The Quality of Government Peace - How Good Governance Reduces the Risk of Interstate Conflict

Abstract: In this thesis the impact of quality of government on the risk of interstate conflict is analyzed. Data on Militarised Interstate Disputes (MIDs) from the Correlates of War is used as an indicator of conflict and scores from the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) is applied as a measure of quality of government. The unit of analysis is pairs of states, dyads. By employing logistic regression analysis and covering the time period of 1985-2000, I find that as the weaker state in a dyad gets stronger, the probability of conflict declines. Improved quality of government thus reduces the risk of interstate conflict. The result is based on a model which includes variables for democracy and incomplete democratization, as well as controls for realist claims and geographic constrains. Although these findings do not rule out the pacifying benefits of democracy, they do add to the argument that, initially, government improvement might be more important than democratization for developing countries.