The Democratic Peace Theory

Peace is when individuals can resolve their conflicts without violence and can cooperate to enhance the quality of their lives. Peace is when everybody lives in security, without fear or danger of brutality and no type of violence is endured in law or practically speaking everybody is equivalent under the watchful eye of the law. The frameworks for equity are trusted, and reasonable and powerful laws ensure individuals' rights. Everybody can participate in forming political choices and the administration is responsible to the general population. Everybody has reasonable and rise to access to the fundamental requirements for their wellbeing for example food, clean water, shelter, education, human services and

This essay will focus on how theorists of peace and conflict have analysed the conflict in recent history. Especially, the peace process after the first Palestinian intifada and the 1993 Oslo-agreements will be analysed. In addition, this essay will shed light on the involvement of the United States in the

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.

Political reform is often resulting in increased demands of oppressed and weaken state. New democracies tend to have security problems and questions of the democratic governance. The state must instill stability and social control; thus a weak state will fail. Democracy, however, can achieve peace by allocating power through elections, manage diversity without violence, and create political positions. State and nation-building, integration, and a development of a unified ideology can be a strategy to promote democratic consolidation.

Explain Democratic Peace theory. Based on the book/class discussion, are you ‘sold’ on the Democratic Peace?

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

Realism has dominated international relations theory since emerging in the 1930’s. The era of state conflict lasting from the 1930’s to the end of the cold war in 1947, proved the perfect hostile environment to fit the largely pessimistic view of world politics. While many aspects of realism are still alive in International Relations today; including the dominant presence of states, intrinsic of war and the decentralised government. However, realism only reaches so far in explaining and creating a structure for international relations. Whilst the strengths of the theory lie in its pragmatic approach to power politics and conflict. However, the realist view is weakened by changes in the way that conflict is fought, the ineffectiveness of the balance of power model and the increasing global and interconnected world. Thus, using realism as a structure to explain international relations today is to some extent, a theory of the past.

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).

According to the lecture by Butcher (2017e), praxis, empowerment, awareness, consensus, and evolvement are the terms that form the foundation to the acronym of the PEACE model by Peggy Chinn. Praxis is nurses looking at everything around and then making a decision on taking action (Chinn, 2013). For example, advanced practice nurses have the power to make significant changes that will affect the overall outcome of patients in healthcare and in this model, praxis will help nurses to work together in a moral and ethical perspective to achieve positive patient outcomes. I will briefly define and describe the five terms that form the concept of PEACE. Empowerment is experienced when nurses express respect for life through love and respect

Oddly the liberal peace model is effective in the Palestinian– Israeli conflict. It is supportive of Israel as a liberal democratic state while bidding to produce a liberal democratic state in Palestine (xxx, xxx). This is actually the mockery of the liberal peace model as confirmed by scholars such as (xxx,xxx) in views that it is serving to generate a deviant liberal peace. The commonly reiterated arguments here is that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are far from universally apparent. Because Israel is not an all-encompassing democratic state and the Palestinian National Authority would barely operate as a political entity as the execution of human rights and rule of law is at best fickle and at worst useless. The existing procedure

The factors known to contribute to peace among states are very controversial. Some of the well-known factors to affect how peaceful states are with one another is the type of regime a state is under and whether they are in possession of nuclear weapons, ironically. According to the democratic peace theory, “democracies rarely, if ever, enter into war against each other” (Chan, 59). They are more likely to wage war with non-democratic states such as communist states, rather than a democratic one. Therefore this leads to peace among states who are democratic in nature due to the fact they share similar beliefs. States who possess nuclear weapons ironically are less likely to go to war with each other because they feel more secure.

The balance of power is not only a theory crucial to the study of war and one of the most enduring concepts of international relations, but is often seen as the only reliable strategy in a world of extremely formidable and influential states. The balance of power refers to situations whereby major powers maintain equilibrium through alliances in order to ensure peace.. It is however important to note that it is difficult to explicitly define the balance of power as highlighted by Inis.L.Claude (1962, pp 85) “the trouble with the balance of power is not that it has no meaning but that it has too many meanings”. Despite a variation of interpretations, for the most part they all emphasis the same general principles and belief that states should ally with one another to prompt a world of equal ability and ensure power is distributed fairly in terms of military, economic and political, to preserve peace at an international level. In order for the balance of power to exist in an a chaotic realm, there must be no less than two states that strive for self-preservation. For some, the balance of power can be seen as a crucial factor in the political sphere that has allowed opposing states to cooperate despite any differences in culture, religion, or political ideology, and ultimately contributed to the prevention of war. In cases like the Cold War that will be discussed throughout the essay it is evident that the existence of equilibrium clearly avoided the use of force as both sides

Democratic Peace Theory The concept of the Democratic Peace Theory is based on the idea that whether states are likely to go to war or choose peace depends on the type of political system they have.

Realism is one of the main theories within International Relations. It provides the view that all actors within the international system act on their own self-interests to gain power. This essay intends to discuss its usefulness as a theory and the reasons for and against it being used to analyse world affairs. Firstly, it shall discuss how the theory is advantageous as it explains how shifts in the balance of power can lead to conflict however it is unable to explain why the distribution of power changes. Second, it will portray how it is useful because states do not need to be labelled as good or bad to fit the theory although it disregards the idea of Natural law and gives a cynical view of human morality. Finally, it will suggest that as the theory is very parsimonious, it can be applied to multiple situations within the world system. On the other hand, it will be said that it fails to look at individuals within a state and their influence on the actions of the state. These costs and benefits will be conveyed through the current tensions between the USA and North Korea to link the theory in with current world politics.