Press Freedom and the Democratic Peace
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3915903 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Douglas A Van Belle (0000-0003-0545-133X, University of New Orleans, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 405-414 |
| Publication date | 1997-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Peace Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343397034004003 |
| OpenAlex | W2163656175 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 53 |
| References cited | 37 |
A persistent question in the study of international conflict centers on the role of democratic political institutions and the initiation of war. Several dyadic examinations of data on regime type and conflict reveal that democracies do not appear to fight one another. This article describes a mechanism within the structure of modern democracies and their foreign policy decision-making process that might explain how the interdemocratic peace functions. When a democracy faces a non-democracy in international conflict, the democratic leader can expect to be the dominant source of `legitimate' information for the domestic news media. As the dominant source of information, the leader can use the resources of his or her office to influence the news content to his or her domestic political benefit. Information reported from the government controlled media of non-democratic regimes is reported as propaganda and dismissed as such. In contrast, when two democracies come into conflict, the domestic news media on both sides accept each other as legitimate sources of information and neither leader can expect to dominate the legitimate sources of news to nearly the same extent. As a result, neither leader can expect to have an overwhelming influence on the content of the news media, and the domestic political costs of war, upon which Kant based his model of a perpetual peace, will far outweigh any potential domestic political benefits received from engaging in conflict. This mechanism also offers an explanation for some of the seemingly inconsistent findings at the edges of the democratic peace, such as covert operations by one democracy against another
Covert · Democracy · Foreign policy · Freedom of the press · Government (linguistics) · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Political Conflict and Governance
Mudanças metodológicas e desafios na medição da liberdade de informação. Uma análise dos índices Repórteres Sem Fronteiras e Freedom House
The Digital Divide
Coping with Terrorism
Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy
The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century
Coercive Diplomacy and Press Freedom
Holding the Sacred Accountable
Priming the Costs of Conflict? Russian Public Opinion About the 2014 Crimean Conflict
Killing the Messenger
Dinosaurs and the Democratic Peace
The microfoundations of normative democratic peace theory. Experiments in the US, Russia and China
Whose lives matter? Race, public opinion, and military conflict
Public attitudes toward media control and incitement of conflicts in Eastern Africa
Reexamining the Effect of Democratic Institutions on Inflows of Foreign Direct Investment in Developing Countries
Revisiting the democratic peace practice
Do Democracies Support Violent Non-governmental Organizations Less Than Autocracies Do
Police legitimacy in Asia
What you don’t know can hurt you
Media effects
Repression in the Digital Age
Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War
Veto players and terror
When the Fourth Estate Becomes a Fifth Column
Bringing the Media in
Who Owns the Media
Targeting telecommunications
Imperial Pandemicide
Do liberal norms matter? A cross-regime experimental investigation of the normative explanation of the democratic peace thesis in China and The Netherlands
Fourth Estate or Mouthpiece? A Formal Model of Media, Protest, and Government Repression
Media technology, covert action, and the politics of exposure
Measuring Media Freedom
Democratic Competition and Terrorist Activity
Measuring Liberal Democratic Performance
The Correlates of Media Freedom
Press Freedom, Publicity, and the Cross-National Incidence of Transnational Terrorism
Opening Yourself Up
Democratic Peace, Domestic Audience Costs, and Political Communication
The Role of Media in the Repression–Protest Nexus
Does Democracy Promote or Reduce Transnational Terrorist Incidents
Democracy, Foreign Policy, and Terrorism
Politicians, the Media, and Domestic Audience Costs
Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and Government Respect for Human Rights
Information, Secrecy, and Civilian Targeting
A Supply Side Theory of Mediation1
Costly Concealment
Not by the Sword Alone
Old wine in new bottles
A Crisis-Based Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition
How 'Democratic' is the Democratic Peace? A Survey Experiment of Foreign Policy Preferences in Brazil and China
Repression Technology
Why Democracies May Actually Be Less Reliable Allies
The Capitalist Peace
Twisting arms and sending messages
The Functions of Social Conflict
Grasping the Democratic Peace
War and Reason
The Press and World Affairs.
The six o'clock presidency
Take two democracies and call me in the morning
Alliance, contiguity, wealth, and political stability
Geography, democracy, and peace
Making laws and making news
The President's Agenda
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
War and the changing global system
Democracy, War, and Covert Action
Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816-1976
Regime Types and International Conflict, 1816-1976
Dangerous Dyads
Domestic Discontent and the External Use of Force
Peace and Democracy
The Influence of Domestic and International Politics on the President's Use of Force
Foreign Policy and Presidential Popularity
Democracy and War Involvement
Why Don't Democracies Fight Each Other
Domestic Structure, Decisional Constraints, and War
Libertarianism and International Violence
Rethinking Democracy and International Peace
Freedom and International Conflict
Some Simple Calculations on Democracy and War Involvement
Do Democracies Fight each other? Evidence from the Peloponnesian War
Tracking Democracy's Third Wave with the Polity III Data
Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946-1986
Democracy and the Peaceful Settlement of International Conflict
Liberalism and World Politics
Assessing the Dyadic Nature of the Democratic Peace, 1918-88
| Unique citing works | 53 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,89 |
| Citation span | 1998 - 2024 (27) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 51 |