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in treating the outliers in his statistical and case study work, however. Out of the thirty-two cases of extended-immediate deterrence in which the defending state had a competitive political system, for example, ten had outcomes that do not fit Schultz’s argument. Yet he only discusses one of these cases (the British-Greek crisis over Crete in 1897) for the purpose of arguing that it might deserve recoding in a way that would make it fit his thesis. Similarly, the cases chosen for individual study all fit the argument; this is defensible in the early stages of an innovative research program such as Schultz’s where the goal is to illustrate as much as test the mechanisms that might explain a correlational finding, but even so he might have paid more attention to anomalous cases that might have helped to delimit the scope conditions of his theory. Schultz justifiably notes that the cases that do not fit his theory tend to be the more spectacular and memorable ones, resulting in wars rather than negotiated settlements. Yet after listing World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War as “some of the most prominent international conflicts of the last century” and indicating that they do not fit his theory, he does not discuss how these anomalies might be explained or how they might limit his findings.146 Despite this shortcoming, Schultz’s successful effort to integrate different methods is one worthy of emulation, as it demonstrates that the value of carrying out statistical and case study tests of a formal model is worth the considerable difficulties involved in doing so.

One final example illustrates how the latest work on the interdemocratic peace has been able to build on prior statistical, case study, and formal research toward a more complete and integrated theory of the interdemocratic piece. Charles Lipson’s Reliable Partners uses the insights developed in Schultz’s work, as well as other findings from formal theories on bargaining, contracting, audience costs, self-binding, and transparency, to construct a model of the superior ability of democracies to create credible and enforceable commitments or contracts with one another that make it unnecessary to use costly military force to resolve disputes. 147 Lipson’s model aspires to explain not only the interdemocratic peace, but many of the other findings that have emerged from the broader democratic peace research program. Lipson tests his model against numerous brief case studies and the results of existing statistical studies. His goal is largely to integrate existing studies rather than to carry out exhaustive and detailed primary research or develop and test a single statistical model. Because Lipson conscientiously considers alternative explanations throughout, and because he has so many excellent prior studies to draw upon, what emerges is the most convincing and complete treatment of the interdemocratic peace thus far.

Methodological Suggestions for Future Research on the Interdemocratic Peace

We end this chapter by offering several suggestions for future research on the interdemocratic peace that will further enrich the development of typological theory on this subject. First, researchers can intensify efforts, like that undertaken by Braumoeller, to study states that have democratic institutions but lack democratic norms, as well as those that have democratic norms but lack democratic institutions. Researchers can then compare such cases to those that have both or neither of these attributes of democracy as a test of institutional and normative causal mechanisms.

Second, researchers can follow up Peterson’s research on the interaction between leaders and publics by examining how leaders have tried to reconcile their own preferences with public opinion.

Third, researchers can look for other testable process-tracing implications of democratic peace assertions. For example, if norms and institutions affect the international use of force, they should also affect the conditions under which domestic police forces are allowed to use deadly force. William