Democratic Variants and Democratic Variance: How Domestic Constraints Shape Interstate Conflict

Recent work on democratic processes (elections, parties, etc.) and foreign policy behavior makes a variety of claims about how those processes influence the decision to resort to arms. Some work also claims the diversity in the family of democracies produces different types of behaviors across democratic systems. While much theoretical and empirical rigor has been brought to bear on these issues, little attention is paid to how democratic processes shape the variance in foreign policy behavior both across different democratic systems and within systems across time. This article explores variants of democratic systems and variance in democratic systems with respect to interstate conflict.