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Democratic Militarism: Voting, Wealth, and War
Why are democracies pursuing more military conflicts, but achieving worse results? Democratic Militarism shows that a combination of economic inequality and military technical change enables an average voter to pay very little of the costs of large militaries and armed conflict, in terms of both death and taxes. Jonathan Caverley provides an original statistical analysis of public opinion and international aggression, combined with historical evidence from the late Victorian British Empire, the US Vietnam War effort, and Israel's Second Lebanon War. This book undermines conventional wisdom regarding democracy's exceptional foreign policy characteristics, and challenges elite-centered explanations for poor foreign policy. This accessible and wide ranging book offers a new account of democratic warfare, and will help readers to understand the implications of the revolution in military affairs.
326 pages, Hardcover
First published April 14, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 29, 2025
I started reading this book several years ago and then set it aside to work on other projects. I had finished the chapters up to the case studies (everything prior to chapter 5).
The theory, quantitative results, and analysis are interesting and have meaningful implications for IR, especially arguments about democratic exceptionalism.
In the cases I sometimes thought of unexplored explanations for behavior. For example the British empire case argues that median voters (MVs) benefitted from costly imperial conflicts. Caverley also argues that elites paid the economic costs, which were apparently substantial. However, contemporary research on the UK empire suggests it benefitted enormously from extraction of resources from India. That oversight seems important. Presumably the elites garnered substantial gains despite the author's redistributive explanation for MV support of the conflicts.
Similarly the more recent US in Vietnam and Israel in Lebanon cases don't explore cynical elite manipulation of voter preferences. What if middle class median voters develop and express preferences that were manufactured by elite manipulation? Some of the research on public opinion and foreign policy laments the frequent failure to explore this possibility.
The theory, quantitative results, and analysis are interesting and have meaningful implications for IR, especially arguments about democratic exceptionalism.
In the cases I sometimes thought of unexplored explanations for behavior. For example the British empire case argues that median voters (MVs) benefitted from costly imperial conflicts. Caverley also argues that elites paid the economic costs, which were apparently substantial. However, contemporary research on the UK empire suggests it benefitted enormously from extraction of resources from India. That oversight seems important. Presumably the elites garnered substantial gains despite the author's redistributive explanation for MV support of the conflicts.
Similarly the more recent US in Vietnam and Israel in Lebanon cases don't explore cynical elite manipulation of voter preferences. What if middle class median voters develop and express preferences that were manufactured by elite manipulation? Some of the research on public opinion and foreign policy laments the frequent failure to explore this possibility.
July 20, 2018
A valuable and interesting study (clearly a former dissertation) that makes the case that greater voter enfranchisement and greater levels of 'capitalization' (ie material and products over work horse labor and manpower) of the military may in face increase hawkishness in a society due to a drop in perceived cost by the general public. Therefore, the conclusions run contrary to typical liberal peace theory in stating that these factors, which are often the results of liberal societies, in fact increase rather than decrease their general bellicosity-as well as undermine their ability to conduct counter-insurgency and smaller more limited wars effectively (even if they help in larger more conventional conflicts).
I found the majority of the study interesting and engaging and a worthy antidote to much of what you see in IR literature. But I did find myself unconvinced by the supposed greater level of hawkishness amongst the working class. There have been times where this has been true, but it is hardly universal. Furthermore, in the years since the publication of this book it has become more and more apparent that the most hawkish people tend to be those working for think tanks and media commentary organizations who are hardly salt of the earth types. The right, that traditional bastion of hawkishness (and the interests of wealth) seems to finally if no doubt temporarily be toning down its reflexive war mongering...and least compared to what it was in the recent past. Most people seem to tire or at least actively disengage from the perpetual war state these days, with only the center/neoliberals/bipartisan consensus holding the line of endless little wars in the democratic nations. And that center, for these reasons and others, is surely shrinking across the board right now. It also tends to be made up of the affluent and highly educated.
I found the majority of the study interesting and engaging and a worthy antidote to much of what you see in IR literature. But I did find myself unconvinced by the supposed greater level of hawkishness amongst the working class. There have been times where this has been true, but it is hardly universal. Furthermore, in the years since the publication of this book it has become more and more apparent that the most hawkish people tend to be those working for think tanks and media commentary organizations who are hardly salt of the earth types. The right, that traditional bastion of hawkishness (and the interests of wealth) seems to finally if no doubt temporarily be toning down its reflexive war mongering...and least compared to what it was in the recent past. Most people seem to tire or at least actively disengage from the perpetual war state these days, with only the center/neoliberals/bipartisan consensus holding the line of endless little wars in the democratic nations. And that center, for these reasons and others, is surely shrinking across the board right now. It also tends to be made up of the affluent and highly educated.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews