Abstract
Recent work on conflict suggests that electoral systems impact foreign policy-making in important ways; however, the discipline has reached different conclusions regarding how different types of electoral systems affect conflict initiation. In this study we contend that legislators are more accountable individually in candidate-centred electoral systems which impacts a state’s decision to initiate interstate conflict. We test our argument using a time-series cross-sectional analysis of 54 democracies from 1975 to 2001. The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that candidate-centred electoral systems result in less conflict initiation than party-centric systems due to higher levels of individual accountability for legislative members.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 219-243 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Conflict, Security and Development |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 3 2016 |
Keywords
- Accountability
- candidate-centred Systems
- conflict initiation
- democracy
- electoral systems
- party-centred systems
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Political Science and International Relations