Are Democratic States More Peaceful?

In his book, Fareed Zakaria concretely explores the vicissitudes of democracy’s limitations and thus offers exemplary arguments for the need for economic liberty followed by constraints and proper measures to prevent countries from descending into chaos. There is irrefutable credibility and merit to his assertion that conducting competitively fair and open elections, while failing to ensure the guarantee of liberties that are essential for the nation to flourish and prosper— is insufficient for a nation to be called democratic. In today’s world, what Zakaria considers “the democratic age,” most of American foreign policy visa-vie actors around the world is based on the premise that we are willing to prop, negotiate, and support nations

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

The type of government rule is an explanation for the invasion of Iraq that goes against the economic structure argument, that is the idea that whether states are democratic or not affects the way that states interact (Bova, 2012). Democratic peace theory suggests that democratic countries are less prone to engage in war than those that are non-democratic. As political scientist James Fearon argued, democracies have an advantage when it comes to crisis bargaining, democratic leaders when taking a stand during an international crisis cannot easily back down without backlash from the citizens at home. As a result, opposing states understand that the democratic leaders cannot make hollow threats and should be taken seriously (Bova, 2012).

Liberal or democratic peace theory has points in favor of its argument but it also counts with flaws and weaknesses. For example, the theory analyses the relation between liberal states and between liberal states and non-liberal states, leaving aside a clear explanation of why non-liberal states have a tendency to go to war higher than liberal ones or the relation between non-liberals. Additionally, it does not take into consideration that “non-democracies are just as capable of establishing peace both amongst themselves and also with democracies” (Tziarras, 2012). Another flaw identified by many critics to the theory is that there is no sufficient statistical evidence to demonstrate that democracies never, or hardly ever, go to war among

Democracy has become the most widespread political form of government during the past decade, after the fall of all its alternatives. During the second part of the 20th century, the 3 main enemies of democracy, namely communism, fascism and Nazism, lost most of their power and influence. However, democracy is still only to be found in less than half of this world's countries. China with a fifth of the total population "had never experienced a democratic government" and Russia still doesn't have a well established democracy. By adopting a democratic perspective, 3 types of governments emerge, non-democratic, new democracies, and old democracies, and all have a different challenge to overcome: either to become democratic, to "consolidate"

Many different explanations have been brought forth to explain why democracies do not fight one another . Among academics, the most prominent theories can be divided among three schools of thought: liberal institutionalist, realist, and liberal constructivist. Beyond academia, often-simplified interpretations of these theories have guided many Great Powers’ foreign policy decisions. This paper will first seek to outline what most academics agree to be the empirical correlations between democracies and war. This paper will then outline and examine the competing theories behind the Democratic Peace. This paper will argue that although some of the realist critiques are plausible and should not be entirely dismissed, the liberal constructivist theories offer the most accurate explanation of why the Democratic Peace exists. This paper will finish by examining the foreign policy implications of this thesis, with reference to recent and potentially future military engagements undertaken by today’s democratic Great Powers.

Initially, I found the Democratic Peace Theory to seem hypocritical and backwards, but continuing to read more throughout the chapter, the conclusion that came, was that this theory actually makes a compelling argument. However, the fact that democracy leaders will wage war in the efforts of building more democratic systems, often referred to as expanding the “zone of peace”, in hopes for attaining worldwide peace among the states, was the exact portion that seemed hypocritical. The compelling part of the argument, as previously mentioned, is based on the “Dyadic Model” of the democratic peace theory that stresses three supporting arguments: the structural argument, the normative argument,

1. The United States has a high priority on subsidizing farmers. By giving farmers subsidies, the United States can ensure self sustainability. The Farmers also have a huge lobby that helps protect the farming industry. The United States was giving cotton farmers subsidies that were seen by many other countries as giving U.S. cotton farmers an advantage over other cotton farmers internationally.

The Democratic Peace has become one of the most compelling theories in political science. The notice supports the claim that there is an absence of war between democracies. Many individuals have tested the reason for the lack of war is due to the role of public opinion. Democratic leaders are under an obligation to citizens of a democratic nation. Dating back to the days of Immanuel Kant, the subject of war has debated amongst scholars and writers alike. Those who are against any sort of physical activity that is warlike reinforce the main argument of the human and financial burdens of war. This then supports the idea that, overall, democracies behave peacefully. Although, this so-called peaceful behavior is not strongly correlated with other

While it is well known that democratic states are just as likely to go to war as their non-democratic counterparts and that no two major democracies have been involved in war, no one has been able to offer an explanation for why democracies are better suited for peace. Dixon attempts to offer his own narrowed explanation due to previous arguments being rendered invalid.

3. The democratic peace theory indicates that a war will never happen between two democracies. There is some few strength in this theory. Firstly, the democratic is obligated to the people from that country, which means that the ruler needs to get permission from the citizens on a decision about war, they cannot act on their own. Of course, people don’t like to go war. Further, there is a shared value among democratic countries. For instance, the U.S and the United Kingdom don’t compete against the other, while the U.S and North Korean are in the different story. A country without democracy based shares a little common background with the other. Finally, democracy countries are wealthier than those who are not. The evidence shows that countries

In the text Three Paradoxes of Democracy, Larry Diamond presents his ideas and theories of how democracy should be working, and which parts of systems are contradictory and therefore, stagnating. The year 1990 was a turning point for democracy, when except for the post-Communist countries, also God-forgotten places like Burma, Mongolia, Nepal or Zaire gained freedom from authocratic regimes and started to build democracies. Shortly they have realized that democracy is the most difficulti system to maintain because it rests on minimum of coercion and maximum consent. This is especially hard to reach in countries which were always used to resolve their conflicts through military repression or executions.

US Presidents have made it a goal during their term(s) in office to establish a good relationship with foreign countries and even try to improve upon existing connections with our allies. Some believe it is to prevent conflicts between the countries while others dispute that it is a threat assessment by the United States to pick and choose their friends and enemies. Preventing conflict between two democracies or countries that practice democracy is called Democratic Peace Theory. However, research has begun to show that Democratic Peace Theory is ineffective and needs to be brought to an end as a model for how international relations are formed or destroyed. Democratic Peace Theory needs to be abolished as a support for forming

The idea of a lasting, ideally global, peace has been present in the minds of people for centuries. The most notable formulation of this is Kant’s vision of perpetual peace. “He saw it as a condition that needed to be maintained by politics between states with governments which represented society and separation of power. From this basic framework stems the idea called “democratic peace theory” (pg. 82). Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) asserts that democracies do not generally fight other democracies because they share common norms and domestic institutions that constrain international, state actors from going to war. Sebastian Rosato states, “In practical terms democratic peace theory provides the intellectual justification for the belief

A separation of power requires leader to secure the legislative approval and funding of war. Such institutional constraints make democratic leaders accountable for bad decisions make democracies reluctant to go to war.4 In addition, the regular rotation of office in democracies ensures that personal animosities among leaders will not last long. As such, the institutional explanation stresses that violent conflicts between democracies will be limited because in democracies, the constraints of checks and balances, division of power, and need for public debates to garner widespread support will primarily slow decisions to use large-scale violence and reduce the likelihood that such decisions will be made. Leaders of democracies will perceive each other as equally constrained by domestic hierarchies. As such, leaders of democracies will expect, in conflicts with other democracies, time for processes of international conflict resolution to operate, and they will downplay the probability of a surprise attack. 5 The above two explanations on democratic peace are in fact complementary and overlapping where culture influences the creation and evolution of political institutions, and institutions shape the culture.6