Kapsayıcılık, rekabet ve çatışma süreçleri

This thesis argues that the relationship between regime type and interstate conflict processes is mainly driven by two persistent features of democracy – inclusiveness and contestation – and these two dimensions alone explain various interesting phenomena including but not limited to, autocratic peace, democratic peace, arsenal of democracy, arsenal of autocracy, autocratic and democratic triumphalism. It uses a game-theoretical formal model to explain how and why these two dimensions shape states' propensity to initiate a violent conflict, governments' ability to channel resources for defense expenditures during a war and propensity to win a given war. I draw evidence from various advanced statistical techniques and diplomatic history to examine the relationship between domestic level variables and interstate conflict processes. I employ a quantitative process tracing approach and analyze individual links for the empirical implications of the theory on three major conflict processes. Moreover, in an in-depth case study I show how contestation and inclusiveness dimensions shaped the defense expenditure, conflict initiation as well as war outcomes for Prussia, Denmark, Austria and France during the Wars of German Unification in 19th century. Empirical evaluation of both quantitative and qualitative data indicate that regimes with lower levels of contestation and/or higher levels of inclusiveness were able to generate higher war effort, more prone to initiate conflicts and they won wars or forced their opponents to capitulate, whereas regimes with higher levels of contestation and/or lower levels of inclusiveness were relatively limited in their war effort generation and timid in conflict initiation behavior as well as in resolve and fragile throughout the war.