Ideological Fractionalization and the International Conflict Behavior of Parliamentary Democracies

Past studies examining the international conflict behavior of parliamentary democracies have reported inconsistent findings and produced some empirical puzzles. One of the main puzzles is that, despite a strong theoretical basis for expecting coalitional majority cabinets to be less conflict prone than single-party majorities, most studies found no difference in their conflict behavior. Still others report coalitional governments to be more conflict prone than single-party ones. In this study, I show that these empirical inconsistencies can be resolved once we take into account the ideological composition of the cabinet. The main contention is that relatively marginal coalitional partners may have a disproportionate influence when the government faces risky decisions, such as the initiation of international disputes. The key lies in their greater bargaining leverage in intra-coalitional politics, which is subsequently reflected in their influence over foreign conflict decisions. More generally, this study shows how different degrees of ideological diversity or cohesion abate and/or accentuate a state's conflict behavior. The expectations are tested empirically, and the findings more robustly predict the conflict behavior of parliamentary regimes than do the results of previous research.