Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T15:25:09.317Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Media Openness, Democracy and Militarized Interstate Disputes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2006

SEUNG-WHAN CHOI
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
PATRICK JAMES
Affiliation:
School of International Relations, University of Southern California

Abstract

Mass media play a central role in political life. Media not only transfer information; they also facilitate communication. These functions may ameliorate conflict, crisis and war in world politics. Accordingly, this study looks into the impact of media openness on international conflict. Based on a cross-sectional, time-series dataset for interstate dyads from 1950 to 1992, logistic regression analysis shows that an indicator of media openness has a strong dampening effect on Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) and fatal MIDs. Moreover, this connection is significant even in the presence of a composite indicator of democracy (that measures its institutional attributes using the Polity data), economic interdependence and joint membership in international organizations. The results suggest that the successful neo-Kantian triad is complemented effectively by the presence of media openness.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)