Bones of democratic contention: Maritime disputes

Abstract

While no two democratic states have fought an interstate war against each other, democratic dyads experience militarized disputes with some frequency. Previous research suggests that a large percentage of militarized disputes between two democracies involve fishing and oil resources of the sea. Yet this research selects on cases where militarized conflict occurs, and fails to consider whether democracies have more frequent diplomatic conflicts over maritime areas relative to other regime pairings. Analyzing data from the Issue Correlates of War project, which includes diplomatic conflicts over maritime areas (1900-2007) in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, this study finds that pairs of democracies have the highest chance of experiencing diplomatic maritime disputes among all pairs of countries in the same region or dyads involving major powers. Three theoretical explanations were empirically evaluated to account for this pattern: (a) greater opportunities for democratic maritime conflicts given higher levels of economic productivity and the sizes of fishing fleets in democratic states, (b) the increasing securitization of maritime issues, especially after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, and (c) variations in the number of democracies across regional contexts. Several illustrative case studies for each theoretical argument are presented. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the democratic peace literature and the law of the sea regime.

Identifying predictors of international fisheries conflict

“…Lower GDP per capita is reportedly one of the most robust predictors of social conflict, and a common hypothesis is that, as the development and macroeconomic performance of a state increases, the number of conflicts over fishery resources a country engages in decreases (Bernauer & Böhmelt, 2020; De Soysa, 2002). However, a previous study specifically on maritime conflict has shown that states with higher levels of economic development are more prone to conflict (Daniels & Mitchell, 2017). Therefore, the hypothesis here is that more developed economies have more extensive fishing operations, and are thus more likely to experience international fisheries conflict (ibid.…”

“…The commonly hypothesized relationship is that domestic institutions influence foreign policies, making democracies less likely to initiate conflict. However, because previous studies specifically on maritime conflict have shown that democracies, or powerful autocratic countries, are significantly more likely to experience conflict than dictatorships, we adopt this hypothesis as well (Daniels & Mitchell, 2017; DeSombre & Barkin, 2011; Mitchell & Prins, 1999).…”

“…It can; however, show sensitivity to outliers. The ZINB GLM model, in particular, can account for excess zeros, which encompasses situations in which countries in our data set at a given point in time: (a) did not have the means to protect their fishing interests (Daniels & Mitchell, 2017) and, therefore, could not engage in conflict or (b) could experience conflict, but there was no reporting on occurring conflicts. We use the model to assess significance of the predictors, using a p‐value of <0.05 as cut‐off.…”

An energy promise of democratic peace for the arctic: Russia’s case

“…With immense, unexplored crude energy resources, this region is becoming an object of growing interest to a myriad of state and private-owned multinational energy companies, whose presence influences international relations within this region . in academic discourse, the arctic as a geographical realm presents a unique and expanding research issue (daniels & Mitchell, 2017;Marsh & Kaufman, 2012;Øverland, 2010;røseth, 2014;Wegge, 2011) . This article is aimed at inspecting the official energy strategy and foreign policy of the russian federation towards the arctic .…”

From territorial claims to identity claims: The Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Project

“… 5. The finding by Mitchell and Prins (1999) that many jointly democratic MIDs involved maritime resources prompted the addition of maritime claims to ICOW data. While democracies do not typically challenge their neighboring democracies’ land borders, the frequency of contention over maritime spaces is most likely for jointly democratic dyads, even more so than for mixed or autocratic dyads (Daniels and Mitchell, 2016). …”