A Cross-Cultural Study of Political Participation and Peace

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Increasing evidence suggests that democratic countries rarely fight wars with other democratic countries. In a world where democracy seems to be becoming a more common form of government, this evidence would further suggest that international wars will become less common. Nevertheless, the evidence is not conclusive: other influences, such as mutually high levels of income or participation in an alliance, may also help to explain the absence of war between many democratic countries. Moreover, the theoretical understanding of why democracies may behave peacefully toward one another is not yet fully persuasive. To understand this phenomenon better, this project examines patterns of war and peace between very different kinds of units, namely, the usually small ethnographic units that have been systematically studied by anthropologists. The project will scale a representative sample of such societies on a dimension ranging from hierarchical to participatory political systems, and then inquire (with proper controls) whether participatory societies have less internal war than do hierarchical ones, and whether in relations with other societies participatory societies are less likely to fight other participatory societies than hierarchical ones. By establishing these patterns, and the social processes that promote them, the project should help in understanding the basis of relations between larger units such as nation-states. The project includes a Research Experience for Undergraduates component that involves students in the coding and collection of data that will be used for subsequent analysis. The two students should have an exciting and informative educational experience working on this inter-disciplinary project under the direct supervision of three outstanding scholars.