Editing Democratic peace theory (section)

===Audience costs===
A prominent rational choice argument for the democratic peace is that democracies carry greater audience costs than authoritarian states, which makes them better at signaling their intentions in interstate disputes.{{sfn|Fearon|1994}}{{sfn|Tomz|2007|loc="The seminal article is Fearon 1994."}} Arguments regarding the credibility of democratic states in disputes has been subject to debate among international relations scholars. Two studies from 2001, using the [[Militarized interstate dispute|MID]] and ICB datasets, provided empirical support for the notion that democracies were more likely to issue effective threats.{{sfn|Schultz|2001}}{{sfn|Gelpi|Griesdorf|2001}} However, a 2012 study by Alexander B. Downes and Todd S. Sechser found that existing datasets were not suitable to draw any conclusions as to whether democratic states issued more effective threats.{{sfn|Downes|Sechser|2012}} They constructed their own dataset specifically for interstate military threats and outcomes, which found no relationship between regime type and effective threats.{{sfn|Downes|Sechser|2012}} A 2017 study which recoded flaws in the MID dataset ultimately conclude, "that there are no regime-based differences in dispute reciprocation, and prior findings may be based largely on poorly coded data."{{sfn|Downes|Sechser|2012}} Other scholars have disputed the democratic credibility argument, questioning its causal logic and empirical validity.{{sfn|Snyder|Borghard|2011}} Research by [[Jessica L.P. Weeks|Jessica Weeks]] argued that some authoritarian regime types have similar audience costs as in democratic states.{{sfn|Weeks|2008}}{{sfn|Weeks|2014}}

A 2021 study found that Americans perceived democracies to be more likely to back down in crises, which contradicts the expectations of the audience costs literature.{{sfn|Kertzer|Renshon|Yarhi-Milo|2021}}