Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism

摘要

In Power and Military Effectiveness, Michael C. Desch argues that both the logic and the empirical findings supporting the democratic triumphalist argument, that democracies have greater military effectiveness than other regimes because of democracy per se, are flawed and in need of re-evaluation. His study begins with two chapters devoted to critiquing the logic of the selection effect and war-fighting theories that predict democratic success, followed by three case studies (although one covers several Arab-Israeli wars) in which he proposes to use process tracing to demonstrate that these causal mechanisms were not at work.