Demographics, democracies and war
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2025-06-23
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en
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This thesis investigates the complex relationship between democracy, demographic structure and the onset of interstate war. Based on an extensive literature review, the hypotheses for this research are: (1) Controlling for median age leads to a decrease in the strength and/or statistical significance between the democratic peace theory and the onset of interstate war. (2) The use of updated data through 2007 will give a statistically significant, negative effect between the joint democratic dyadic peace and onset of interstate war. (3) That median age acts as a moderator. The presumed democratic dyadic peace is moderated by median age which leads to a stronger pacifying effect in dyads that consist of two states with a median age of >30.
The findings of this research show support for the democratic peace theory. The models show a statistically significant and negative correlation between democratic dyads and war onset. However, the result of including median age as a moderator gives more surprising results. The result of a state having a median age >30 has a pacifying effect, which aligns with the demographic theory of war (Brooks et al., 2019). But the pacifying effect of democracy seems to be weaker in older democratic dyads. This stands in contrast with both democratic peace theory and the demographic theory of war.
The conclusion of this research is that the effect of democracy on peace is not universal, but conditional. Demographic characteristics of states should also be considered in a more interactive way instead of just being control variables. These insights provide new opportunities for investigating international relations and war, and call for further research on the complex dynamics in these studies.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen