Bob,

I agree with much of what you said, though I would go further and argue that violence is at the foundation of all political activity, and only that mitigating factors such as time, resources, the strength of the opposition, etc prevent distributing power based solely on the capacity to impose one's will on another through violence. That said, selective and subjective definitions of 'democracy' and 'dictatorship' (i.e. modern, Western versions of either) seems to suggest that insurgencies are unlikely to erupt in either. But I would dispute any correlation on the basis that every democracy, dictatorship, and insurgency are different, and that any conclusion drawn from such comparisons would be incomplete. There is no absolute democracy or dictatorship that we can use as an appropriate measure. I would argue that why democracies (and dictatorships) are successful in either mitigating insurgency or do not generally face the threat in the first place is a function of class factionalism and not the organization of government (which, IMO, reflects the distribution of power among classes; hence the different shapes of governments that are nonetheless characterized as the same or similar). Whatever the agenda of post-WW2 insurgencies, the common attributes are often a dispossessed concentrated ethnic majority led by an educated, relatively well-off (whether in wealth, prestige, power, etc) ideological elite. Looking through Cav's examples in his first post, I have to ask how many of those insurgencies "lost" as a direct result of the system of government in place? Or in contrast, how many "lost" because of violence, resettlement, etc but they happened to have been defeated by a democratic government (Chechnya, Lebanon, Turkey)? Another question: given that the minority of states were democratic through the latter half of the 20th century, what is the possibility that democratic states appear statistically more likely to defeat insurgencies because there are fewer examples of 'democratic insurgencies'?

The common factor, IMO, seems to be that democratic governments are more willing to use violence to defeat insurgencies that are considered 'illegitimate' according to the political climate/context of the time. Given that democracies are generally ruled by the ethnic/ideological majority, are democracies more likely to pursue violence until the 'bitter end' so to speak? And since the democratic state is often at war with a dispossessed minority, how does the advantage in resources and mobilization for the state impact the outcome of the conflict? Last question: if democratic governments are more successful in mitigating insurgency because of ease of accommodation for rival political factions, why do 'democratic insurgencies' occur in the first place?

Just my thoughts.