Peace and Conflict Studies - Spring 2014

Peace and Conflict Studies Volume 21, Number 1 96 The results did not show any substantial change in any replication model so far as the two explanatory variables are concerned. The signs and the statistical significance (or lack thereof) of the development ( low) and democracy (low) variables remained the same in all six models in Table III. Development (low )’s effect on the likelihood of conflict was always negative and statistically significant in all models; whereas that of democracy (low) never achieved statistical significance even at 90% level. Thus, the earlier findings in Table I are found to be robust. Within the developing world, economic development leads to interstate peace, democracy does not. Concluding Remarks Notwithstanding the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence which indicate two different dynamics of interstate conflict in the developing and the developed worlds, the proponents of both “democratic peace” and “capitalist peace” arguments did not take into account the distinction between developing and developed countries and tested their hypotheses within samples that included “all dyads” in different time periods. This study aimed to fill this gap by testing capitalist and democratic peace arguments within the developing world. My empirical results provided support to the “capitalist peace” argument and countered the “democratic peace” argument. Economic development was found have a negative, substantial, and statistically significant effect on the likelihood of dyadic MID in the developing world. By contrast, democracy’s effect on the likelihood of dyadic MID never achieved statistical significance even at 90% significance level. These findings were robust to different measures of conflict, democracy and economic development. Thus, within the developing world, it seems economic development leads to interstate peace, whereas democracy does not. This result suggests that, in the developing world, economic development is not just an issue of economic or humanitarian concern, but also a fundamental security issue. To achieve sustainable global peace, policies that would foster economic development in the developing world ought to be encouraged and supported. This finding counters the “law-like status” argument for democratic peace (Levy, 1994) and supports the earlier research which suggested that the peaceful effect of democracy is limited to Western Europe and North America (Goldstein, 2006; Henderson, 2003). As such, what has so far been theorized as “democratic peace” might actually be “ developed democratic peace.” Thus, current overly-confident expectations about the peaceful consequences of democratization in the developing world should be re-evaluated.