Democratic Peace

In being so, liberalism possesses both economic and political components. Economic liberalism argues that, increasing economic interdependence would lead to a more peaceful international realm. Political liberalism bases itself on the belief that ‘A just world order assumes the establishment of republics ’. Thus, political liberalism as practiced by the United States during Cold War becomes a critical proponent of democracy promotion by noting that overlapping national interests will allow for a tamer international environment, engendering the notion that democracies do not engage in wars. Although democracy as interpreted by liberal theory on its own does not lead to free market, it may create the necessary infrastructure for such an event to occur. The promotion of democracy, to a great extent, increases economic interdependence through the alignment of core national values and therefore decreasing the probability of hegemony between the states. However, The notion of liberalism was undermined in the literature of the United States foreign policy after the Cold War. Even though the states were economically interdependent during the Cold War yet they engaged in rivalry for resources to the extent that if, assumingly, the “World Trade Organization” came to be perceived as a corrupt institution,

The Democratic peace thesis, whose basic concepts were studied by Kant in the 1700s, is the theory that suggests that democracies have been pacific in their relations with one other and are unlikely to go to war with another democracy. “Democracies rarely fight each other (an empirical statement) because (b) they have other means of resolving conflicts between them and therefore do not need to fight each other (a prudential statement),and (c) they perceive that democracies should not fight each other (a normative statement about principles of right behavior), which reinforces the empirical state¬ment. By this reasoning the more democracies there are in the world, the fewer potential adversaries we and other democracies will have and the wider the zone of peace.” russet

Current Issues, 35th edition, examines both the pros and cons of spreading democracy. This text explains that promoting democracy is in the U.S. national interest because democracy creates a safer, more stable world. Democratic nations cooperate with other nations and the U.S. better because they are more answerable to their citizens. The text also claims that such nations will deny terrorists from a base from which to plan and carry out attacks.

We have all heard the terms “right wing conservatives” and “left wing liberals,” but many people are not quite sure which wing is correct. Although both sides have good arguments for separate issues, in my opinion, liberalism should be guiding our thinking when it comes to our economic ways, and political rights; liberalism is the root of our American soil. Many people believe that steering away from liberalism is the right way to create change, and build upon our freedoms, but by returning to what our country was built upon, we can continue the aim of a free, fair and prosperous society. This paper will guide you through the two main phases of liberalism: classical and modern; their manifestations; and how as a democracy, liberalism represents a strategy practical for a free society.

The Democratic War Thesis argues a direct connection between democracy and inter-state conflict. This argument, is however, split between a strong and weak variant, with the former claiming that by nature, democracies are prone to war, while the latter notes democratic norms and structures that offer avenues for conflict, as to facilitate war (653). Bell points out that as the U.S. public called for war against Spain, “The people, it turned

Since the French Revolution, America has been actively pursuing promotion of democracy on a global scale. The desire to build inclusive political processes globally by America has an underlying motive of economic gain, veiled by the promotion of general liberties and civil rights. Democratic nations are more likely to honor international treaties, participate in global economic interactions, uphold the right to civil liberties, and less likely to engage in conflict. However, due to conflicting platforms of major parties and integral political leaders and representatives, the implementation of plans to promote democracy are consistently vetoed or are weak in practice. This fault of democracy promotion can be significantly attributed to divided government.

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

Assuming that in this instance peaceful means without disagreement, then I believe that it is highly improbable for the two branches to govern together peacefully even if both parts have the same party let alone separate ones. Whether one believes in nature or nurture, people are going to be highly individual with their own beliefs and morals, and in consequence, there are going to be differences in those beliefs that cause conflict even in individuals who fall under the same category(e.g. Republican).

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,

Written around 1971, Chinua Achebe’s short story “Civil Peace” highlights the themes of optimism and thankfulness for life. In this tale, a confidently optimistic man, Jonathan Iwegbu, lives through the Nigerian Civil war as well as his wife and three out of his four children. After working hard because of all he has lost in the Civil War, he was being held hostage by thieves for twenty pounds of reward money, which makes him realize the importance of what is happening in the present rather than regretting all that has happened during the war. Chinua Achebe develops characterization using the methods of characterization, character traits, and significance of the traits of Jonathan to illustrate when challenges confront people, they make right decisions if they have an optimistic attitude. Achebe develops characterization through methods of characterization.

According to the theory of Democratic Peace, since democratic leaders have a larger wining coalitions, in order to keep in office, they need to gain support from selectorate, and “democratic leaders facing with war are more inclined to shift extra resources into the war effort than are autocrats”. “In addition to trying harder, democrats are more selective in their choice of targets” and “democrats only initiate wars they expect to win.” As a generalization, it is an empirical law that “democracies do not fight wars with one another”. On the contrary, with a small winning coalition, non-democrats leaders are facing “less risk of being deposed than are their democratic counterparts”, therefore, they are not constrained by the selectorate and they are inclined to choose war when the expected benefit is larger than the cost of conflict, or larger than the benefit from negotiation. This may lead to the conclusion that non-democrats are more likely to have conflicts with other countries.

While we will not be directly supporting the rebels on the ground, we will support the rebels in their overthrow bid, giving the Syrian people a new home for democracy.

The greatest contribution I hope to make in this paper is a deeper understanding of how democracies choose and fight wars. Due to time constraints, this paper is only addressing one case study that deals with two wars. As in any case study the results are limited to that particular case. However, the research creates more in depth examination over the arguments by Stam and Reiter and, in a more general sense, attempts to analyze propositions made by democratic theorist.

"Democratic peace theory is a theory which posits that democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict with other identified democracies"(Michael Doyle,1983).Democratic peace theory holds that because of political and cultural similarity and limits of democracy mechanisms in democratic countries, in international relations, a majority of democratic countries would perfer to choose negotiations or other peaceful ways to resolve the dispute. rested on these factors, democratic countries could sustain the so-called "peaceful state". In contrast, this peaceful state would not exist between non-democratic countries.

To date, though, notably few studies have investigated whether democratic publics are more hesitant to attack democracies than autocracies.Moreover, the small body of actual work has not computed for variables that could confound the relationship bounded by shared democracy and public support for war, nor has it explored the mechanisms by which the regime nature of the adversary affects the public mood. Despite decades of inquisition on the democratic peace, we still lack convincing documentation about whether and how public opinion contributes to the absence of war among democracies. The leaders who make the ultimate decisions about war and peace in democracies have powerful impetus to respect the opinions of citizens. Public opinion matters for several reasons. First, leaders who disappoint or antagonize their constituents risk being removed from office. While early research believe that public opinion on foreign policy was incoherent (Almond 1960) and that politics “stopped at the water’s edge” (Wildavsky 1966), this interpretation has been supplanted by many other studies showing that mass opinion is logical and influential. Leaders know that citizens care about foreign policy, which foreign policy regularly plays a role in electoral campaigns, and that foreign policy mistakes can hurt leaders at the ballot box (Aldrich 1989; Gronke 2003; Gelpi 2007).