-.066 (.060)

.467 (.036)***

.032 (.004)***

.523 (.050)***

-.568 (.089)***-.025 (.003)***

.032 (.052)

.045 (.070)

.045 (.075)

.140 (.081)*

.063 (.080)

-.033 (.006)**

-.011 (.001)*** -.014 (.001)***

.063 (.043) .384 (.074)***

.108 (.032)*** .120 (.036)**

-16.419 (7.624)**

-2.648 (.061)*** -2.181 (.069)***

97,043 301,947

2295.450*** 1217.260***

0.215 0.207

*p<A0. **p<.05. ***/?<.01.

The formation of large regional pacts such asNATO and the OAS may have marked

adeparture

in alliance politics, creatingthe connection between alliances and regime

type and making allied dyad-years more prevalent during the cold war but not previ

ously.14We explore this contention in the next section with tests of alliance formation

and the likelihood of observing an alliance in any given dyad-year.

14. It is also interesting to note that neither the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nor the

original Organization of American States (OAS) charter had provisions that encouraged democratization in

itsmember states. While NATO was "founded on the principles of democracy" according to the preamble of

its charter, specific provisions and ancillary agreements encouraging democracy inmember states were not

signed until the final years of the cold war (Reiter 2001-2002).




REGIME TYPE, ALLIANCE FORMATION,AND ALLIED DYADS

We first estimate the factors causing alliance formation, using probit analyses clus

tered on each dyad. We include models predicting alliance formation for every dyad

year, 1816 to 1992, and we split the sample into two groups, one for years prior to and

including 1945 and one for 1950 and after, with the latter sample including the level of

trade flow as anindependent variable.15 In each model, we include a control identify

ing whether the dyad was already allied in the previous year. The results are listed as

models 1 to 3 in Table 2.

Our principal variable of interest, joint democracy, is negative and significant for

each sample?the presence of joint democracy makes alliance formation less likely in

the dyad, confirming our first hypothesis.16 We arrive at this result after controls for

previously allied dyads and distance, which are both statistically significant across

each sample as previous alliances increase the likelihood of an alliance forming but

distance decreases that likelihood. These variables are probably both proxies for dyads

likely to cooperate in general; in the case of previously allied dyads, this suggests that

dyads cooperating inone alliance, with its attendant issues, will bemore likely to form

alliances with additional dyadsor

encompassinga wider range of issues. As our exam

ple above notes, the United States and Britain cooperated formally in alliances con

cerning Europe (NATO), Southeast Asia (SEATO), and the Middle East (Baghdad

Pact). The only other variable demonstrating consistent results across each sample is

the learning variable, and that increases the likelihood of alliance formation. Interest

ingly, the overall level of trade has a strong, negative effect on the likelihood of alliance

formation, suggesting that alliances do not follow trade, as some have suspected

(Gowa 1994; Lai and Reiter 2000; see also Long 2003 for a discussion of the complex

relationship between alliances and trade).

Overall, ourmodels are quite poor predictors of alliance formation, judged by each

pseudo-7?2 and especially compared to themodels found inLai and Reiter (2000) and

Gibier and Sarkees (2004). Much of this isprobably due to the rarity of alliance forma

tion in thedyad

and the inherentdifficulty

incorrectly guessing

those rareevents,

but it

is also clear that none of the variables, save for distance and joint democracy,serves as

a consistent, statistically significant predictoracross each time period. Even the vari

ous measures of conflict and threat do not do well at explaining alliance formation.

15. The temporal domain is limited to 1950 by the availability of trade flow data. We performed addi

tional analyses, without the trade variable, on data from 1919 to 1992 and from 1946 to 1992, but the sub

stance of our results does not change in either case.

16. Ray (2003) argues strongly against inclusion of control variables that, by definition, are related to

the key explanatory variable. In this case, according toRay (p. 18), we should not include a variable measur

ing regime-type differences in the same model with joint democracy. We therefore estimated two additional

models (one with each variable in isolation) for both alliance formation and allied dyad-years to check the

robustness of our results. In none of the four cases, however, did the two variables change signs or statistical

significance ascompared to the model estimating the variables jointly. We present the results for the full

models here to ease comparisons with the results in Lai and Reiter (2000); results of the other models are

available in theWeb appendix supporting this article at www.uky.edu/~dgibler and http://www.yale.edu/

unsy/jcr/jcrdata.htm.




TABLE3Probit Analyses of Allied Dyads

Dependent Variable

Data Set

Time Period

Model 4

Allied

All Dyads

1816-1992

Model 5

Allied

All Dyads

1816-1945

Model 6

Allied

All Dyads

1950-1992

Allied in previous year

Regime typeJoint democracy

Polity difference

Culture

Joint religion

Joint language

Joint ethnicity

Threat

Conflict relations

Joint enemy

Amount of threat

Other controls

Distance

Major power

Learning

Trade

Constant

Wald x (12)2

Pseudo-7?

4.035 (.023)***

.171 (.032)***

-.010 (.002)***

.306 (.021)***

.372 (.036)***

-.036 (.042)

-.113 (.040)***

.108 (.027)***

.024 (.002)***

-.012 (.000)***

-.010 (.033)

.155 (.017)***

-2.312 (.033)***

411,033

46984.200***

0.880

3.614 (.046)***

-.567 (.117)***

.002 (.004)

.474 (.046)***

.425 (.049)***

-.039 (.066)

-.187 (.065)***

.143 (.048)***

.057 (.005)***

-.014 (.001)***.131 (.057)**

.130 (.035)***

-2.698 (.074)***

97,043

9586.170***

0.811

4.397 (.032)***

.105 (.038)***

-.014 (.002)***

.234 (.026)***

.440 (.053)***

-.043 (.064)

-.091 (.066)

.101 (.048)**

.011 (.002)***

-.012 (.001)***.022 (.045)

.165 (.019)***

6.553 (3.110)**

-2.282 (.044)***

301,947

28150.570***

0.922

**p<.05. ***/?<.01.

We aremuch better able to predict what dyads are going to be allied in a given year,

as Table 3 demonstrates. Indeed, the overallpseudo-7?2

for the cold warsample is over

.92, and that is only 10/100ths higher than the lowest R2model, the sample of dyads

prior to 1945.17

InTable 3, joint democracy has a positive, statistically significant effect on the like

lihood of a dyad being allied in the overall sample of states. However, this relationship

is produced by the cold war dyad-years since the sample of dyads prior to 1945 pro

duces a negative relationship. These results are consistent with our argument that the

large regional alliances formed after World War II contributed to the occurrence and

17. The lagged dependent variable accounts formuch of the overall fit of the model. However, we also

ran several models omitting the lagged alliance variable, and these analyses generate pseudo-?s that are still

almost twice the size of the alliance formation models.




maintenance of joint democracy in the dyad. Joint democracies are not likely to form

alliances, but allied dyad-years are likely to be democratic during the cold war years.

Several other variables retain their statistical significance in the allied dyads model.

Political difference is again negative in the full sample and the post-1950 sample but

not statistically significant for dyads prior to 1945. Two of the culture variables exhibit

consistently positiveresults across all three samples,

as do variables measuring the

presence of a joint enemy and increased levels of threat to the dyad. Prior conflict rela

tions have no effect. The controls for previous alliances, state learning, and distance

also maintain their significance?prior alliances, positive previous experiences,and

proximity increase the likelihood of alliance in the dyad.

Interestingly, and contrary to our results for alliance formation, trade flows now

have astrong, positive

effect on alliance. This may confirm some of the inferences

drawn by Powers (2001) that alliances can serve as tools alleviating barriers to trade in

the dyad and reduce the likelihood of transnational support for insurgent groups, a

main factor disrupting international trade; thismay also be further proof that trade and

commitments often have regional effects (Simmons 2000). But of course both of these

argumentsare consistent with our overall contention that certain alliances are agree

ments to stabilize borders, removing possible threats to security,as

democracy and

trade grow uninhibited once both domestic and international threats are removed or

stifled.

In sum, we have a clear, consistent picture of alliance formation and the likelihood

of alliance in any given dyad-year. Distance and past relationships are strong predic

tors of both dependent variables; in fact, as confirmed by our analyses of relative

changes in rates of correct prediction, these independent variables are in fact the best

indicators of formation and alliance in each of our models.18 The culture variables also

have apositive and generally

consistent effect across our models, but the variables that

proxy conflict relations and threat do not perform well, with signs and statistical sig

nificance changingacross

temporal domains and dependent variables.19

The results for joint democracy are not consistent across themodels either, but we

believe that these inconsistenciesare

explained well byour

theory. Joint democraciesare never likely toform alliances, and joint democracies are also not likely to be allied

prior to 1945.We expected the first result, and the second is consistent with our theory

but does limit its applicability to the large regional alliances of the cold war period.

This positive relationship between joint democracy and alliance after 1950 leaves

open the possibility that alliances have an effect on regime type, and we examine that

relationship in the next section.

18. See Web site replication files at http://www.yale.edu/unsy/jcr/jcrdata.htm.

19. These results are also consistent with the observation that alliances serve multiple purposes, not

always aggregating capabilities among member states (Morrow 1991).




TABLE 4

Logit Analyses of the Likelihood of Being Targeted

by a Territorial Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID)

Target of Any Target of Any

Territorial MID, Territorial MID,

1816-2000 1946-2000

Independent variables

Presence of defense pact with all contiguous neighbors -0.571 (0.113)*** -0.601 (0.122)***

Democratic state (> 5 on combined Polity IV scale) -0.566 (0.116)*** 0.103 (0.140)

Percentage of Correlates of War (COW) region that

is democratic 0.719 (0.217)*** -0.729 (0.259)***

COW Composite Index of National Capabilities score 2.292 (0.939)* 8.961 (1.164)***

Constant -2.500 (0.057)*** -2.244 (0.068)***

n10,958 6,227

Likelihood ratio (LR) -2910.74 -1721.14

LR%252.05*** 173.36***

NOTE: Dependent variable: target of any territorial MID. Temporal domain: 1816-2000 and 1946-2000.

Robust standard errors are reported in parentheses next to the coefficients. Dummy variable controls for

Israel; please see text.

*p < .10. ***/?<.01.

DO ALLIANCES CONTRIBUTE TO DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT?

As we have already demonstrated, three alliances account for more than 90 percent

of the democratic dyads in the system prior to 1993. Each alliance was formed in the

years immediately following World War II and contained provisions for the mainte

nance of borders and collective security in the event of attack. The OAS, for example,

contained Article 21, providing for the resolution of borders,20 and Article 28, which

affirmed a common defense.21 The North Atlantic Treaty was signed two years later

and

provided European

states with similar

pledgesfor collective defense and the

pacific resolution of disputes among members. Article 5 contains the collective secu

rity clause, while Article 1 pledges peaceful dispute resolution among alliance par

ties.22 These clauses also mirror language found in the solely European alliance signed

20. Obviously, the United States and other members of theOAS sometimes targeted the leadership of

alliance member states. However, the type of targeting usually employed (assassinations and surreptitiously

fomenting rebellion) would not necessarily affect our argument as these acts do not constitute direct threats

to core territories, necessitating the building of large land armies capable of capturing the state. Only revi

sionism by bordering states controls this process in threatened regimes.21. Article 28 of the charter contains the following provisions: "Every act of aggression by a State

against the territorial integrity or the inviolability of the territory or against the sovereignty or political inde

pendence of an American State shall be considered an act of aggression against the other American States."This collective security agreement was a pledge tomaintain the borders settled by Article 21 :"The territoryof a State is inviolable; itmay not be the object, even

temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures

of force taken by another State, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatever. No territorial acquisitions or

special advantages obtained either by force or by other means of coercion shall be recognized!'22. Article 5 of NATO is as follows: "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of

them inEurope or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." Article 1of NATO pledges




the prior year; Article 4 of that treaty commits to collective security, while Article 8calls for the peaceful

settlement of disputes among members.23

Given these treaty terms, we have some evidence that the large, regional pactswere

indeed meant to reduce territorial threat among alliance member states, and this is con

sistent with the first part of our logic regarding the process toward democratization. To

determine if the treaty terms had their intended effect, we conducted a logistic regres

sion that assesses whether the presence of a defense pact with all contiguous neighbors

decreases the likelihood of being targeted by amilitarized dispute over territory by one

of its contiguous neighbors.24 The results of this analysis are presented in Table 4.

We estimated the same model over two different temporal domains, one model for

the post-World War IIperiod and one for the entire 1816-2000 era.25 International bor

ders stabilized via defense pacts have a statistically significant (p< .001) and negative

effect on the likelihood of being targeted by a territorial MID inboth models. Democ

racies are less likely to be the targets of territorial disputes over the entire 1816-2000

time period, but the effect of democracy is not statistically significant in the post-1945

model. Conversely, increases in the level of regional democracy increase the likeli

hood of being targeted by territorial disputes over the entire time period, but this rela

tionship reverses direction for the post-1945 model. Finally, increases in state capabil

ities also increase the likelihood of being targeted by a territorial dispute.26

Our results demonstrate that borders stabilized via defense pacts affect the peace in

an important way. Having defense pacts with all contiguous states decreases the likeli

hood of being targeted by territorial disputes, and this reduces the overall level of

threat to the state. This effect holds even after controlling for regime type and the

parties "to settle any international dispute inwhich they may be involved by peaceful means in such amanner

that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international rela

tions from the threat or use of force."

23. Article 4 of the "Treaty Between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, theNetherlands, and the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" stipulates, "If any of theHigh Contracting Parties should be

the object of an armed attack inEurope, the other High Contracting Parties will, in accordance with the pro

visions of Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations,afford the

Partyso attacked all the

militaryand

other aid and assistance in their power." Article 8 specifies procedures for International Court of Justice

jurisdiction over disputesas well as additional measures for mediation among alliance members.

24. We exclude noncontiguous territorial disputes because these are unlikely to generate the same

type of militarization process we identify in our theory.

25. An examination of our data showed that one state is an extreme outlier in the data set; we therefore

added a dummy variable to the model controlling for the presence of Israel. This dummy variable has a

strong, positive influence on the dependent variable, as Israel has been targeted by a large number of territo

rial disputes since its inception in 1947.We provide estimates of the coefficients with this dummy added, but

our results for stable borders do not change if the model is estimated without controlling for Israel. The

democracy variable, however, does switch signs, meaning that not controlling for Israel leads to the conclu

sion that democracies as a whole are likely to be targeted by territorial disputes.

26. One could argue that regional organizations also served as third-party mediators in decreasing

both the seriousness and number of territorial disputes, thereby eliminating thesources

ofterritorial threat

that hamper democratization. The OAS, for example, has explicit provisions that allow the organizationto

provide good offices and other mediation roles ifmember states request assistance. Despite these treaty pro

visions, however, OAS mediation was attempted in only three OAS states (Honduras, El Salvador, and Nica

ragua); two of these three states (Honduras and El Salvador) were threatened by territorial disputes (Huth

and Allee 2003) or claims (Hensel 2001) at the time. This suggests thatmediation by the regional organiza

tion is not solely responsible for the elimination of territorial claims and disputes in theWestern Hemisphere.




TABLE5

Ordinary Least Squares Estimates of Level ofMilitarization in the State

Ln(Military Ln(Military

Personnel/ Personnel/

Total Population), Total Population),

1816-2000 1946-2000


Presence of defense pact with all contiguous neighbors -0.204 (.018)*** -0.423 (.020)***

Democratic state (> 5 on combined Polity IV scale) 0.065 (.025)** -0.146 (.030)***

Percentage of Correlates ofWar (COW) region that

is democratic 0.419 (.043)*** -0.203 (.053)***

COW Composite Index of National Capabilities score 4.022 (.178)***

Ln(GDP) 0.554 (.012)***

Participating inmilitarized dispute 0.270 (.019)*** 0.306 (.022)***

Constant -5.388 (.014)*** -9.324 (.096)***

n 15,112 8,336R2 0.082 0.290

NOTE: Dependent variable: Ln(military personnel/total population). Temporal domain: 1816-2000 and

1946-2000. Robust standard errors are reported in parentheses next to the coefficients.

**/?<.05. ***/?<.01.

effects of regional democracy. We believe thismay point to one mechanism by which

"zones of peace"can be created. The next part of our

argument tests the second link of

our theory?whether stabilized borders also decrease the level of militarization in the

state.

Recall thatwe measure militarization as the percentage of the total population in

full-time military service; using the Correlates ofWar CINC measure, we divide the

military personnel measure by the total population and use the natural logarithm of the

ratio. We estimate our stabilized border variable, the presence of democracy, the

regional democracy measure,two

differentmeasures

of capabilities, and the presenceof anMID as predictors of the militarization ratio. The results of our analyses are

presented inTable 5.

Consistent with our argument regarding territorial threat, the stabilization of bor

ders via defense pacts decreases the level of state militarization in both models. The

presence of democracy and regional levels of democracy only decrease militarization

in the post-1945 model; employing the full data set produces a positive relationship

between democracy, regional democracy, and the ratio of military personnel. Finally,

increases in GDP or the CINC measure also increase state militarization, as does par

ticipation in amilitarized dispute.27 The differences between these models are most

27. These results converge well with the literature on military expenditure free riding inNATO. For

example, we know that the small economy states of NATO spent proportionately less on defense spending

compared to theUnited States, at least until 1966 and probably throughout the 1970s as well (Russett 1970;

Sandier and Forbes 1980; Oneal and Diehl 1994); the smaller states were advantaged because the United

States was providing a larger share of alliance resources?the public good of deterrence against the Soviets

(Olson and Zeckhauser 1966). In economic terms, theUnited States spent 8.1 percent of its gross domestic



Gibier, Wolford/ALLIANCES, THEN DEMOCRACY 149

likely the result of colonial influences?the few democracies prior to 1945 often held

far-flung territories, necessitatingan increased number of military personnel

to main

tain these interests. Of course, as these militaries were stationed abroad, this type of

militarization would not pose the same type of regime costs as those of a standing

army, forced by external threat.

We believe that these results pose aninteresting puzzle for current research on dem

ocratic clustering (Gleditsch 2002; Thompson 1996). If regional democracy does con

trol the success of democratic transitions, this process does not occur due to decreases

in the overall level of threat to the state, where "zones of peace" foster nascent democ

racies. At least this process does not occur once controls are added for borders stabi

lized through alliances.

Thus far,we have provided evidence that several regional defense pacts contained

clauses providing for the stabilization of the borders of their member states, and the

results inTables 4 and 5 demonstrate that the presence of these defense pacts on each

border often reduces the level of territorial threat to the state. Reduced territorial threat

is important because of its association with a reduction in the overall level of state

militarization, and accordingto our

theory, the military often representsa

major

impediment to democratic transitions, representing a "big gun" capable of dominating

the state. The final step in testingour

theory, then, is to moresystematically evaluate

whether these reductions in territorial threat also led to democratization.

To do this, we estimate two separate hazard models that assess the likelihood of

regime transition in astate-year. We separate the population of state-years to include

only autocratic state-years (those statesscoring less than 6 on the combined autocracy

democracy Polity IV scale) and all first-year democratic states; the latter represent

successful democratic transitions for this sample. We estimate both models with con

trols for right censoring?when state-year transitions are still possible but the tempo

ral domain expired. Coefficients with amagnitude less than 1 can be interpreted as

suggesting the variable inhibits democratic transitions.

product (GDP) on defense, while Western Europe was averaging less than 4 percent between the years 1950

and 1986 (Oneal and Diehl 1994, 387). Oneal and Diehl (1994) show that, although Olson and Zeckhauser

(1966) correctly model the correlation between economic capability and defense burden (predicting the

presence of shirkers, for example), NATO military spending as awhole was responsive to increases in Soviet

threat while individual alliance members also reacted to their private security interests.

The responsiveness of NATO-partner military spending to both Soviet threat and the dictates of private

security interests matches well our contentions regarding the role of the military in society. Because the

United States was capable of providing the high military spending necessary tomatch the Soviet threat, the

European partners were able to maintain nascent democracies without the threat from external foes and

internal institutional struggles, and since the United States was amature democracy, it suffered little institu

tional harm from increasing itsmilitary posture; as Boix (2003) argues, democracy is a self-sustaining equilibrium outcome even in the face of changes in the initial social conditions thatmade the transition possible.

As private and Soviet threats grew toward the end of the 1960s, the individual members increased their relative defense burdens, but by this time, group competition had been largely institutionalized.

Interestingly, Oneal (1990) notes that the exceptions to the public goods model during the late 1960s

and early 1970s were most likely caused by three countries. Portugal increased its military spending in

response to colonial independence wars, while the rivalry between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and other

territories influenced much of their spending. In these exceptions, we find added support for our argument as

all three countries were not democratic at the time.




TABLE 6

Cox Hazard Model Estimates of Regime Transitions

Transition to

Democracy,

1816-2000

Transition to

Democracy,

1946-2000


Defense pact with all neighbors

Militarized interstate dispute involvement

Log of gross domestic product

Log of population

Composite Index of National Capabilities score

Major oil producer

Predominantly Muslim country

Percentage of region that is democratic

Log-likelihood

Likelihood ratio % (7)

Number of observations

2.062***

0.964

1.405*

33.210***

-509.236

109.72***

163 countries,

119 transitions;

8,385 total observations

1.781*

1.226

1.027

1.289***

0.413*

0.997

38.196***

-353.815

84.18***

128 countries,

87 transitions;

3,951 total observations

NOTE: Dependent variable: transition to democracy. Temporal domain: 1816-2000 and 1946-2000.

The results of both hazard models are listed in Table 6, and once again as we

expected, having a defense pact with all neighboring states decreases the time before a

successful transition to democracy occurs. This result is statistically significant (p <

.05) in both models, even after controlling for the strong positive effect of regional

democracy (p< .001). Interestingly, and consistent with the literature on democratiza

tion (Ross 2001), the presence of oil hampers transitions. We believe this also fits with

our "big gun" theory, as control of amajor oil industry can provide enough capital to

successfully dominate the state. Capability levels, measured by CINC score or popula

tion estimates, also increase the likelihood of democratic transitions.

These results areobviously supportive

of our contention that large, regional

defense pacts strongly influence the domestic institutions of allied states.We have not

demonstrated, nor do we argue, that all defense pacts lead to democratization. Instead,

we show that a large number of states are democratizing within multilateral regional

pacts, and we suggest theplausible hypothesis

that these two events are connected.

Current cooperation theory cannot explain why joint democracies do not form alli

ances but are likely to be allied, and we have presented an alternative theory that

explainsthis

relationship.Our

theory consistently explains whystable borders

decrease territorial threat and the level of militarization of the statewhile also connect

ing these processes to observed increases in the likelihood of democratic transitions.

Of course, these results are tentative. We suffer from the same small-TV bias for

which we criticize the current alliance literature?onlya few cases of alliances are sta

bilizing state borders. Nevertheless, the consistent results across each link in our



Gibier, Wolford/ALLIANCES, THEN DEMOCRACY 151

causal logic provide empirical support connecting territorial threat to regime transitions and alliances as amechanism of democratic diffusion and border stability.

CONCLUSION

In this article, we find that democratic dyads are unlikely to form alliances but that

they are likely to be allied, and we argue that these results are linked to the removal of

territorial threat by defense pacts. This implies that alliances may be uniquely able to

shed light on the observations that democracies tend to cluster regionally (Gleditsch

2002) and that the strength of the democratic community is correlated with transitionsto democracy, as their international nature makes borders likely candidates for the dif

fusion of both certain types of conflict and regime type. If alliances function as diffu

sion agents for democracy, then the association betweenneighboring democracies and

democratization may be a by-product of stabilizing borders, ensured by mutual

defense agreements. Our results also contribute to the debate on alliance reliability by

casting a different light on the question of whether regimes differ in their utility for

signing and participating in alliance commitments (Gartzke and Gleditsch 2004); our

results suggest that, inmany cases, the choice toally with a

democracy may not be stra

tegic in the sense that democracies are chosen or avoided as alliance partners based on

their expected behavior, as some democratic allies join the alliance as non

democracies, causing these alliances to become democratic over time.

Alliance researchers should also consider ourargument that the

alliance-democracy

relationship is driven statistically by three large regional defense pacts?NATO, OAS,

and aEuropean defense pact?all formed in the years following World War II. Theo

ries about the reliabilityor duration of democratic alliances, or any theories that sug

gest uniquely democratic alliance behaviors, must all infer their results from an

incredibly small number of cases, as most alliances are formed by nondemocratic

states and nearly every alliance contains amajority of nondemocratic dyads.

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