Since The Cold War Era, The Spread Of Democracy And Its

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.

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

Consequently, US democracy promotion of course does matter at all according to all individual theoretical approaches. Under Realism approach, with the strategy of democracy promotion as part of foreign policy, US has sought to replace authoritarian governments with the West’s political system of democracy, regardless of traditional values and without concern for the consequences (Cox et al., 2000). It thus seems like “mission” rather than “promotion.” And this may somehow cause negative international relations between US and its “missions.” For Liberalism approach, US democracy promotion has been surrounded by a liberal culture that supports the rule of law, human, and freedom of expression as well as other core civil rights (Markakis, 2012). And a consequence of this has been a considerable focus on civil society strengthening while establishing democracy. This approach hence suggests US democracy promotion initiatives which are likely to establish positive international relations between US and its allies, rather than causing negative

Islam is often spoken of, especially in the backdrop of the current prevalent terrorism of today’s world, as the religion of peace. In saying so, it is implied that Islam, as a religion, is opposed to warfare, extremism and terrorist activities. On the contrary, in the realm of political science, democracy is the system of government that is set up on a high pedestal. Democracy is not only portrayed as inherently virtuous, but is also a system that ensures peace and harmony in any region. Both democracy and Islam thus claim the right to peace, however, the fact that Muslim majority countries often adopt a non-democratic system of government creates a debate that has been fiercely relevant over the past century. While one group believes that Islam is strictly opposed to a government system that favours popular rule, the other stringently tries to establish the strong correlation between Islam and democracy. Bernard Lewis and Irfan Ahmed represent two voices in this dispute.

Democracy is believed to have a pacifying power. With electoral processes, the rule of law and freedom from state oppression it makes sense that the populations has enough avenues to express grievances without resorting to full scale civil violence. Democracy beyond mutual democratic pacifism would thus have an impact on internal civil relations positively but this is not the case. There have been an increased number of cases of civil and ethnic violence in government systems that we might consider to be in stages of democratization. Evidence would seem to suggest that there are greater levels of violent civil conflict in these sort of regimes as opposed to full blown dictatorships or democracies. I

This essay will focus on the different manifestations of democracy and how they function. The core of democracy is that the people in a society should have a say in governing and decision making; however in order to be considered a democracy a country must follow other democratic principles. This essay will argue that in many cases practical application of democracy does not always allow the people to have their view adequately translated into government and policy, due to the limitations of their political system. The only real power people have is electing a select few to their positions in government, or voting on decisions and policy decided by those officials. This does not allow for everyone and their views represented in government. This essay will also argue that some democratic systems

The idea of democratic peace was brought up in the enlightened era. The theory of democratic peace was based off of Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.” The theory of democratic peace argues that nation-states governed by democratic regimes do not tend to have conflicts with other countries that would lead to wars. With this theory, it shows that nation-states with a democratic rule are more likely to not go to war with other countries. In some cases, this theory has been proven to be true, but in other cases it has not, especially with the United States. There are many proponents and opponents for this theory. Through this essay, the theory

The democratic peace theory was not always seen as the substantial argument and significant contribution to the field of International Relations that it is today. Prior to the 1970’s, it was the realist and non-realist thought that took preeminence in political theoretical thinking. Though the democratic peace theory was first criticized for being inaccurate in its claim that democracy promotes peace and as such democracies do not conflict with each other, trends, statistical data, reports have suggested and proved that the democratic peace theory is in fact valid in its claim. Over the years having been refined, developed and amended, it is now most significant in explaining modern politics and it is easy to accept that there is indeed a

The Theory of Democratic Peace has been a topic of much debate over the years. Why is this? There are many opinions on this theory and many questions are raised when speaking about it. The argument that I pose is, is there such a thing as democratic peace? In order to address my argument and in order to critically analyse Democratic Peace Theory, this piece of academic writing will look at a variety of causes that some theorists’ state are behind the Democratic Peace Theory and will look at the different branches of the theory. Firstly it will look at what ideology the theory can be drawn from and how the two can link together to prove that democratic peace can exist. Secondly it will look at if the theory has helped the spreading of

In just over 100 years, the world has seen two major global wars along with a cold war. While some argue that the cold war was actually a long period of peaceful relations rather than a period classified as wartime (Gaddis), it is still imperative to see the relationship between the leadership a nation is under, and its engagement in any of these past global wars. Under the explanations provided by several philosophers such as Schumpeter, Lake, and, democracies should be extremely less likely to go to war. If these theories were completely true, however, this would fail to explain the anomalies in this theory. Due to the high number of democracies that do, in fact, engage in global wars, there must also be another factor besides democracy that accounts for the likeliness of war. In addition, the Democratic regimes who do engage in war also have a greater tendency of winning, a phenomena that can be explained by the power of democracies. While the leadership style does have an effect on the likeliness of war, with democracies being extremely less likely, it appears that the presence of either a multipolar or a bipolar global system has a higher influence on a country’s chances for war. Although Democracies do tend to be more peaceful in general due to economic influences, the presence of a bipolar global system rather than a

Even though democracy has been in existence since the ancient Greek, it rose to prominence in the twentieth century with a large number of countries shifting to democracy. This transition to democracy has sprung up a debate over its appropriateness as a system of government, with some supporting it as an ideal system while others coining it as the vilest form of government. Although it is argued that democracy and economic growth do not go hand in hand, nevertheless, democracy is not the vilest form of government because it provides better governance, protects individual liberty and rests sovereignty with the people.

The proposition that democracies do not enter in war between them is according to some liberal thinkers that most resembles a law (in the sense of the natural sciences) in the field of international relations. This assertion is far from having led to a consensus among political scientists and is widely rejected by scholars including realistic thinkers.

Democracy is best defined as a type of governance where all entitled people contribute similarly either in an indirect or direct way in the process of elections in the purpose of contributing to development and establishment of rules. Nowadays, we are living in the core of a world surrounded by plenty of wars and each war maker tends to claim that he is fighting under the name of liberty and that he is yearning to reach democracy. The concept of democracy is very important and a vast topic to talk about and argue since democratic governance results to be the last hope for nation’s populations to reach their interests. These vary from safety and security to wealth and even joy. Democracy also assures that no single powerful person will ever have the ability to conquer a political system. A liberal country is characterized first by the laws and regulations that protect citizen’s right and separation of power, and second by fair and competitive elections. It is acceptable to encourage the pursuit of democracy but it’s totally intolerable to enforce it. Thus, the desire impulse and fight for democracy must come within the country yearning to achieve it rather than from the foreign under emblem of ‘imposing’ it since the imposition of democracy may help escalate conflict, violate national sovereignty, and lead to lack of sustenance of democracy.

Promoting democracy has formed an essential part of the foreign policy objectives of many western nations. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), The European Commission and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) are some of the largest western