Lame Duckes or Fighting Fowl? Term Limits, Election Cycles, and Conflict Behavior.

How do variations in the electoral rules, specifically term limits and the constitutional inter-election period (CIEP), affect the conflict behavior of leaders? If leaders know that they have a fixed time in office we argue that they are more likely to engage in conflict given their shortened policy time horizon and that they do not have to face reselection. We develop a framework of how the CIEP has differing effects depending on the possibility of leader reselection. Leaders that do not face terms limits should be more conflict prone early in the CIEP. However leaders with term limits will be less likely to engage in conflicts early in the CIEP. We test our hypotheses by analyzing both monadic and dyadic leader year data. The results suggest that term limits alter the conflict calculation of democratic leaders, both for propensity as well as timing. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]