The central claim of a rapidly growing literature in international relations is that members of pairs of democratic states are much less likely to engage each other in war or in serious disputes short of war than are members of other pairs of states. Our analysis does not support this claim....

That the anarchic system generates incentives for states to balance each other's power is conventional wisdom in international relations. As such, the contemporary unipolar system is an anomaly. The existing literature explains its persistence in various ways, including the benevolence of U.S....

The central claim of a rapidly growing literature in international relations is that members of pairs of democratic states are much less likely to engage each other in war or in serious disputes short of war than are members of other pairs of states. Our analysis does not support this claim....