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Journal of Conflict Resolution
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Casualties and Constituencies

Democratic Accountability, Electoral Institutions, and Costly Conflicts

Michael Koch

Department of Political Science Texas A&M University

Scott Sigmund Gartner

Department of Political Science University of California, Davis

Electoral institutions influence legislators’ constituency size and makeup and, as a result, affect the lens that representatives look through to assess the costs of military conflict. Given the uneven distribution of casualties during a conflict, the costs of international violence vary between constituencies and thus affect representatives differently. The authors develop a constituency-based theory of legislator accountability and legislature behavior that predicts when democracies are willing to pay human costs in an interstate conflict and their likelihood of being involved in a dispute. The results suggest that the more diffuse political account-ability, the less likely a state is to get involved in a militarized dispute, but that once involved, the more likely a state will sustain casualties. The authors’theory suggests that choices over the mechanisms of political representation have far-reaching effects on political accountability and foreign policy.

Key Words: casualties • legislatures • accountability • selection effects • conscription • militarized interstate disputes

Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, No. 6, 874-894 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0022002705281149
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Home page
 Journal of Conflict ResolutionHome page
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[Abstract] [PDF]