Forthcoming. D.M. Gibler and Alex Braithwaite. Dangerous Neighbours, Regional Territorial Conflict, and the Democratic Peace. British Journal of Political Science. Paper.
Abstract: The likelihood of conflict and the observation of joint democracy tend to cluster regionally. We argue that much of this results from regional variation in the stability of international borders. We test our claim using a new dataset of territorial dispute hot spots from 1960 to 1998. These hot spots identify spatial and temporal correlation in the territorial dispute data and therefore serve as close proxies for regional or neighborhood instability; the addition of these hot spots also eliminates a common form of omitted variable bias---the spatial clustering of conflict---in models of international conflict. Our results confirm that joint democracy is only statistically significant as a predictor of fatal MIDs in the more peaceful neighborhoods, once territorial hot spots are jointly estimated. An interaction between joint democracy and regional instability confirms that the effects of regime type on continued conflict apply mostly to dyads in peaceful regions.
Abstract: The likelihood of conflict and the observation of joint democracy tend to cluster regionally. We argue that much of this results from regional variation in the stability of international borders. We test our claim using a new dataset of territorial dispute hot spots from 1960 to 1998. These hot spots identify spatial and temporal correlation in the territorial dispute data and therefore serve as close proxies for regional or neighborhood instability; the addition of these hot spots also eliminates a common form of omitted variable bias---the spatial clustering of conflict---in models of international conflict. Our results confirm that joint democracy is only statistically significant as a predictor of fatal MIDs in the more peaceful neighborhoods, once territorial hot spots are jointly estimated. An interaction between joint democracy and regional instability confirms that the effects of regime type on continued conflict apply mostly to dyads in peaceful regions.