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Research into the democratic peace (DP) proposition has shown that democracies rarely, if ever, fight wars against each other. At the same time, rational choice models predict that there will sometimes be circumstances in which war is a rational option for rational states. If democratic states are rational, then war between them should, theoretically, be an option that is exercised. This thesis examines the possibility of Democratic Peace (DP) Breakdown, whereby the causal factors responsible for democratic peace fail to operate properly and war between democracies becomes either likely or inevitable. Applying a game theoretic model of asymmetric deterrence and the concepts of communication and commitment problems in crisis bargaining, the author shows that there is a strong deductive argument for DP Breakdown. / This thesis will attempt to show that a strong deductive argument can be made for deterrence failure between democracies embroiled in an international crisis. While most research into the democratic peace is concerned with identifying and explaining how and why democratic peace succeeds, this thesis will develop a counter-intuitive theoretical approach for understanding how and why democratic peace fails. By doing so it is expected that a greater understanding of the behavioral dynamics of democratic peace will be developed. The argument developed here will draw on the theoretical works of Fearon and Kilgour & Zagare and attempt to bridge the gap between democratic peace studies, formal deterrence modeling, and rationalist theories of war. It is hoped that the synthesis of these three bodies of literature will produce a model of democratic crisis behavior that is capable of generating new and interesting hypotheses about democracies and international crisis.

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This thesis carefully examines the question of the effect of nuclear weapons possession on international relations through a detailed examination of all international crises between nuclear powers, as identified by the International Crisis Behavior Project (ICB). It distinguishes itself from similar studies in four key areas. First, by including the recent dyadic nuclear crises between India and Pakistan, this study significantly expands the number of cases under consideration. Next, the India-Pakistan crises provide an opportunity for a novel comparison to the US-USSR crises of the Cold War. / Third, this work is unique among studies of nuclear deterrence in its combined use of qualitative and quantitative methodology. The quantitative analysis uses ordered logit with the ICB data set on a variety of variables, discussed below, that do not lend themselves to standard regression techniques. The qualitative analysis examines whether or not nuclear weapons caused decision-makers on both sides of each crises to refrain from escalation due to fear of nuclear catastrophe. Finally, this study compares the effect of mutual nuclear weapons capability with the effects of democracy and interdependence on the level of violence in crises. / Ultimately, this thesis finds that nuclear proliferation is far less successful at preventing war among states in dyadic nuclear crises than is commonly believed. In only one of 17 crises (the Cuban Missile Crisis) is it clear that mutual possession of nuclear weapons caused leaders on both sides to eschew war. Relative to nuclear weapons possession, democracy and trade were found to be significantly more effective at limiting violence in crises and preventing war. Moreover, regimes suffering a lack of legitimacy in either the international community or among their neighbors had a significantly higher level of violence in crises. / Taken together, these findings have significant implications for public policy regarding nuclear proliferation, suggesting that the international community should work even more diligently to prevent nuclear proliferation, while working to strengthen democratic regimes, increase interstate trade, and reduce the international isolation of states such as North Korea and Iran.

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