ABSTRACT
Dean Babst recognized that there were few elected governments prior to the twentieth century, so he focused particularly on participants in World War I and II. Of the thirty-three independent nations involved in World War I, ten were democracies and none fought against each other. The fifty-two independent nations participating in World War II, fourteen democracies were on the same side and one, Finland, fought with Germany against the Soviet Union. Babst also looked further at wars after 1945 and saw none involving democracies, even though many more democracies existed. He then concluded this pioneering six-page contribution modestly: This study suggests that the existence of independent nations with elective governments greatly increases the chances for the maintenance of peace. Melvin Small and J. David Singer had argued away Babst's results as probably the result of democracies having few common borders. For the period 1976 to 1980 there were 1,164 contiguous dyads, 104 of them involving two Free states.
