| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This study examines whether democracies are better able to maintain commitments, focusing on the abandonment behavior of states in times of war. It argues that democracies are better able to maintain their wartime commitments because of the effective veto players within democratic polities and the practice of and respect for institutionalized decision-making procedures. This argument is tested with a statistical analysis of the wartime commitment model and illustrated with a historical case study. As expected, this study finds that democracies are less likely to abandon their partners during war and shows that the effectiveness of veto players is the important causal mechanism driving the main finding. Additional results of this study are that war duration, the expectation of victory, the size of the coalition, and the presence of the United States systematically affect the likelihood of abandonment, while domestic leadership changes, formal alliances, and other major powers do not have an effect.
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