Parliamentary peace or partisan politics? Democracies’ participation in the Iraq War

Mello, Patrick A.

doi:10.1057/jird.2012.11

Cited by 54 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Are differences in the conflict behavior of democracies rooted in the different ways in which parliaments can participate in decision-making? The studies by Dieterich et al (2009Dieterich et al ( , 2015 and Mello (2012) represent contributions to answering this question. Taken together, they demonstrate how a combination of sceptical public opinion, strong parliamentary war powers, and party constellations in parliament and government can contribute to military restraint.…”

Section: Comparing Effects Of Parliamentary Involvement On Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parliaments in security policy: Involvement, politicisation, and influence

Mello

Peters

2018

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While parliaments have long been neglected actors in the analysis of security policy, a research literature on the subject is growing. Current research is focused primarily on how parliaments, relying on formal legal competences, can constrain governmental policies. However, this research needs expansion in three areas. First, informal sources of parliamentary influence on security policy deserve more systematic attention as the significance of parliaments often hinges on contextual factors and individual decision-makers. Second, we still lack a systematic understanding of the effects of parliamentary involvement on security policy. Finally, the role of parliaments for the politics of security is almost completely uncharted territory. When parliaments become involved in security policy, does it foster transparency and contribute to the politicisation of security policy so that security policy becomes a 'normal' political issue? The article reviews current research, derives findings from the contributions to this Special Issue, and spells out their wider implications.

show abstract

Section: Comparing Effects Of Parliamentary Involvement On Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parliaments in security policy: Involvement, politicisation, and influence

Mello

Peters

2018

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Aldrich et al, 2006;Gartner and Segura, 2008;Clements, 2013), political parties have incentives to court public opinion and distinguish themselves from one another on security issues (cf. Rathbun, 2004;Bow and Black, 2008;Clare, 2010;Mello, 2012;Hildebrandt et al, 2013;Joly and Dandoy, 2016). Much of the previous research, however, has focused on single countries or episodes, or on the relationship between ideological factionalism and international conflict.…”

Section: Party-political Contestation Of Military Missionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Party politics at the water’s edge: contestation of military operations in Europe

Wagner

Herranz-Surrallés

Kaarbo

et al. 2018

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper contributes to current debates on the politicization of international politics by examining party-political contestation of peace and security missions. It is guided by two inter-related questions, (a) to what extent deployment decisions are contested amongst political parties and (b) what drives such contestation. We examine data from a new data set on parliamentary votes on deployment decisions in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom and from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. Against conventional wisdom and in an effort to address the often-overlooked role of political parties, we find that military deployments have been systematically contested amongst political parties across Europe. Further, we find that contestation is driven by the left/right axis, as opposed to newer cleavages captured here by the so-called gal/tan axis. We also find evidence that patterns of contestation depend on parties' positions in government or opposition, a factor we relate to bureaucratic and international pressures on the parties in office, and to political opportunities for opposition parties.

show abstract

“…15. Mello (2012) examined the interaction of partisan politics and parliamentary veto rights on participation in the Iraq War, partly using our dataset.…”

Section: Conclusion and Future Research Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing democracy back in: The democratic peace, parliamentary war powers and European participation in the 2003 Iraq War

Dieterich¹,

Hummel²,

Marschall

2014

Cooperation and Conflict

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Referring to Kant's 'Perpetual Peace', research on the democratic peace is based on the assumption that citizens' preferences are fully and directly transferred into actual security policy by democratic leaders. However, democratic responsiveness in foreign politics is a more complex issue. Parliaments are usually key institutions with regard to ensuring responsiveness of democratic leaders both by authorizing political decisions and by monitoring executive policymaking and implementation. However, in several democracies military security policy-making is understood as part of an 'executive prerogative'. This article examines the role of parliaments in providing for democratic responsiveness of security policy-making. We test the hypothesis that, depending on the extent of their 'war powers', parliaments do effectively limit the scope of executive security policy if and when public opinion strongly opposes military action. The decision-making of 25 European democracies on military participation in the 2003 Iraq War serves as a test. Testing the hypothesis we find that countries with strong parliamentary war powers tended to be significantly less involved in the military intervention against Iraq. However, several puzzles of a theory of 'parliamentary peace' remain to be addressed by future research.

show abstract

Parliamentary peace or partisan politics? Democracies’ participation in the Iraq War

Cited by 54 publications

References 50 publications

Parliaments in security policy: Involvement, politicisation, and influence

Parliaments in security policy: Involvement, politicisation, and influence

Party politics at the water’s edge: contestation of military operations in Europe

Bringing democracy back in: The democratic peace, parliamentary war powers and European participation in the 2003 Iraq War

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About