The United States Illogical Practice of Democratic Peace Theory in the Middle East

Their ideas are premised on the true ideal democratic principles. However, this would make it harder for real-life application and analysis as true democracy doesn’t really exist, it’s an ideal we aspire to. This is showcased by the constant violations of the democratic principles by so-called democratic states. Like for example, colonisation which in many cases was exploitive and aimed for domination and abuse of other states and their resources which generated a lot of grievances in the colonised state. This is in contrast to the just war principles which highlight that the aim of a just war has to be just and lasting peace, not exploitation or domination like the case with the expansionist states, Germany and Japan, during World War II and that a democratic state has to foreshadow during war the kind of peace they aim for as well as the consideration for the human rights of the civilians and soldiers. The former is violated by the expansionist aims of the colonisers and the latter are violated by the generated grievances in the colonised community as a result of the human rights abuses and unjust treatment that resulted in many civil wars, terrorism and international

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

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 first and last propositions of the first section both affirm the potential of a peaceful future. The former proposition states that “No peace settlement which secretly reserves issues for a future war shall be considered valid” (Kant 67) and the latter stating “No state shall allow itself such hostilities in wartime as would make mutual trust in a future period of peace impossible” (Kant 70). Both these propositions highlight the necessity for the regression of aggression between states. For instance, the first proposition requires not a truce, but perpetual peace that nullifies the causes of war. It calls for a mortoturm not a ceasefire. Overall, it establishes the need to permanently establish perpetual peace and discontinue the potential motives that lead to war which are notorious disagreements on territory, resources, and self-determination (such as ideological stances and

In “To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” Immanuel Kant discusses his view on the desired peace that is needed by the change on the current form of international politics. Kant’s perspective is that international politics is better off with change because people are by nature meant to change. Without change in politics, peace can only be achieved by war between humans. In the Anarchical Society by Hedley Bull, he claims that the current form of international politics need to remain the way it is. Bull’s idea states that international politics is needed because it protects the sovereignty of a state. The main discussions that arise from Kant and Bull are the Balance of Power, the rights of nations, international order based off life,

The core idea of liberal peace encompasses a healthy balance of conflict and cooperation between states in order for it to be attainable. In the eighteenth century, the emergence of the liberal peace theory is backed up by influential political philosophers such as; John Locke, Immanuel Kant and Grotius; and I believe that exploring their works affirm that states share the desire to achieve peace without resulting to the cost of war. In order to justify my position, I believe the application of liberal peace between states can be attainable if both sides share a common understanding of aspects under the state of political nature, identify the importance economic significance and the federation of the states. Built upon the attainable theory of liberal peace lies a more restrictive and less achievable application in international politics; known as perpetual peace.

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.

This means that Kant’s proposal is centered around the idea of how the world of states can exist in a condition of constant peace. The closest thing we have today to a world government is the United Nations. The United Nations was established after the second world war and its main purpose amongst others, is to foster peace among nations so, in what ways did Immanuel Kant contribute to the shaping of the International System and the United Nations? To answer this, the first section of this paper will deal with the theories proposed by Immanuel Kant in perpetual peace and the second section will draw references and compare how his theories have been implemented and see the extent to which the international community, under the umbrella of the United Nations, has shaped itself in a way that closely depicts the prescriptions that he

The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists (William J. Clinton, 2013). Even though people who live in Palestine/Turkey/Syria area between1988 - 2013 have been in a state of war, peace will soon come. The Middle East is at constant war, peace will not come soon enough if rules don’t apply to self-government.

"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.

In the fields of International Relations, there are two important theories, idealism and realism. They are two contrasting and competing approaches in study of international relations. Idealism is “what could be”, planning the world as what they wish for it to become. Realism is “what actually is”, seeing the world as it actually is. People may ask, which one is more preferable? Though it’s a decision of one’s own perception that will never come to a correct answer, I argue that realism is more preferential because peace that idealists promote isn’t applicable for everything in this complicated world, making idealism too normative.

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 came about in post-1930s with the failure of the ‘peace through law approach’. The failure of the League of Nations meant there was a decline in the Liberalist International relations theory. Key Liberalist thinkers such as Jackson and Sorensen described liberalism as being optimistic about human nature, that people were capable of moral progress and also liberalist treat states as individual units. The failure of state and human cooperation that led to World War One and Two had deeply undermined the liberalist theory, this led to the importance of the Realist theory who question the optimism of human nature. Realist are often pessimistic on human nature, (Jackson and Sorensen, 2007) argued ‘life is constantly at risk, and nobody can be confident about his or her security and survival for any reasonable length of time…’ Key Realist thinker Thomas Hobbes also argued that the world consists of self-interested individuals and that life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. Realism is more useful than liberalism today as we see mass conflict and a lack of trust between humans and states, such as the Islamic State preforming barbaric acts against its own civilians, or the September attacks 2001 which supports the Realist theory that ‘life is constantly at risk’. In this essay, Neo-Realism will be discussed. Key thinker of Neo-Realism has been Kenneth Waltz. His aim was to try and explain why wars are caused in a more systematic

Our world today has many diverse communities and tradition, to have a world where everyone can prosper and strive has become a daunting task. The people set with this job to make international relation are, the heads of the state. In addition, to making the world a great place they need to see what helps themselves so they can become a greater state. To me the actions these states take are related to the political views of which the head of state follows by. The politics view that exist are related to three old traditions called: Machiavellian or realist, Grotian or rationalists, and finally Kantians or revolutionist. The three political views differ in many ways each with their strengths and weaknesses, the follow paragraphs will illustrate what those weaknesses and strengths are and how they affect the current issues in the world.

As it was said, the concept of globalization is not monosemantic. In fact, various new political theories emerged to apply their approach to globalization and the issue of the state de-cline. According to Paul and Ripsman (2010), the democratic peace theory highlights the recent widespread idea of democracy, its norms and institutions that reduce the willingness of states to produce armed conflicts. Moreover, with the emergence of several treaties and agreements — particularly advocating human rights — the ability of state to reach their objectives by the use of force was even restricted (for example, United Nations Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights). The global culture approach considers international relations to be stabilized by to a cultural convergence generated by the displacement of cultures and national identities, and the