Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War

Summary

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Exclusionary nationalismthat generates enemy images or perceptions of conflicts of interest with other states; pressure-group politics by military, ethnic, or economic groups that seek a parochial benefit from policies that raise international tensions; logrolling among elite factions that include such groups; persuasion and outreach by such groups to garner mass allies; ineffectual brokerage of political bargains by the ruling elite; contradictory and unconvincing signaling in foreign affairs; the use of aggressive foreign policies by groups gambling for domestic political resurrection; the use of partial or completemedia domination to promote nationalist ideology; and nationalist bidding wars between old elites and rising mass groups. According to the authors, democratization would ideally begin "with reforms of the state and the economy, together with limited forms of democratic participation, rather than a headlong jump into popular elections before strengthening of the institutions-such as efficient and even-handed public administration, the rule of law, professional journalism, and political parties."

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Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War

Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War.By Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. 300 pages. $32.95.Reviewed byMajorBradleyL. Bowman, Assistant Professor of American Politics, Policy, and Strategy, Department of Social Sciences,United StatesMilitaryAcademy atWest Point.

Unlike the "hard sciences," political science enjoys few ironclad l...

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