This chapter examines the role of democracy and other characteristics that affect cooperation and conflict in the traditional literature. It assesses the more recent contribution of network analytic studies to the understanding of conflict and cooperation processes. Key contributions of network studies include controlling for network effects on dyadic conflict and cooperation, corroborating some of the key results of non-network studies, and clarifying important debates in the literature on cooperation and conflict. Most of the contributions of the network analytic studies of conflict and cooperation are dyadic in nature. The few systemic or group-level analyses of international cooperation show significant promise, but until recently there has been little effort to extend traditional units of analysis to some of the more important units derived from network analysis. The chapter demonstrates some of the potential of such approaches via an analysis of democracy’s role in the emergence of cooperative international communities.