84-124 Freshman Seminar: Democracies and War

9 units, Carnegie Mellon University

This course, a freshman seminar, will introduce students to the role of domestic politics in international conflict and examine the effect of regime type on warfare. In particular, the course will focus on the Democratic Peace and why democracies tend to win the wars they enter. We will discuss a variety of explanations for the Democratic Peace, that is, the tendency of democratic states to avoid war with each other. We will also discuss whether democratic states select wars more carefully, the incentives of democratic leaders when engaging in war, and whether domestic democratic structures provide states with warfighting advantages with respect to military organization. Finally, we discuss a variety of consequences of the different domestic incentives faced by autocratic and democratic leaders.

Prerequisites: none listed

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