Is There a War Party? Party Change, the Left–Right Divide, and International Conflict

Abstract

Are leaders from certain parties particularly likely to engage in military conflict? This question is difficult to answer because of selection bias. For example, countries may be more likely to elect right-wing leaders if their publics are more hawkish or if the international system is particularly dangerous. Put simply, who comes to power is not random, which makes causal inference difficult. We overcome this problem by using a regression discontinuity design. Specifically, we look at close presidential elections that were essentially “tossups” between two candidates. We find that electing right-wing candidates increases state aggression. We also find that electing candidates from challenger parties makes countries much more likely to initiate military disputes, particularly in the first year of the new leader’s term. This result is consistent with other studies that find that the likelihood of state aggression increases following major leadership transitions.

A Framework for Measuring Leaders’ Willingness to Use Force

“…A second approach links leaders' willingness to use force with their political orientations. This tradition argues leaders of right-leaning governments are more hawkish and more likely to initiate interstate conflicts than leaders of left-leaning governments (Bertoli, Dafoe, and Trager 2019;Heffington 2018). A third research program focuses on leaders' personal experiences.…”

Beyond Power Politics: How Ideology Motivates Threat Perception—and International Relations

“…US Republicans usually take a tougher line on foreign affairs than Democrats do (Dueck, 2010; Gries, 2014). Electing right-wing leaders is associated with state aggression (Bertoli et al, 2019). Right-wing legislators in Europe vote more frequently to support military deployments (Wagner et al, 2018), and to increase military budgets (Bove et al, 2017), than left-wing legislators do.…”

Hawkish Partisans: How Political Parties Shape Nationalist Conflicts in China and Japan

“…By focusing on political parties and comparing one-party China with democratic Japan, we shed light on the logic of why one-party autocracies may be less antagonistic in some cases. Our findings also help to explain the logic of the recent finding that when right-wing parties take power, democracies are more likely to go to war (Bertoli, Dafoe and Trager 2017). Although democracies may have other mechanisms to prevent a war such as democratic norms and institutions (Schultz 1999), we suggest that in one-party autocraciesan important category given China's riseparty organizations can, in some cases, help to preserve an anti-democratic peace.…”