Risking civil war by promoting democracy

Promoting democracy abroad may seem like a good way to promote peace. Mature, stable democracies have not fought wars against each other, and they rarely experience civil wars. But the path to a democratic peace is not always smooth.

Democratic transitions attempted recently in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Authority have been very violent. Elections in Algeria, Burundi, and Yugoslavia in the 1990s also led directly to major civil wars.

States unable to complete transitions to democracy are more likely to become involved in international and civil wars (see graph below). In some cases, elections are a sideshow during struggles for political control. This is particularly so in states with weak political organisations and institutions. In other cases however, the democratisation process itself has created the conflict.

The most fundamental cause of war in transitional states is the gap between demands for political participation and the political institutions and organisations necessary to meet those demands.

When authoritarian or colonial regimes break down, elite factions and popular groups often struggle for power. This occurs when repressive state authority has weakened and democratic institutions and organisations are not sufficiently developed to take its place. These conditions can lead to civil war since there are no institutional means to address grievances or concerns.

Effects of regime change on civil war. Note: The height of each bar is determined by the ratio of the likelihood of a civil war for a given type of regime change to the likelihood of a civil war for a state that is not undergoing regime change. These probabilities are derived from our statistical model of civil war. (Larger version)

Civil war can also occur when governments are unable to appease or suppress the rise of mass ethnic, sectarian, or class-based movements. Incomplete democratisation provides particularly fertile ground for nationalist and sectarian agendas. Threatened elites sometimes use nationalist, ethnic, or religious messages to create fear and gain a mass following. Ethnic or cultural groups are the easiest to mobilise when governance institutions that reach beyond traditional cultural groupings are poorly developed.

Outside powers can promote premature democratisation in a country lacking the organisational capacity to conduct open, competitive politics. This can increase the risk of violence, as Burundi in 1993 showed. Outsiders need to make sure that their well-intentioned efforts do no harm.

One solution is to promote democracy in the right sequence: state building first, then free and fair elections.

• First, strengthen the organisations of state administration. If there is no state, elections to decide who runs the state are meaningless.
• Second, support a political coalition that believes it will benefit from governing impartially and sticking to rules.
• Third, help the coalition to stop corruption, create honest courts, and allow professional, objective journalists to start practicing their profession.

Once these building blocks are in place, free and fair elections can lead to good results, and violence is less likely. Successful recent democratic transitions in South America, Eastern Europe, Korea, Taiwan, and South Africa have had many preconditions of democracy in place before the voting started. Violent transitions in the Middle East, the Balkans, and elsewhere have not.

Jack Snyder
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, USA
T +1 212 854 8290
jls6@columbia.edu

Edward D. Mansfield
Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA
T +1 215 898 7657
emansfie@sas.upenn.edu

See also

Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, 2005

'Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816-1992', American Political Science Review 95(1), pages 33-48, by Havard Hegre, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates, and Nils Peter Gleditsch, 2001

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