I am grateful to Paul D. Miller for his thoughtful review of my book and for the interesting questions he raises. War and Rights provides a theoretical framework for understanding the rare conditions under which warfare may lead to an expansion of political and civil rights. Political leaders facing an existential threat often expand political rights in exchange for critical human and financial resources needed for the war effort. Although political rights play a central role in both War and Rights and Miller’s Ordered Liberty, they do so in different ways. Miller’s prescriptive argument provides a framework to help decision makers (and citizens) decide whether the contemplated war should be considered just or unjust. For example, a war is just if it is fought for the common good and if it provides for a stable and liberal postwar political order. Miller envisions rational political leaders consciously choosing a policy to expand liberalism at home and abroad.

In contrast, War and Rights outlines a more complex two-level process that mixes unintentional consequences and intentional choices. Political leaders typically engage in wars with no intention of overturning the domestic political order. However, as the costs of large-scale wars mount, they may reluctantly begin to bargain with opposition groups. Opposition leaders then consciously exploit the pressing wartime situation to make their case for inclusion. African Americans leaders, for example, pursued a “Double V” campaign in World War II that explicitly linked victory for democracy abroad with victory in civil rights at home.

In his review, Miller claims that the logic of his book and mine supports the reinstitution of the military draft. I think we both agree that if the public pays the costs of war, it will be much more vigilant in holding leaders accountable for war, which will in turn make leaders more cautious about entering wars. This is the causal mechanism of the Democratic Peace. However, conscription plays an even more critical role in the causal story presented in War and Rights. As Robert Dahl argues, regimes can be compared along two dimensions: contestation and inclusiveness. Both “closed hegemonies” (low contestation, low inclusiveness) and “competitive oligarchies” (high contestation, low inclusiveness) exclude significant portions of society from the political arena. The qualitative cases and quantitative analyses in War and Rights demonstrate that conscripting the disenfranchised increases demands for greater political inclusion and the probability of political reform. Moreover, the total wars of the twentieth century led to the inclusion of both those serving directly in the military and those participating indirectly in the war economy.

Miller also notes that War and Rights focuses almost exclusively on the expansion and contraction of rights at home. This is certainly true. But war clearly affects rights in opposing states. In War and Rights, this is addressed tangentially, such as in the comparison of Austria-Hungary and Imperial Russia in World War I and the diffusion of democracy across international borders after wars. But War and Rights is mostly inward looking. The leaders in Austria-Hungary were focused on decisively defeating Serbia and bringing the troops home by Christmas. They were slow to recognize that the massive mobilization for the long and bloody war would lead to demands for greater political inclusion and contestation both at home and abroad. War and Rights explains why the political revolutions in Vienna, Berlin, and Petrograd (St. Petersburg) were the predictable but unintended consequences of total war.