The ties that bind: Status quo preferences, democracy and conflict

This dissertation tests the absolute and relative impact of nations' preferences for the international order on conflict participation. I compare and contrast three main theories of international relations—Power Transition theory, Balance of Power theory, and the Democratic Peace theory—vis-à-vis their propositions on preferences for the international status quo and conflict. In doing so, I propose a new multidimensional, Euclidean distance measure of the status quo that represents both the security and economic dimensions of international relations.; Using a sample of 65 countries analyzed at five year time increments from 1951 to 1985, 1 find empirical support for the presence of a hegemonic driven status quo (contrary to the suggestions of Balance of Power and the Democratic Peace Theories). Joint preferences for the two-dimensional security and economic status quo are shown to decrease conflict participation. However, a disaggregation of these results illustrates that peace is driven by security rather than economic preferences An examination of the relationship between democracy and preferences for the status quo illustrates that democracies are disproportionally satisfied states and that democratic institutions and preferences for the security status quo have a temporal feedback effect. Preferences for the status quo and democratic institutions also concurrently lead to decreased conflict, suggesting that the Power Transition and Democratic Peace theories complement each other. Also, relative power parity is shown to lead to increased conflict between nations, lending further support to Power Transition theory rather than Balance of Power theory.; The American foreign policy implications of these findings are substantial. The empirical results suggest that the US should move beyond establishing good bilateral relations with potential rivals (such as China) and attempt to integrate them multilaterally into the international order. Furthermore, because preferences for the economic status quo do not decrease conflict participation, economic pressure may be used as a tool to influence states' security preferences without increasing the risk of conflict. Finally, I illustrate that the US can build equally stable relationships with both democracies and autocracies as long as these states have manifested their satisfaction with the international security order.