Democratic Peace Theory
The idea that democracies do not fight each other can be traced back to the writings of Immanuel Kant over two hundred years ago in essay ‘On Perpetual Peace’, however, only in the early 1980s and with the writings of Michael Doyle was the idea consolidated. According to Doyle and other advocates of the democratic peace theory, liberal democratic states have been able to maintain peaceful relations amongst themselves, but are prone to wage war against non-democratic regimes. In order to prove this theory, vast databases have been constructed of historical dyadic relationships between states as well as detailed breakdowns of incidents of inter-state war. The conclusions reached are best shown in the work of Bruce Russett who has argued that alleged wars between democracies (most of which took place in the 19th century) do not meet the criteria for a democracy or for war. These criteria of course are those (conveniently) chosen by Russett. He defines a democracy as a “system of government with a voting franchise for a substantial fraction of citizens” and war is defined by Russett as an “interstate activity with one thousand battle fatalities”. Furthermore, Russett’s data claims to show that since the end of World War II, democratic dyads have not only been able to avoid war, but are less likely to threaten to use force in the settlement of their disputes. So today, the democratic peace theory emerges almost as a truism, democracies don’t fight other democracies, “it is the closest thing we have to empirical law in the study of international relations” says Levy. However, the idea that liberal democracies do not fight other liberal democracies may be a case of false causation. For example we could say ˝fire and the presence of fire engines are closely connected, however we don’t accuse fire engines of causing fire.˝
There are two reasons why liberals make this false conclusion; first are the institutional constraints that argue that democratic governments are
There are two reasons why liberals make this false conclusion; first are the institutional constraints that argue that democratic governments are
Bibliography: Layne, C. (1994). The myth of the democratic peace . International Security , 5-49. Owen, J. (1994). How liberalism produces democratic peace. International Security, 87-125 Pugh, J. (2005). Democratic peace theory: A review and evaluation, CEMPROC working paper series Ray, J. (1998). Does democracy cause peace?