A review of Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder.
About the Author
Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, is professor of political science at Stanford University, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His most recent book is From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia (2018).
Often called for but seldom defined with any precision, “non-Western democracy” could end up giving cover to authoritarianism, but also could allow potentially useful democratic innovations to be tried and…
In order for a country to move beyond mere electoral democracy, ordinary people must acquire resources and values that allow them to pressure elites. Human empowerment is essential for the…