Parliamentary Control of Military Deployments in Democracies

This research project investigated the influenced that national parliaments are able to exert on the deployment of armed forces. It first assessed which rights democratic parliaments around the globe possess in regard to the deployment of armed forces.

Parliaments as key institutions for peace?

Based on this assessment, the project sought explanations for the high degree of variance in parliamentary rights among states. Parliaments are commonly considered to be the key institutions for democratic peace which ensure that government policies are oriented towards the peaceful inclinations of the populace. However, not all parliaments of democratic states possess such comprehensive influence in matters of military deployment. Only in some democracies does the government require parliamentary consent prior to using military force, whereas this decision can made be made unilaterally in others.

Threats, tradition and prior experience

Data for parliamentary rights was compiled in the dataset "ParlCon" for 49 democratic states in the period from 1989 to 2004. Our analysis of the data concluded that variances in parliamentary rights can primarily be traced back to three factors: states facing graver external threats and with a historical connection to the British constitutional tradition tend to limit parliamentary influence. In contrast, states that suffered high casualties in wars they had lost in the past tend to grant their parliaments veto rights for military deployments.

This project was conducted in cooperation with Professor Wolfgang Wagner (Free University Amsterdam).