Democratic Peace and Covert Military Force: An Experimental Test

• Author: Allison Carnegie,Joshua D. Kertzer,Keren Yarhi-Milo
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221116289
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2023, Vol. 67(2-3) 235–265

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027221116289

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Democratic Peace and Covert

Military Force: An

Experimental Test

Allison Carnegie

1

, Joshua D. Kertzer

2

, and

Keren Yarhi-Milo

1

Abstract

How should we reconcile covert war with normative theories of the democratic

peace? Proponents argue that these interventions are consistent with democratic

peace theory, as leaders intervene covertly to escape backlash by a public that has

internalized liberal norms. Yet we know little about public opinion regarding the covert

use of force. Using a survey experiment, we f‌ind that respondents are more favorable

towards covert interventions against democratic targets than our theories assume, and

that even citizens who value transparency the most still wrestle with a trade-off

between their normative commitments and the instrumental benef‌its they perceive

covert actions to hold. Our results thus help to explain why American leaders have

repeatedly chosen to conduct covert military operations against fellow democracies,

and raise important questions about the scope conditions of normative theories of the

democratic peace.

Keywords

democratic peace, survey experiment, liberal peace, militarized interstate disputes

How can we reconcile covert war between democracies with normative theories of the

democratic peace? An established body of literature in international relations holds that

1

Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

2

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Allison Carnegie, Political Science, Columbia University, 118th Street, New York, NY 10025, USA.

Email: allison.carnegie@columbia.edu

democracies do not use force against each other, in large part due to the liberal norms

and values shared by democratic publics (Doyle 1986;Russett 1994). Yet a recent wave

of research on secrecy in the f‌ield

1

shows the relatively high frequency with which

democracies engage in the covert use of force against one another. For example, the

United States successfully overthrew many other democracies including Iran (1953),

Guatemala (1954), British Guiana (1961-71), Brazil (1964), the Congo (1960)) and

Chile (1970-73), tried and failed to do so twice (Indonesia (1954-58) and Syria (1956-

57)), and employed covert tactics to inf‌luence the results of foreign democratic

elections sixteen times from 1947-1989 (O’Rourke 2018, 94). Moreover, such practices

are not conf‌ined to the Cold-War era, as covert interventions have occurred frequently

since then.

2

This literature not only demonstrates the enduring relevance of covert action, but

also raises fundamental questions about the role that norms play in shaping democratic

publics’preferences about the use of force. On the one hand, critics argue that the

frequency of these interventions reveals that democratic citizens have not truly in-

ternalized liberal norms of non-violence against other democratic states. For some, this

constitutes evidence against the normative democratic peace;

3

for others, it constitutes

evidence against the democratic peace altogether.

4

On the other hand, proponents argue that the covertness of these interventions

constitutes supportive evidence for their theory: leaders carry out these interventions

covertly precisely to escape the watchful eye of the public, who have internalized

liberal norms of non-violence against other democratic states.

5

In this sense it should

not be surprising that many of the founding f‌igures of covert operations in American

foreign policy were also among the deepest skeptics of public opinion. As head of the

Policy Planning Staff, for example, George Kennan argued that the public simply did

not have the stomach for covert action (Gaddis 2011, 294). After all, the very nature of

government secrecy violates liberal norms about transparency and accountability.

Central to these accounts, then, are a set of assumptions about the content of the public’s

preferences: that democratic citizens have internalized liberal norms vis- `

a-vis other

democracies, that they oppose the use of covert action, and that they especially dis-

approve of covert action against fellow democracies.

We show here that these assumptions are wrong. Even if leaders conduct illiberal

policies covertly to escape public opprobrium, the mass public has fewer qualms about

covert action than normative theories of the democratic peace would suggest. Further,

even if the public espouses liberal norms, their commitment to these norms f‌lounder

when policies are conducted in secret. Moreover, even though the public cares about

transparency, some segments of it care less than others. Indeed, even those who value

transparency the most still wrestle with a trade-off between this normative commitment

and the instrumental benef‌its they perceive covert actions to hold. Finally, our f‌indings

suggest that leaders may pursue covert operations against democracies due to the belief

that the public will be more likely to support them if their actions are revealed, and that

they are correct in this assessment (Russett 1994).

236 Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution 67(2-3)