Votes and violence: Electoral vote share and international conflict in democratic states
| Date | 01 November 2021 |
| Published date | 01 November 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148120976394 |
| Author | Kyle Haynes |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120976394
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2021, Vol. 23(4) 717 –735
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148120976394
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Votes and violence: Electoral
vote share and international
conflict in democratic states
Kyle Haynes
Abstract
This article argues that the effect of a democratic leader’s electoral margin of victory on their
conflict behaviour once in office is highly dependent upon the state’s institutional structure. I show
that, uniquely in parliamentary democracies, governments that win a larger share of the vote are
significantly less likely to initiate disputes abroad. Such governments entail broad coalitions that,
combined with the ever-present possibility of governmental collapse and new elections, require
leaders to pursue a more cautious, lowest-common-denominator foreign policy. This effect is
significantly stronger for right-wing governments. Conversely, in presidential democracies, I
find that electoral vote share has no effect on a leader’s subsequent conflict propensity. Vote
shares thus function very differently in parliamentary and presidential systems, with important
implications for conflict behaviour abroad.
Keywords
conflict, dispute initiation, domestic politics, elections, leaders, parliamentary democracy,
presidential democracy
In 1982, under the leadership of a narrow coalition government headed by the hawkish
Likud party, Israel intervened in the ongoing Lebanese civil war raging on its northern
border. The intervention quickly devolved into a quagmire, further eroding Israel’s secu-
rity and deepening divisions within the country. In part to facilitate a more unified and
effective response to the situation, Israel’s major parties formed the first ‘National Unity
Government’ (NUG) in 1984, representing roughly three-quarters of the national popular
vote. Such a broad coalition, it was hoped, would enable a concerted strategy to resolve
the crisis.
These hopes were quickly dashed. The breadth of interests contained within the NUG,
far from creating a more dynamic foreign policy, led to persistent inertia. Although some
parties certainly favoured a more aggressive strategy, the diverse coalition government
produced a ‘pervasive, paralyzing, debilitating stalemate’ and ultimately pursued an overly
cautious and highly restrained policy (Yaniv, 1990: 97). In effect, the government’s broad
Department of Political Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
Corresponding author:
Kyle Haynes, Department of Political Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47905, USA.
Email: kylehaynes@purdue.edu
976394BPI0010.1177/1369148120976394The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsHaynes
research-article2020
Original Article
718 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 23(4)
popular base actually watered down aggressive influences and impeded the implementa-
tion of a bellicose foreign policy.
This case demonstrates the competing intuitions regarding the ways in which electoral
vote share might impact a democratic government’s subsequent propensity to pursue a
more aggressive foreign policy. As I elaborate below, there are plausible theoretical logics
by which larger electoral vote shares could exert either a positive or negative effect on
subsequent likelihood of conflict initiation. Larger vote shares might provide a domestic
mandate or offer political cover for leaders seeking to pursue aggressive foreign policies.
Conversely, larger vote shares might entail more diverse mass coalitions that are more
vulnerable to disintegration or collapse, requiring leaders to pursue more cautious foreign
policies in order to keep their fractious governments together. Both of these logics are
intuitively plausible, and adjudicating between them is ultimately an empirical question.
This article addresses this empirical question head on.
I find that in presidential democracies, electoral vote share has no consistent effect on
conflict propensity. Among parliamentary democracies, however, governments that claim
a large share of the vote often represent diverse, fragmented and unstable mass coalitions
that are comparatively prone to splintering. This instability actually imposes greater con-
straints on governments, restraining their ability to implement aggressive foreign poli-
cies. I find that this effect is driven primarily by right-wing governments in which the
leadership’s hawkish instincts are constrained by its broad underlying coalition.
Coalitions and constraints
Scholars of international relations have produced an enormous amount of research
examining how the domestic political constraints on a state’s leadership impact its
conflict propensities and behaviour. These constraints can impact a leader’s prospec-
tive costs and benefits for using force, and decisions on the use of violence can have a
massive effect on a leader’s ability to retain power (Chiozza and Goemans, 2004,
2011; Croco, 2011; Fearon, 1994; Huth and Allee, 2002; Leblang and Chan, 2003).
Much of this work focuses on how democratic institutions systematically impede or
facilitate the use of force. The ‘institutional’ variant of the democratic peace theory,
for example, explains interstate conflict propensities as largely a function of the con-
straints imposed upon leaders by the democratic institutions within which they operate
(Bueno de Mesquita et al., 1999; Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson, 1995; Gaubatz,
1991). More recent work examines how different types of democratic and authoritar-
ian regimes produce variations in conflict behaviour (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003;
Elman, 2000; Weeks, 2012, 2014).
The conventional wisdom within this literature holds that greater institutional and
political constraints acting upon a leader should incline towards peace. Such constraints
increase the number of veto players who must be satisfied that the use of force is advis-
able. Leaders are thus less able to initiate conflicts in order to generate rents for them-
selves or their coalition at the expense of the broader population (Bueno de Mesquita
et al., 2003).1 As selectorate theory argues, leaders who must appeal to the median voter
or a broader winning coalition will reap smaller private benefits from the use of force, and
will thus be less inclined to initiate conflicts for parochial ends. Domestic constraints
might also prevent the escalation of disputes arising from a leader’s unique psychological
disposition or groupthink dynamics within the leader’s own inner circle (Janis, 1989). In
short, greater constraints on a leader typically result in fewer conflicts. Scholars have
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