The study examines whether defeat in war increases the probability that states will be involved in an international crisis (as a diversionary policy), enter a process of political liberalization, or alternatively, curtail political rights. More generally, it examines the impact of the leaders’ weakness on their tendency to adopt these different strategies in order to overcome internal unrest. We look at defeat in war as an indicator of the leader’s weakness since we can assume a strong correlation exists between the two. The results showed a significant positive connection to political rights liberalization, indicating that defeat in war increases the probability of liberalization in political rights but does not significantly increase the probability of de-liberalization and diversionary policies. Therefore, the study strengthens the claim that a leader’s weakness tends to push him or her toward initiating political reforms.

中文翻译：

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州际战争的失败与政治自由化的可能性

该研究考察了战争失败是否会增加国家卷入国际危机（作为转移政策）、进入政治自由化进程或限制政治权利的可能性。更一般地说，它考察了领导者的弱点对其采取这些不同策略以克服内部动荡的倾向的影响。我们将战争失败视为领导者弱点的指标，因为我们可以假设两者之间存在很强的相关性。结果显示与政治权利自由化呈显着正相关，表明战争失败增加了政治权利自由化的概率，但并未显着增加去自由化和转移政策的概率。所以，