A new measure of the ‘democratic peace’: what country feeling thermometer data can teach us about the drivers of American and Western European foreign policy

IF 1.8 Q2 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political Research Exchange Pub Date : 2020-01-01 DOI:10.1080/2474736x.2020.1716630

P. Gries, Andrew Fox, Yiming Jing, M. Mader, T. Scotto, Jason Reifler

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引用次数: 6

Abstract

ABSTRACT While the existence of a ‘Democratic Peace’ (DP) is widely accepted, the various DP theories that seek to explain why democracies rarely fight one another are highly contested. A ‘commercial/capitalist peace’ counterargument maintains that the relationship between democratic politics and peace is spurious: the actual driver is greater trade among democracies. Meanwhile, Realists counter that it is alliances among democratic states, not their democratic nature, that causes peace among them. This research note utilizes novel country feeling thermometer data to explore the debate’s micro-foundations: the underlying drivers of international amity and enmity among democratic citizens in the US, UK, France, and Germany. Utilizing Freedom House and other quantitative measures of freedom, trade, military strength, and racial and cultural difference, it pits the micro-foundations of the DP against its rivals to explain attitude formation among a group of Western democratic publics. Given the resurgence of authoritarianism around the world today, a better understanding of the role of regime type in shaping public opinion – and subsequently war and peace – is urgently needed.

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“民主和平”的新衡量标准：什么样的国家感温度计数据可以教会我们美国和西欧外交政策的驱动因素

虽然“民主和平”(DP)的存在被广泛接受，但试图解释为什么民主国家很少相互争斗的各种DP理论却备受争议。一种“商业/资本主义和平”的反驳认为，民主政治与和平之间的关系是虚假的:真正的驱动力是民主国家之间更大的贸易。与此同时，现实主义者反驳说，民主国家之间的联盟，而不是它们的民主性质，导致了它们之间的和平。这份研究报告利用新颖的国家感受温度计数据来探索辩论的微观基础:美国、英国、法国和德国民主公民之间的国际友好和敌意的潜在驱动因素。它利用自由之家和其他自由、贸易、军事实力、种族和文化差异等量化指标，将民主党的微观基础与竞争对手进行对比，以解释西方民主公众群体的态度形成。鉴于当今世界威权主义的死灰复燃，迫切需要更好地理解政权类型在塑造公众舆论——以及随后的战争与和平——方面的作用。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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