War! Who is it Good For? The Relationship between Regime Type, the Fate of Leaders and War.

We propose and test a formal model of war and domestic politics, consistent with recent evidence on the relationship between regime type, the outcome of war and the probability and consequences of losing office. Our model builds on two fundamental and hitherto neglected differences between regime types: the cost of replacing leaders and the post-tenure fate of leaders. We show that war is less likely as 1) the cost of replacement depends less on the outcome of war and 2) the consequences of losing office are less punitive for leaders. Compared to non-democratic leaders, the cost of replacing a democratic leader depends relatively little on the war outcome and democratic leaders fare relatively well after losing office. Our model therefore offers an intuitive explanation for the democratic peace. To examine the scope of our theory, we test and find support for it within the sample of non-democratic regimes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]