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] was an early peace theorist, from the late 18th century.]]
A '''democratic peace theory''', in ], was originally a claim that ] - specifically, ] - never or almost never go to ] with one another. The original '''democratic peace''' ] referred to peace ''between'' democracies, the later '''pacifist democracy''' hypothesis to an inherently less warlike nature of democracies; some theories include both. The '''separate peace''' hypothesis implies that wars between ''unlike regimes'' (democracy ''versus'' oligarchy or tyranny) are more probable. The '''militant democracy''' hypothesis implies that democracies are ''inherently likely'' to go to war with non-democracies. A '''democratic peace theory''' or simply '''democratic peace''' (often '''DPT''' and sometimes '''democratic pacifism''') is a ] in ], ], and ] which holds that ]—specifically, ]—never or almost never go to ] with one another. A more general version is that all kinds of systematic violence is rare in and by liberal democracies. It can trace its philosophical roots to ].


==History==
Despite the variations, all such theories are referred to as democratic peace theory, abbreviated '''DPT'''. Often, that term is used to refer only to the original conjecture, disregarding later developments in the theory. Such theories have also been referred to as the "liberal peace" or the "Kantian peace" in honor of Immanuel Kant, who proposed an early version of the theory.
{{See main|Perpetual peace}}
]
At least partly because of the low frequency of democratic governments, and of sociologists, before the 19th century, democratic peace theory is a relatively new development. No ancient author seems to have considered it true.


In early modern times, the word ''democracy'' usually meant ], which was treated with suspicion. Even the idea that ]s tend to be peaceful is recent; ] believed that republics were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders, citing Rome as the prime example. Interesingly, Islamic tradition holds that peace will prevail within the '']'' or "house of submission" to the faith, but war, including '']'', beyond that zone.
==History of the theories==
{{main|Perpetual peace}}


], in his essay ''Perpetual Peace'' (]),{{ref|Kant}} affirmed that responsible governments would not lightly go to war with each other, although he thought that this was only one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace. The hope of a democratic peace was the content of the ] slogan: ''"a war to end all war"'' (originated by ]). ]'s policy for the ] settlement was largely based on all three planks of Kant's program.
The idea that democracy is a source of world peace came relatively late in political theory, one contributing factor being that democracies were very rare before the late nineteenth century. No ancient author seems to have thought so. Early authors referred to republics rather than democracies, since the word democracy had acquired a bad name until early modern times. ] believed that republics were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders, citing Rome as the prime example. It was ] who first foreshadowed the theory in his essay "]" written in 1795 , although he held that peace would, in addition to ], need a ], and "hospitality": freedom of movement and trade, like the ].


In ], ], a Wisconsin criminologist, published the first theory of democratic peace; he published two papers in obscure journals and were ognored. The first prominent DPT was stated by ], of the ], beginning in the middle seventies. Thereafter, an increasing amount of research has been done on the theory and related subjects. (For the numerous researchers on the subject, see Rummel's bibliography, under ].)
] The peacefulness of ]s was the basis for the American policy of ] and the foreign policy of ]. It was also represented in the ] ] of ], ], and of ], who made the first arguments for a ''dyadic'' democratic peace (that popular governments will not go to war ''with each other'') in August 1914, and claimed, on that basis, that the First World War could be the ''War that will End War''. {{dubious}}


]s of both the major ] parties have expressed support for the theory. Former President ] of the ]: "Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other."{{ref|Clinton}} Current President ] of the ]: "And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy."{{ref|Bush}} However, such use of democratic peace theory to justify a foreign policy that includes military action, such as the ], has proved controversial.{{ref|Iraq}}
This did not require great originality on Wells' part; he was the first influential thinker to discuss a lasting peace after the First World War, instead of the armed truce which had existed at least since the ]. He therefore faced the question: if Prussian autocracy and militarism were the danger to peace, how was the British arms build-up, and the British declaration of war justifiable. Wells was unsuited to the answer given by many: "Because we're ''British''", and so laid great stress on the popular government of the ], now and forthcoming, as bringing peace among them.
He counted on a constitutional government for ], even under the Czar, to restrain Russia.


:{{note|Kant}} <small> (1795)
===Development of the modern theory===
:{{note|Clinton}} <small> {{Citepaper | Author=Clinton, Bill | Title=1994 State Of The Union Address | PublishYear=1994 | URL=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/states/docs/sou94.htm }}
:{{note|Bush}} <small> {{Web reference | title=President and Prime Minister Blair Discussed Iraq, Middle East | url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041112-5.html| date=October 3| year=2005 }}
:{{note|Iraq}} <small> 2005)


==Types of Theories==
In ], ], then a Wisconsin ], published a paper asserting that no two democracies had ever been at war with each other, and substantially republished it in an industrial trade journal in ]. This was also claimed at greater length in ] by ], professor of ] at the ], and much of this research is available on his web-site.


''Monadic'' theories claim that democracies tend to conduct their affairs more peaceably, whether with other democracies or not. More general theories developed from the monadic version claim that two democracies are ''less likely'' to make war on each other than other pairs of states. A recent paper claims that democracies fight fewer wars, start fewer wars and lesser conflcts, and reach more negotiated settlements. {{ref|Monadic}}
] was the first democratic peace theorist to observe the similarity to Kant, and published a largely accurate summary of Kant's essay. He, working with ], distinguished between the '''strong''' (or ''monadic'') form of the theory (that democracies tend to be peaceful in general) and the '''weak''' or ''dyadic'' form (that they tend to be peaceful with each other). He also studied the even weaker proposition that liberal regimes have less purely internal conflict.


''Dyadic'' theories claim that democracies are more peaceable with each other; but make various assertions about their relations to other states. ''Separate peace'' theories claim that democracies are ''more'' likely to go to war with non-democracies. The ''militant democracy'' theory divides democracies into ''militant'' and ''pacifist'' types. Militant democracies have a tendency to distrust and use confrontational policies against dictatorships, which could actually make war more likely between a democracy and a non-democracy than in the case of relations between two non-democracies. Moreover, a ''democratic crusade corollary'' suggests that the belief in the validity DPT itself could become a cause of war. In the case of the United States intervention in World War I and recent invasion of Iraq, the promise of democratization bringing an end to war was used as a justification for war.
===Political affinities===


''Monadic'' theories tend to be akin to ], and emphasise the internally peaceful nature of democracies. More general theories developed from the monadic version claim that democracies are in general less apt to engage in systematic violence; and that, therefore, violence within or between democracies is also very rare. ''Dyadic'' theories, usually ] of historical data sets, compare wars between democracies, on one hand, with wars between democracies and non-democracies and wars between non-democracies, on the other; and argue that there are special reasons why wars between democracies do not occur. Some dyadic theories, such as those forwarded by Babst, Singer, Rummel and Doyle claim that democracies, properly defined, have '''never''' made war on each other. (Rummel also classifies 155 of the wars since ] as between democracies and non-democracies, 198 as between non-democracies. Given the limited number of democracies he acknowledges, democracies have, in his view, gone to war ''more'' often than other states, but not with each other.) These theorists then argue that there are special reasons why wars between democracies do not occur.


Some democratic peace theorists also hold that violence, especially mass violence, is less common within democracies. The most democratic and the most authoritarian states have few ]s, and intermediate regimes the most. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in turn are less stable than democracies, durable democracy is the most probable end-point of the process of ].{{ref|CivilWar}}
Democratic peace theories are highly controversial, and the findings of individual studies are often vigorously disputed. Most of that controversy has arisen from the misuse of the theory, especially dyadic versions, to suggest that democracies are ''objectively better'' than non-democracies. This is a questionable claim: ] and ] never went to war with each other, but that is not an argument for a world of fascist dictatorships.


:{{note|Monadic}} <small>
Nevertheless, democratic peace theories are, in practice, used as an argument for western cultural superiority, and for ], and for military intervention. ] quoted it to justify the ], and later to urge democratisation. ] presidents of both main parties have rhetorically based their policies (in ] and ]) on the democratic peace...
:{{note|CivilWar}} <small>

:''If we can create a great area of democracy stretching from the west coast of the United States ... to the Far East, that would give us the best guarantee of all for security - because democracies don't go to war with one another.'' Margaret Thatcher, then British Prime Minister, in 1990.

:''Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other.'' William Clinton's 1994 , Jan 25, 1994

:''And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy.'' George W. Bush at the , 12 November 2004.

For these reasons, democratic peace theory was until recently seen as a pro-western and pro-democracy theory, reflecting ] ideas about the inevitable global triumph of western values. However, disappointment about the results of some post-Soviet democratisations, increasing scepticism about forced democratisation, and opposition to the ] have eroded support for the assumption of inherent superiority of democracy. More recent dyadic theories also seek theoretical explanations for wars by democracies against non-democracies, including the 'militant democracy' thesis, which reverses the original expectations that democracies are more peaceful than non-democracies.



==Democratic peace theories==


==Claims==
A democratic peace theory has to define what it means by "democracy" and what it means by "peace" (or, more often, "war"), and what it claims as the link between the two. A democratic peace theory has to define what it means by "democracy" and what it means by "peace" (or, more often, "war"), and what it claims as the link between the two.


===Democracy=== ===Democracy===
Democratic peace theorists have used different terms for the class of states they consider peaceable; Babst called them ], Rummell ], Doyle ]s. In general, these require not only that the government and legislature be chosen by free and genuinely contested elections, but more besides Democratic peace theorists have used different terms for the class of states they consider peaceable; Babst called them ], Rummell ], Doyle ]s. In general, these require not only that the government and legislature be chosen by free and genuinely contested elections, but more besides. Many researchers have used the ] which scores states for democracy on a continuous scale for every year from ] to ]; as well as others. {{ref|Data}} Some recent papers have found that ] is associated with less external and internal systematic violence.{{ref|Proportional}}

There are several lists of democracies. ] drew up a list of government types by country and year, the ]. This is a ranking on two ten-point scales, one for the degree of democracy, one for the degree of ]; but he calls the countries which score above 6 on the first scale simply '''the''' democracies; and those which score above 5 on the second, the autocracies. Gurr calls States which do neither ]; no state has yet done both. Many theorists simply use the binary version of Gurr's list: democracy/no democracy.


:{{Note|Data}} <small> Such additional data sources include the {{Web reference | title=Conflict Data Set | work=Stockholm International Peace Research Institute | url=http://www.sipri.org/contents/conflict/conflictdatasets.html| date=October 3 | year=2005 }} and {{Web reference | title=Data| work=Peter D. Watson Center for Conflict and Cooperation| url=http://www.watson.rochester.edu/resources/data.html| date=October 3 | year=2005 }}
Dean Babst made his own decisions on what was a democracy. He required also a ], asserting (wrongly) that this existed in the United States back to 1789 and in Britain back to the 1830's. More recent theorists have set a numerical limit on suffrage, say, that half or two-thirds of the male population be able to vote.
:{{Note|Proportional}} ;


===War=== ===War===
Many theorists have used the convenient list at the ] {{Ref|COW}} at the ], which compiled the wars from 1816 to 1991 with at least a thousand battlefield deaths. This data is particularly convenient for statistical analysis, and the large-scale statistical studies cited below have generally used this definition. (Also the ], although it killed only 910 (or 936, or 960) soldiers, satisfied most other criteria to be a full-scale war, and a few dozen deaths should not exclude it.)
:{{Note|COW}}<small> See .


===Kantian peace===
Many theorists have used the convenient list at the ] at the ], which compiled the wars from 1816 to 1991 with at least a thousand battlefield deaths. This data is particularly convenient for statistical analysis, and the large-scale statistical studies cited below have generally used this definition. This also includes the ], although it killed only 910 (or 936, or 960) soldiers. It satisfied most other criteria to be a war, and a few dozen deaths should not exclude it.
Kant's plan for a perpetual peace included more than a government answerable to the people. He proposed a ] to keep the peace; and a right to "hospitality" which should be recognized everywhere. This latter was a freedom of international travel and commerce, in some ways resembling the ]. (He also proposed preliminary confidence-building measures, including disarmament; but these were a means rather than an end.)


Several theorists, led by ] and ] and have found multiple causes for such general peace as we have seen; quite often three which resemble Kant's. (The last is sometimes world prosperity rather than freedom of trade or travel, which are harder to measure.) Several of these theorists call their result the '''Kantian''' peace.{{Ref|Kantian}}
Babst excluded wars in which one democracy was not independent at the start of the war, on the grounds that the war was not their decision; it was on this basis, unfortunately, that he attempted to exclude the ]. Rummel extended this to exclude wars in which one state had not yet been a democracy for three years, on the ground that democracy and the associated customs had not stabilized; he counts many cases in which democracies have been at war (whether with other democracies or non-democracies) less than a year after the former régime has been replaced by democracy.


:{{Note|Kantian}}<small> See Russett & Oneal ''Triangulating Peace'' and the preliminary papers ;
===Claims===
Democratic peace theorists make two possible connections between democracy and war:
*Babst, Singer, Rummel and Doyle claimed that democracies, properly defined, have ''never'' made war on each other; such DPTs face the difficulty that Ted Gurr classes both ] and the ] as democracies in ], the year of the ].
*Most more recent studies assert that two democracies are ''less likely'' to make war on each other than other pairs of states. Some studies make the somewhat stronger claim that the chance of war between two states is ] with their scores on Gurr's democracy index.


==Statistical Studies==
While the following claims are not strictly part of the theory, they have been made by various democratic peace theorists and form an important part of the analysis of causes.
There have been numerous statistical studies in the field. Many have claimed support for some theory of democratic peace; many have denied any such support. {{ref|RayGowa}} However, democratic peace theories are highly controversial, and the findings of individual studies are often vigorously disputed.


Studies have also argued that lesser conflicts (''Militarized Interstate Disputes'' in the jargon) have been more violent, but less bloody, and less likely to spread.{{ref|MID}} Most such disputes involving democracies since ] have involved only four nations: the ], the ], ], and ].{{ref|MID2}}
*The more democratic two nations are, the less the violence between them. (This may include violence short of full-scale war, or may be a claim that such wars as do occur between democracies are waged with restraint.)
*Democracies engage in the least amounts of foreign violence.
*Democracies use less violence in their ''internal'' affairs. In particular, modern democracies do not murder their citizens.


The ], released in October 2005 by the ], documents the improved peace since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. It chiefly credits the end of the struggles of the ] and ]; but asserts also the underlying force of all the articles of the Kantian triad, which it calls interdependent. {{ref|HumanSecurityReport}} The improvement in the peace of the world since the end of the Cold War has been tabulated here. {{Ref|PostColdWar}}
Democracies have done harm to each other in ways short of full-scale war. Depending on the theory involved, these may not be counterexamples:


:{{Note|RayGowa}}<small> See Ray (1998) and Gowa ''Bullets and Ballots'' below. These are pro and con, respectively.
*civil wars within a democracy over legitimacy or sucession;
:{{note|MID}}<small> See {{Citepaper_version | Author=Wayman, Frank| Title=Incidence of Militarized Disputes Between Liberal States, 1816-1992| PublishYear=2002 | Version=Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, New Orleans, La., Mar. 23-27, 2002 | URL=http://www.isanet.org/noarchive/wayman.html}}; {{Citepaper_version | Author=Oneal, John R., and Bruce Russet | Title=Rule of Three, Let it Be? When More Really Is Better | PublishYear=2004 | Version=Revised version of paper presented at the annual meeting of the Peace Science Society| URL=http://www.saramitchell.org/russettoneal04.pdf}}; {{Journal reference url | Author=Beck, Nathaniel, Gary King, and Langche Zend | Title=Theory and Evidence in International Conflict: A Response to de Marchi, Gelpi, and Grynaviski | Journal=American Political Science Review | Year=2004 | Volume=98(2) | Pages= 379&ndash;389 | URL=http://www.nyu.edu/classes/nbeck/q2/toe-resp.pdf }}. For an argument that military conflicts between any two democracies are rarely repeated, see
*attacks by one democracy on anotherin such overwhelming force that there is no effective resistance,and thus few deaths in battle;
:{{Note|MID2}} <small>;
*covert conflict resulting in a change of regime on the losing side;
:{{note|PostColdWar}} {{Web reference | title=Global Conflict Trends | work=Center for Systematic Peace | url=http://members.aol.com/CSPmgm/conflict.htm| date=October 1| year=2005 }}
*attacks by an established democracy upon a newly declared one;
*proxy wars, in which a democracy helps non-democratic opponents of another democracy.


==Causes== ==Causes==
One idea is that liberal democracies have a common ] and that this creates good relations. However, there have been many wars between non-democracies that share a common culture. Democracies are however characterized by ], and therefore the inhabitants may be used to resolve disputes through ] rather than by force. This may reduce the use of force between democracies.<!-- could use a cite -->
"]," is a bedrock standard of ]. In order to bridge the gap from a statistical curiosity to a meaningful theory, the researcher must first identify a mechanism, and (ideally) make ] predictions based on that mechanism.


Another idea is that democracy gives influence to those most likely to be killed or wounded in wars, and their relatives and friends (and to those who pay the bulk of the war taxes). This was Kant's argument; and it is supported by the example of the ], in which the ] vetoed more than half the royal proposals for war. This monadic theory must, however, explain why democracies do attack non-democratic states. One explanation is that these democracies were threatened or otherwise were provoked by the non-democratic states. This idea would suggest that the relationship in the DPT became stronger when graphic movies and television made wars less romantic.<!-- could use a cite -->
There has been much research into possible mechanisms for a democratic peace. These do not, in general, depend on whether an absolute or statistical peace is being asserted. Many such explanations focus on the fact that the consent of the citizenry is necessary for a democracy to initiate and sustain a war. Even where ] allow the executive to act without legislative approval, public acceptance, at the least, is needed to avoid an electoral backlash.


] dismisses these as superficial, {{Ref|Social_field}} relying on ] and ]'s proposition that democracy involves a pervasive social mechanism (called a ''"social field"'') in which, "The primary mode of power is exchange, political system is democratic, and democratic government is but one of many groups and pyramids of power." In contrast, authoritarian systems involve a ''"social anti-field"'', " divides its members into those who command and those who must obey, thus creating a schism separating all members and dividing all issues, a latent conflict front along which violence can break out." Thus, the citizens of a democracy are habituated to compromise, conflict resolution, and to viewing unfavorable outcomes as temporary and/or tolerable.
Kant made the straightforward point that, since an absolute prince can order war "without the least sacrifice of the pleasures of his table, the chase, his country houses, his court functions, and the like", he will be likely to do so for light or trivial causes that the citizenry would never find sufficient. This, however, would explain why democracies prefer peace with all states, not just with each other. The wars of democracies with non-democracies must therefore be explained by other motives, such as provocations from reckless non-democratic states, or a belief that the two systems cannot peacefully co-exist.


Studies show that democratic states are more likely than autocratic states to win the wars. One explanation is that democracies, for internal political and economic reasons, have greater resources. This might mean that democratic leaders are unlikely to select other democratic states as targets because they perceive them to be particularly formidable opponents. One study finds that interstate wars have important impacts on the fate of political regimes, and that the probability that a political leader will fall from power in the wake of a lost war is particularly high in democratic states.{{ref|WarWinners}}
Other scholars suggest a theory of common ]: the citizens of democratic societies tend not to view the citizens of other democracies as enemies, and wars against other democracies are unlikely to get the necessary support. This resembles Kant's article of "hospitality", as do the economic arguments of Angell and Schumpeter.


A ] explanation is that the participation of the public and the open debate send clear and reliable information regarding the intentions of democracies to other states. In contrast, it is difficult to know the intentions of nondemocratic leaders, what effect concessions will have, and if promises will be kept. Thus there will be mistrust and unwillingness to make concessions if at least one of the parties in a dispute is a nondemocracy.{{ref|Game}}
A recent paper by Mousseau, Hegre and Oneal presents statistical evidence that the democratic peace is real, but that it only applies when there is substantial economic development (at least $1400 US ''per capita''). Moreover, the paper found that trade is also a significant force for peace, irrespective of the level of democracy. The paper goes on to note that the three factors of trade, development and democracy, are interrelated. This triad recalls the original Kantian theory, and Oneal has specifically acknowledged this in other works.


The book '']'' explains the democratic and also a related ] peace by the human tendency to classify other humans into ] and ].
Rummel dismisses all of these as superficial. ] and ] propose that democracy involves a pervasive social mechanism (called a ''"social field"'') in which, "The primary mode of power is exchange, political system is democratic, and democratic government is but one of many groups and pyramids of power." In contrast, authoritarian systems involve a ''"social anti-field"'', " divides its members into those who command and those who must obey, thus creating a schism separating all members and dividing all issues, a latent conflict front along which violence can break out." Thus, the citizens of a democracy are habituated to compromise, conflict resolution, and to viewing unfavorable outcomes as temporary and/or tolerable.


Another paper . presents the decision to go to war as a ]: the best outcome for both sides is peace, but it is better to attack than be attacked. The prisoner's dilemma is not a problem if both sides can observe the decision-making of the other; which (they argue) is true for both sides if the decisions are being made democratically, and so publicly. The paper only does the ]; it does not discuss whether modern democracies do in fact reach "open covenants openly arrived at".


==Criticisms==
==Statistical studies of DPTs==
Many different kinds of statistical analyses have been used on democratic peace theories. A ] was employed to evolve its own peace theory: it found the three Kantian variables of democracy, economic interdependence and ]s the most important, but that distance, common alliance, and power ratio were also significant.


There are at least four logically distinguishable classes of criticism of any theory of democratic peace.
Democracies do sometimes initiate wars against authoritarian states. Some argue that democracies usually enter these wars because they are provoked by authoritarian states. Several papers show that democracies are slightly, but significantly less involved in wars in general than others states, and that they also initiate wars less frequently than non-democratic states .


*That the theorist has not applied his criteria, for democracy or war or both, accurately to the historical record.
A recent theory is that democracies can be divided into "pacifist" and "militant". While both avoid attacking democracies, "militant" democracies have tendency to deep distrust and confrontational policies against dictatorships and may initiate wars against them. Most wars by democracies since 1950 have involved only four nations: the U.S., the U.K., Israel, and India .
*That the criteria are not reasonable. For example, critics may prefer that liberal democracy should exclude or include both of Germany and the ] at the time of WWI, rather than count one as democratic and the other non-democratic, when they were quite similar societies.
*That the theory may not actually mean very much, because it has limited its data below the level of significance, or because it promises only a limited peace, involving only a small class of states; for example, democracies have fought many offensive ] and ] wars.
*That it is not democracy itself but some other external factor(s) which happened to be associated with democratic states that explain the peace.
Often, the same theory will be seen as vulnerable to several of these criticisms at the same time.


===Specific historic cases===
==Criticisms==
Any theory of democratic peace must face certain difficult counter-examples. The theories which claim an absolute democratic peace solve the following problems by restricting the definition of democracy (and sometimes of war); the Kantian peace theories generally look for explanations in the absence of international pressure, trade, or prosperity; the other modern theories will observe that any tendency will, in the perversity of human affairs, have exceptions.
There are four logically distinguishable classes of criticism of any DPT:
*That its creator was not '''accurate''' in applying his criteria to the historical record.
*That the criteria are not '''appropriate''' in discussing the record.
*That the peace theory does not actually '''mean''' very much. For example, that it applies to few states (very few before the twentieth century), or doesn't actually limit their behavior to each other very much.
*That such peace as there has been between democracies is at least in part due to '''external causes'''.


Among those which have been mentioned are:
For example, almost all DPTs handle the ] by asserting that ] were not democracies because: the ] had the power to appoint his ministers, he and the General Staff made the decision for war, as did ] in ], and that many structural features of the ] made democratic institutions ineffective. ] raises very complex questions of how much power the ] had by 1914, and how much the ]s were answerable to the ] they had called.
*Athenian ], 415-413 BC
*], 1838
*] attack on the ], 1849
*], 1861-1865
*], 1879-1884
*], 1898
*], 1914-1918
*The state of war between ] and the Western ], 1941-1944
*Peru-Ecuador ], 1995
*The ], 1999


===Limited claims===
The first class of criticism argues either that Germany ''was'' a democracy (the ] was elected by universal suffrage, its votes of no confidence did cause governments to fall, and it did vote on whether to fund the war - which passed overwhelmingly), or at least that it was no less democratic than Britain (the 1911 elections enfranchised only 60% of the British male population, and most of the ] had no say in the decision at all). The second class prefers a border of 'democracy' that lies in the interval between both Germany and England, on the one end, and perfect democracy on the other; or between both of them and totalitarianism. (The DPT theorist Rummel has said that the word 'democracy' was not important to his argument; but his use of it has made his claim far more interesting.) The third class observes that any reasonable border which excludes Wilhelmine Germany also excludes almost all states before the Cold War. The fourth class explains the Cold War democratic peace as a special case.
This class of criticism is particularly cogent against the theories of ''absolute'' democratic peace, which claim that no two democracies have ever gone to war. These theorists accomplish this by arguing that the ], the ] republics, the ], and so on, were not real democracies for one or another reason.


When all these reasons are added up, few democracies remain, and the theory doesn't actually say all that much about them. Rummel's data, for example, consist largely of the following:
These tend to overlap, being in fact complementary criticisms, and many critics make more than one of them. It is particularly hard to tell the first two classes apart on 1914 Germany, since DPTs must reject it on qualitative, not numerical, grounds.
*From 1815 until the 1880's, there were at most three democratic states in his sense (the ], ] and ]). It is true they did not go to war, but some would ascribe this to geography.
*From then until 1904, there were several crises among the democratic powers, as among the others. The only war between any two Powers that resulted was the ], between a democracy and a borderline democracy (which side of the border depends on which edition of Ted Gurr's list you read).
*From 1904 on, ] has been allied with ]. Most other democracies were either allied with this ] or benevolently neutral.
*From 1945 to 1991, most of the world's democracies were allied against the ]; the remainder were few and isolated.
*Since 1991, there have been very few full-scale wars. None of that few have been between democracies.
Is, for example, the Entente to be explained by the democracy of the two Contracting Powers? Even the ] of 1884 fails to meet Rummell's stated criteria for democracy; and fails vastly short if the British Empire as a whole, or even India, is considered.


Even if it were so explained, is this handful of facts sufficient to count on a democratic peace forever?
===The Cold War peace===
The chief external cause, cited (with many other criticisms) in Joanne Gowa's ''Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace'', is that the structure of the international political system during the ] was responsible for creating the illusion of a democratic peace. At about the same time many of today's democracies came into existence, the ] divided much of the world into two systems of permanent institutionalized alliances. (Many states belonged to neither; chief among these was the ] after ].)


===Colonial wars and imperialism===
These critics ascribe the inter-democratic peace of the period to this structure of blocs: almost all the democracies of the Cold War were members of the Western bloc, and the members of that bloc abstained from attacking one another in a collective effort to contain Communism: which was perceived to be a far bigger threat than any intra-alliance conflict.
One criticism against a general peacefulness for liberal democracies is that they were involved in more colonial and imperialistic wars than other states during the 1816-1945 period. On the other hand, this relation disappears if controlling for factors like power and number of colonies. Liberal democracies have less of these wars than other states after 1945. This might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples, as embodied in the ].{{ref|Colonial}}


Related to this is the human rights violations committed against ], sometimes by liberal democracies. One response is that many of the worst crimes were committed by nondemocracies, like in the European colonies before the nineteenth century, in King ]'s privately owned ], and in ]'s ]. England abolished slavery in British territory in ], immediately after the ] had significantly increased democracy. (Of course, the abolition of the slave '''trade''' had begun under the Tories; and many DPT's would disclaim so undemocratic a state as Melbourne's England in other contexts.)
Not only was the system of alliances produced by this common interest; also, once it had come into existence, the relations between two members of the bloc were not permitted to decline into full-scale war; the alliance provided their common allies with the interest and the leverage to prevent it.


Many democratic peace theories implicitly or explicitly exclude the first years of democracies; for example, by requiring that the executive derive from genuinely contested elections, which would eliminate both administrations of ]. These theories are therefore perfectly compatible with, and not at all falsified by, established democracies preying upon nascent, attempted, proclaimed, or unstable democratic states.
There have been wars between members of other alliances, although one study finds that 88% of the treaties made in the last two centuries have been kept. This line of criticism need not claim that alliances prevent ''all'' wars; just that the ] alliance, and the common interest it represented, caused enough peace that the rest may be the result of other causes or of chance.


===External causes=== ===External causes===
Strictly speaking, the theory of a Kantian peace contradicts the absolute theories of democratic peace. If three factors are required for a perpetual peace, no one of them can be the only thing needed.
In addition to the external cause of the ], the democratic peace has been attributed to wealth, as above, and to geographic isolation. Some democratic peace theorists have controlled for these variables. Bremer (1992, 1993) controlled for contiguity, power status, alliance ties, militarization, economic development, and power ratios. Maoz & Russett (1992, 1993) and Russett (1993) controlled for contiguity, alliance ties, economic wealth and growth, political stability, and power ratios. They also studied the period from 1945 and 1986 and discounted all pairs that did not involve a major power or nations that were not geographically continuous. .


There has also been a confluence of the old theory (dating back to ] and ]) that ] will produce and ensure peace, with the modern theory that trade will produce democracy, or at least spread it to the non-democratic trading partner, as argued by ] and others. According to this, democracy and peace are indeed correlated, because they arise from a common cause, either common trade or common prosperity.
===Before the Cold War===


Other critics again argue that any apparent association between democracy and peace is an illusion, due in part to chance, and in part to peace being induced by other and transient causes. For example, Joanne Gowa observes that much of the data used to infer an absolute democratic peace consists of Western democracies not going to war with each other while allied against the Soviet Union, and argues that this offers limited hope that non-allied democracies will remain at peace. Other critics have ascribed the democratic peace to the relative isolation of democratic states (particularly those not part of the Western alliance). This again overlaps with the third category above, since there is also an argument that the relative peace of the twenty-first century (so far), is due to the completion of decolonization.
Before the ] and the First World War, there was a limited period during which France, Great Britain, and the United States were non-allied and democratic Great Powers. During this time, several disputes occurred between two of them. None led to war; but they were conducted as fiercely as many diplomatic conflicts involving a non-democratic state; and war was popular on both sides. Between the two World Wars, France and Britain were allies. The United States either acted as their ally, or did not act in international affairs at all.


As often on academic matters, these criticisms are disputed. Papers have been done claiming significant correlation, even after controlling for such variables. {{ref|ExternalCauses}}
===Since the Cold War===


==See also==
The ], released in October 2005 by the ], documents the improved peace since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. It chiefly credits the end of the struggles of the ] and ]; but asserts also the underlying force of all the articles of the Kantian triad, which it calls interdependent.
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

==Notes==

#{{note|Game}} {{Journal reference url | Author=Levy, Gilat, and Ronny Razin | Title=It Takes Two: An Explanation for the Democratic Peace | Journal=Journal of the European Economic Association | Year=2004 | Volume=2(1) | Pages= 1&ndash;29 | URL=https://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/pdf/jeea_2_1_1_0.pdf }}
#{{note|Counter}} {{Web reference | title=Annotated Bibliography | work=The Miracle That Is Freedom: The Solution to War, Violence, Genocide, and Poverty| url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MTF.ANNOTBIBLIO.HTM| date=October 3 | year=1995 }}
#{{note|Colonial}} {{Citepaper_version | Author=Ravlo, Hilde, and Nils Peter Glieditsch | Title=Colonial War and Globalization of Democratic Values| PublishYear=2000 | Version=Paper Presented to the Workshop on ‘Globalization and Armed Conflict’ at the Joint Session of Workshops, European Consortium for Political Research Copenhagen, 15–19 April 2000| URL=http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointsessions/paperarchive/copenhagen/ws18/ngleditsch_p.pdf }}
#{{note|GowaSupp}} {{Citepaper_publisher | Author=Beck, N., and Tucker R | Title=Democracy and Peace: General Law or Limited Phenomenon?| Publisher= Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association | PublishYear=1998 | URL=http://www.vanderbilt.edu/~rtucker/papers/dempeace/mwpsa98/}}
#{{Note|ExternalCauses}} For such critical papers see {{Citepaper_version | Author=Ray, James Lee | Title=Constructing Multivariate Analyses (of dangerous dyads) | PublishYear=2003 | Version=Revised version of paper presented at the annual meeting of the Peace Science Society| URL=http://www.saramitchell.org/ray05.pdf}}; {{Citepaper_version | Author=Oneal, John R., and Bruce Russet | Title=Rule of Three, Let it Be? When More Really Is Better | PublishYear=2004 | Version=Revised version of paper presented at the annual meeting of the Peace Science Society| URL=http://www.saramitchell.org/russettoneal04.pdf}}; {{Journal reference url | Author=Mousseau, Michael, and Yuhand Shi | Title=A Test for Reverse Causality in the Democratic Peace Relationship | Journal=Journal for Peace Research | Year=1999 | Volume=36(6) | Pages= 639&ndash;663 | URL=http://home.ku.edu.tr/~mmousseau/Mous_Shi_JPR_Nov99.pdf }};{{Journal reference url | Author=Reiter, D| Title=Does Peace Nature Democracy? | Journal=Journal of Politics| Year=2001 | Volume=63(3) | Pages= 935&ndash;948 | URL=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jopo/2001/00000063/00000003/art00095 }}; {{Journal reference url | Author=Reuveny, Rafael, and Quan Li | Title=The Joint Democracy–Dyadic Conflict Nexus: A Simultaneous Equations Model| Journal=Journal of Politics| Year=2003 | Volume=47 | Pages= 325&ndash;346 |URL=http://polisci.la.psu.edu/faculty/li/research_papers/paper_files/jointdem_isq_2003.pdf}}
#{{Note|HumanSecurity Report}} For which see the HSR


== References == ==References==
Most of the following are from Rummel's extensive :


* {{Citepaper_version | Author=Binningsbø, Helga Malmin| Title=Consociational Democracy and Postconflict Peace. Will Power-Sharing Institutions Increase the Probability of Lasting Peace after Civil War? | PublishYear=2005 | Version=Paper prepared for presentation at the 13th Annual National Political Science Conference, Hurdalsjøen, Norway, 5–7 January, 2005.| URL=http://www.statsvitenskap.uio.no/konferanser/nfkis/cr/Binningsbo.pdf}}
*Beck, Nathaniel, and Richard Tucker. Midwest Political Science Association: April 1998.
*Brown, Michael E., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. ''Debating the Democratic Peace''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 0262522136.
*
*Brown, Michael E., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. ''Debating the Democratic Peace''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. *Doyle, Michael W. ''Ways of War and Peace''. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. ISBN 0393969479.
*Gowa, Joanne. ''Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN 0691070229.
*Doyle, Michael W. ''Ways of War and Peace''. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
*{{Journal reference | Author=Hegre, Håvard, Tanja Ellington, Scott Gates, and Nils Petter Gleditsch | Title=Towards A Democratic Civil Peace? Opportunity, Grievance, and Civil War 1816-1992 | Journal=American Political Science Review | Year=2001 | Volume=95 | Pages=33&ndash;48| URL=http://www.worldbank.org/research/conflict/papers/peace.htm }}
*Gowa, Joanne. ''Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
*{{Journal reference | Author=Hensel, Paul R., Gary Goertz, and Paul F. Diehl | Title=The Democratice Peace and Rivalries | Journal=Journal of Politics | Year=2000 | Volume=64 | Pages= 1173&ndash;88 | URL=http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~phensel/Research/jop00.pdf }}
*Huth, Paul K., et al. ''The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century''. Cambridge University Press: 2003. ISBN 0521805082. *Huth, Paul K., et al. ''The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century''. Cambridge University Press: 2003. ISBN 0521805082.
*{{Citepaper | Author=Kant, Immanuel | Title=Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch | PublishYear=1795 | URL=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm }}
*Levy, Jack S. &#8220;Domestic Politics and War.&#8221; ''Journal of Interdisciplinary History'', Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 653-673.
* {{Journal reference |First = David |Last= Leblang|Coauthor= Steve Chan | Title=Explaining Wars Fought by Established Democracies: Do Institutional Constraints Matter? | Journal= Political Research Quarterly | Year=2003 | Volume=56 | Pages= 385&ndash;400 | URL=http://www.prq.uncc.edu/December_2003abs.htm }}
*Lipson, Charles. ''Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace''. Princeton University Press: 2003. ISBN 0691113904. *Lipson, Charles. ''Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace''. Princeton University Press: 2003. ISBN 0691113904.
* {{Journal reference | Author=Müller, Harald | Title=The Antinomy of Democratic Peace | Journal=International Politics | Year=2004 | Volume=41(4) | Pages= 494&ndash;520 | URL=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/pal/ip/2004/00000041/00000004/art00003 }}
*
* {{Citepaper_version | Author=Müller, Harald, and Jonas Wolff | Title=Dyadic Democratic Peace Strikes Back| PublishYear=2004 | Version=Paper prepared for presentation at the 5th Pan-European International Relations Conference The Hague, September 9-11, 2004| URL=http://www.sgir.org/conference2004/papers/Mueller%20Wolff%20-%20Dyadic%20Democratic%20Peace%20Strikes%20Back.pdf}}
*Plourde, Shawn May, 2004
*{{Journal reference | Author=Oneal, John R., and Bruce Russet | Title=The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations| Journal=World Politics | Year=1999 | Volume=52(1) | Pages= 1&ndash;37 | URL=http://www.yale.edu/unsy/brussett/KantianPeaceWP.pdf }}
* {{Journal reference | Author=Owen, John M., IV | Year=2005| Title=Iraq and the Democratic Peace | Journal=Foreign Affairs | Issue = Nov.-Dec. 2005|URL=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101fareviewessay84611/john-m-owen-iv/iraq-and-the-democratic-peace.html }}
*Ray, James Lee. ''Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition''. University of South Carolina Press: 1998. ISBN 1570032416. *Ray, James Lee. ''Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition''. University of South Carolina Press: 1998. ISBN 1570032416.
*Ray, James Lee. ''Annual Review of Political Science'' 1998:1, 27-46
*Rummel, R.J. ''Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence''. Transaction Publishers: 2003. ISBN 0765805235. *Rummel, R.J. ''Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence''. Transaction Publishers: 2003. ISBN 0765805235.
*Russett, Bruce & Oneal, John R. ''Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations''. W. W. Norton & Company: 2001. ISBN 039397684X.
*Rummel, R.J.
* {{Journal reference | Author=Russet, B., and J.R. Oneal, and D. R. David | Title=The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod for Peace: International Organizations and Militarized Disputes, 1950–85 | Journal=International Organization| Year=1998 | Volume=52(3) | Pages= 441&ndash;467 | URL=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mitpress/io/1998/00000052/00000003/art00001}}
*Russett, Bruce. ''Grasping the Democratic Peace''. Princeton University Press: 1994. ISBN 0691001642.
*Weart, Spencer R. ''Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another''. Yale University Press: 2000. ISBN 0300082983.
*Russett, Bruce and John R. O'Neal: ''Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations'' . New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
*Schwartz, Thomas, and Kiron Skinner. ''The Wall Street Journal''. January 7, 1999.


==External links== ==External links==
*
*

===Supportive=== ===Supportive===
* *
*
*
* a moderated webchat with ] hosted by the ], International Information Program. *
* a moderated webchat with ] hosted by the ], International Information Program.


===Critical=== ===Critical===
*
*
*
*


] ]
] ]
] ]
]

==See also==
*]
*]
*]


] ]

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A democratic peace theory or simply democratic peace (often DPT and sometimes democratic pacifism) is a theory in international relations, political science, and Philosophy which holds that democracies—specifically, liberal democracies—never or almost never go to war with one another. A more general version is that all kinds of systematic violence is rare in and by liberal democracies. It can trace its philosophical roots to Immanuel Kant.

History

Main article: Perpetual peace
Immanuel Kant

At least partly because of the low frequency of democratic governments, and of sociologists, before the 19th century, democratic peace theory is a relatively new development. No ancient author seems to have considered it true.

In early modern times, the word democracy usually meant direct democracy, which was treated with suspicion. Even the idea that republics tend to be peaceful is recent; Nicolo Machiavelli believed that republics were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders, citing Rome as the prime example. Interesingly, Islamic tradition holds that peace will prevail within the dar al-Islam or "house of submission" to the faith, but war, including jihad, beyond that zone.

Immanuel Kant, in his essay Perpetual Peace (1795), affirmed that responsible governments would not lightly go to war with each other, although he thought that this was only one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace. The hope of a democratic peace was the content of the First World War slogan: "a war to end all war" (originated by H.G. Wells). Woodrow Wilson's policy for the Versailles settlement was largely based on all three planks of Kant's program.

In 1964, Dean Babst, a Wisconsin criminologist, published the first theory of democratic peace; he published two papers in obscure journals and were ognored. The first prominent DPT was stated by R. J. Rummel, of the University of Hawaii, beginning in the middle seventies. Thereafter, an increasing amount of research has been done on the theory and related subjects. (For the numerous researchers on the subject, see Rummel's bibliography, under External links.)

Presidents of both the major American parties have expressed support for the theory. Former President Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party: "Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other." Current President George W. Bush of the Republican Party: "And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy." However, such use of democratic peace theory to justify a foreign policy that includes military action, such as the 2003 Iraq War, has proved controversial.

Kant:Perpetual peace(1795)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/states/docs/sou94.htm. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |PublishYear= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help)
"President and Prime Minister Blair Discussed Iraq, Middle East". October 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
Owen 2005)

Types of Theories

Monadic theories claim that democracies tend to conduct their affairs more peaceably, whether with other democracies or not. More general theories developed from the monadic version claim that two democracies are less likely to make war on each other than other pairs of states. A recent paper claims that democracies fight fewer wars, start fewer wars and lesser conflcts, and reach more negotiated settlements.

Dyadic theories claim that democracies are more peaceable with each other; but make various assertions about their relations to other states. Separate peace theories claim that democracies are more likely to go to war with non-democracies. The militant democracy theory divides democracies into militant and pacifist types. Militant democracies have a tendency to distrust and use confrontational policies against dictatorships, which could actually make war more likely between a democracy and a non-democracy than in the case of relations between two non-democracies. Moreover, a democratic crusade corollary suggests that the belief in the validity DPT itself could become a cause of war. In the case of the United States intervention in World War I and recent invasion of Iraq, the promise of democratization bringing an end to war was used as a justification for war.

Some dyadic theories, such as those forwarded by Babst, Singer, Rummel and Doyle claim that democracies, properly defined, have never made war on each other. (Rummel also classifies 155 of the wars since Waterloo as between democracies and non-democracies, 198 as between non-democracies. Given the limited number of democracies he acknowledges, democracies have, in his view, gone to war more often than other states, but not with each other.) These theorists then argue that there are special reasons why wars between democracies do not occur.

Some democratic peace theorists also hold that violence, especially mass violence, is less common within democracies. The most democratic and the most authoritarian states have few civil wars, and intermediate regimes the most. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in turn are less stable than democracies, durable democracy is the most probable end-point of the process of democratization.

Müller and Wulf (2004)
Hegre et al. (2001)

Claims

A democratic peace theory has to define what it means by "democracy" and what it means by "peace" (or, more often, "war"), and what it claims as the link between the two.

Democracy

Democratic peace theorists have used different terms for the class of states they consider peaceable; Babst called them elective, Rummell liberal democracies, Doyle liberal regimes. In general, these require not only that the government and legislature be chosen by free and genuinely contested elections, but more besides. Many researchers have used the Polity Data Set which scores states for democracy on a continuous scale for every year from 1800 to 2003; as well as others. Some recent papers have found that proportional representation is associated with less external and internal systematic violence.

Such additional data sources include the "Conflict Data Set". Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. October 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help) and "Data". Peter D. Watson Center for Conflict and Cooperation. October 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
Binningsbø (2005); Leblang and Chan (2003)

War

Many theorists have used the convenient list at the Correlates of War Project at the University of Michigan, which compiled the wars from 1816 to 1991 with at least a thousand battlefield deaths. This data is particularly convenient for statistical analysis, and the large-scale statistical studies cited below have generally used this definition. (Also the Falklands War, although it killed only 910 (or 936, or 960) soldiers, satisfied most other criteria to be a full-scale war, and a few dozen deaths should not exclude it.)

See their site.

Kantian peace

Kant's plan for a perpetual peace included more than a government answerable to the people. He proposed a League of Nations to keep the peace; and a right to "hospitality" which should be recognized everywhere. This latter was a freedom of international travel and commerce, in some ways resembling the Schengen Treaty. (He also proposed preliminary confidence-building measures, including disarmament; but these were a means rather than an end.)

Several theorists, led by Bruce Russet and John R. Oneal and have found multiple causes for such general peace as we have seen; quite often three which resemble Kant's. (The last is sometimes world prosperity rather than freedom of trade or travel, which are harder to measure.) Several of these theorists call their result the Kantian peace.

See Russett & Oneal Triangulating Peace and the preliminary papers Russet et al. (1998); Oneal and Russet (1999)

Statistical Studies

There have been numerous statistical studies in the field. Many have claimed support for some theory of democratic peace; many have denied any such support. However, democratic peace theories are highly controversial, and the findings of individual studies are often vigorously disputed.

Studies have also argued that lesser conflicts (Militarized Interstate Disputes in the jargon) have been more violent, but less bloody, and less likely to spread. Most such disputes involving democracies since 1950 have involved only four nations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and India.

The Human Security Report, released in October 2005 by the Human Security Centre, documents the improved peace since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. It chiefly credits the end of the struggles of the Cold War and decolonization; but asserts also the underlying force of all the articles of the Kantian triad, which it calls interdependent. The improvement in the peace of the world since the end of the Cold War has been tabulated here.

See Ray (1998) and Gowa Bullets and Ballots below. These are pro and con, respectively.
See Template:Citepaper version; Template:Citepaper version; Template:Journal reference url. For an argument that military conflicts between any two democracies are rarely repeated, see Hensel et al. 2000
Müller 2004; Müller and Wolff 2004
"Global Conflict Trends". Center for Systematic Peace. October 1. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

Causes

One idea is that liberal democracies have a common culture and that this creates good relations. However, there have been many wars between non-democracies that share a common culture. Democracies are however characterized by rule of law, and therefore the inhabitants may be used to resolve disputes through arbitration rather than by force. This may reduce the use of force between democracies.

Another idea is that democracy gives influence to those most likely to be killed or wounded in wars, and their relatives and friends (and to those who pay the bulk of the war taxes). This was Kant's argument; and it is supported by the example of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in which the Sejm vetoed more than half the royal proposals for war. This monadic theory must, however, explain why democracies do attack non-democratic states. One explanation is that these democracies were threatened or otherwise were provoked by the non-democratic states. This idea would suggest that the relationship in the DPT became stronger when graphic movies and television made wars less romantic.

R. J. Rummel dismisses these as superficial, relying on Kurt Lewin and Andrew Ushenko's proposition that democracy involves a pervasive social mechanism (called a "social field") in which, "The primary mode of power is exchange, political system is democratic, and democratic government is but one of many groups and pyramids of power." In contrast, authoritarian systems involve a "social anti-field", " divides its members into those who command and those who must obey, thus creating a schism separating all members and dividing all issues, a latent conflict front along which violence can break out." Thus, the citizens of a democracy are habituated to compromise, conflict resolution, and to viewing unfavorable outcomes as temporary and/or tolerable.

Studies show that democratic states are more likely than autocratic states to win the wars. One explanation is that democracies, for internal political and economic reasons, have greater resources. This might mean that democratic leaders are unlikely to select other democratic states as targets because they perceive them to be particularly formidable opponents. One study finds that interstate wars have important impacts on the fate of political regimes, and that the probability that a political leader will fall from power in the wake of a lost war is particularly high in democratic states.

A game-theoretic explanation is that the participation of the public and the open debate send clear and reliable information regarding the intentions of democracies to other states. In contrast, it is difficult to know the intentions of nondemocratic leaders, what effect concessions will have, and if promises will be kept. Thus there will be mistrust and unwillingness to make concessions if at least one of the parties in a dispute is a nondemocracy.

The book Never at War explains the democratic and also a related oligarchic peace by the human tendency to classify other humans into ingroup and outgroup.


Criticisms

There are at least four logically distinguishable classes of criticism of any theory of democratic peace.

  • That the theorist has not applied his criteria, for democracy or war or both, accurately to the historical record.
  • That the criteria are not reasonable. For example, critics may prefer that liberal democracy should exclude or include both of Germany and the United Kingdom at the time of WWI, rather than count one as democratic and the other non-democratic, when they were quite similar societies.
  • That the theory may not actually mean very much, because it has limited its data below the level of significance, or because it promises only a limited peace, involving only a small class of states; for example, democracies have fought many offensive colonial and imperialistic wars.
  • That it is not democracy itself but some other external factor(s) which happened to be associated with democratic states that explain the peace.

Often, the same theory will be seen as vulnerable to several of these criticisms at the same time.

Specific historic cases

Any theory of democratic peace must face certain difficult counter-examples. The theories which claim an absolute democratic peace solve the following problems by restricting the definition of democracy (and sometimes of war); the Kantian peace theories generally look for explanations in the absence of international pressure, trade, or prosperity; the other modern theories will observe that any tendency will, in the perversity of human affairs, have exceptions.

Among those which have been mentioned are:

Limited claims

This class of criticism is particularly cogent against the theories of absolute democratic peace, which claim that no two democracies have ever gone to war. These theorists accomplish this by arguing that the Confederate States of America, the Boer republics, the Second French Republic, and so on, were not real democracies for one or another reason.

When all these reasons are added up, few democracies remain, and the theory doesn't actually say all that much about them. Rummel's data, for example, consist largely of the following:

  • From 1815 until the 1880's, there were at most three democratic states in his sense (the United States, Switzerland and San Marino). It is true they did not go to war, but some would ascribe this to geography.
  • From then until 1904, there were several crises among the democratic powers, as among the others. The only war between any two Powers that resulted was the Spanish-American War, between a democracy and a borderline democracy (which side of the border depends on which edition of Ted Gurr's list you read).
  • From 1904 on, Great Britain has been allied with France. Most other democracies were either allied with this Entente or benevolently neutral.
  • From 1945 to 1991, most of the world's democracies were allied against the Soviet Union; the remainder were few and isolated.
  • Since 1991, there have been very few full-scale wars. None of that few have been between democracies.

Is, for example, the Entente to be explained by the democracy of the two Contracting Powers? Even the Third Reform Bill of 1884 fails to meet Rummell's stated criteria for democracy; and fails vastly short if the British Empire as a whole, or even India, is considered.

Even if it were so explained, is this handful of facts sufficient to count on a democratic peace forever?

Colonial wars and imperialism

One criticism against a general peacefulness for liberal democracies is that they were involved in more colonial and imperialistic wars than other states during the 1816-1945 period. On the other hand, this relation disappears if controlling for factors like power and number of colonies. Liberal democracies have less of these wars than other states after 1945. This might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples, as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Related to this is the human rights violations committed against native people, sometimes by liberal democracies. One response is that many of the worst crimes were committed by nondemocracies, like in the European colonies before the nineteenth century, in King Leopold II of Belgium's privately owned Congo Free State, and in Stalin's Soviet Union. England abolished slavery in British territory in 1833, immediately after the First Reform Bill had significantly increased democracy. (Of course, the abolition of the slave trade had begun under the Tories; and many DPT's would disclaim so undemocratic a state as Melbourne's England in other contexts.)

Many democratic peace theories implicitly or explicitly exclude the first years of democracies; for example, by requiring that the executive derive from genuinely contested elections, which would eliminate both administrations of George Washington. These theories are therefore perfectly compatible with, and not at all falsified by, established democracies preying upon nascent, attempted, proclaimed, or unstable democratic states.

External causes

Strictly speaking, the theory of a Kantian peace contradicts the absolute theories of democratic peace. If three factors are required for a perpetual peace, no one of them can be the only thing needed.

There has also been a confluence of the old theory (dating back to Richard Cobden and Benjamin Constant) that Free Trade will produce and ensure peace, with the modern theory that trade will produce democracy, or at least spread it to the non-democratic trading partner, as argued by Houshang Amiramahdi and others. According to this, democracy and peace are indeed correlated, because they arise from a common cause, either common trade or common prosperity.

Other critics again argue that any apparent association between democracy and peace is an illusion, due in part to chance, and in part to peace being induced by other and transient causes. For example, Joanne Gowa observes that much of the data used to infer an absolute democratic peace consists of Western democracies not going to war with each other while allied against the Soviet Union, and argues that this offers limited hope that non-allied democracies will remain at peace. Other critics have ascribed the democratic peace to the relative isolation of democratic states (particularly those not part of the Western alliance). This again overlaps with the third category above, since there is also an argument that the relative peace of the twenty-first century (so far), is due to the completion of decolonization.

As often on academic matters, these criticisms are disputed. Papers have been done claiming significant correlation, even after controlling for such variables.

See also

Notes

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  2. "Annotated Bibliography". The Miracle That Is Freedom: The Solution to War, Violence, Genocide, and Poverty. October 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
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  5. For such critical papers see Template:Citepaper version; Template:Citepaper version; Template:Journal reference url;Template:Journal reference url; Template:Journal reference url
  6. For which see the HSR website

References

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  • Brown, Michael E., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. Debating the Democratic Peace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 0262522136.
  • Doyle, Michael W. Ways of War and Peace. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. ISBN 0393969479.
  • Gowa, Joanne. Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN 0691070229.
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  • Huth, Paul K., et al. The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press: 2003. ISBN 0521805082.
  • http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |PublishYear= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help)
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  • Lipson, Charles. Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace. Princeton University Press: 2003. ISBN 0691113904.
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  • Ray, James Lee. Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition. University of South Carolina Press: 1998. ISBN 1570032416.
  • Rummel, R.J. Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence. Transaction Publishers: 2003. ISBN 0765805235.
  • Russett, Bruce & Oneal, John R. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. W. W. Norton & Company: 2001. ISBN 039397684X.
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  • Weart, Spencer R. Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another. Yale University Press: 2000. ISBN 0300082983.

External links

Supportive

Critical

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