Democratic Peace Theory

A democratic peace theory or simply '''democratic peace''' (often '''DPT''' and sometimes '''democratic pacifism''') is a Theory in International Relations , Political Science , and Philosophy which holds that Democracies —specifically, Liberal Democracies —never or almost never go to War with one another.

Some theories of democratic peace also hold that lesser conflicts are rare between democracies, or that violence is in general less common within democracies, or that there is also peace between Oligarchies .

HISTORY

The democratic peace theory is a relatively new development. One explanation is that democratic governments were scarce before the late 19th century. No early author seems to have considered it true.

It was Immanuel Kant who first foreshadowed the theory in his essay '' Perpetual Peace '' written in 1795 , although he thought that Liberal Democracy was only one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace.

Dean Babst , a criminologist, was the first to do statistical research and write an academic paper supporting the theory, in 1964, in ''Wisconsin Sociologist''; he published a slightly more popularized version, eight years later, in the trade journal ''Industrial Research''. Both versions initially received little attention.

J. David Singer and Melvin Small (1976) eventually responded and denied that democracies were in general less war-like than other nations; but they found only two marginal cases of democracies fighting each other. This paper was published in a Political Science journal, the ''Jerusalem Journal of International Relations'', and this finally brought more widespread attention to the theory — also partly through Michael Doyle's (1983) lengthy discussion of the topic.

Rudolph J. Rummel cited Babst's work in the fourth book of his five-volume work, ''Understanding Conflict and War'' (1975-1981). He has since written extensively on the democratic peace, and has also drawn considerable lay attention to the subject.

There have been numerous studies in the field since.See the bibliography on Rummel's website. Rummel is partisan, and the bibliography lacks some recent papers; but still one of the better introductions to the subject. Most studies have found some form of democratic peace exists; although neither methodological disputes nor doubtful cases are entirely resolved (Kinsella 2005).

INFLUENCE

Democratic peace theory has been extremely divisive among Political Scientists . It is rooted in the Idealism In International Relations and Classical Liberalism traditions; and is opposed to the previously dominant theory, Realism In International Relations . However, democratic peace theory has come to be more widely accepted and have in some democracies affected policy.

of the Republican Party : "And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy." ²

Some fear that the democratic peace theory may be used to justify wars againt nondemocracies in order to bring lasting peace, in a ''democratic crusade''(Chan 1997, p. 59). , others argue that this justification was used only after the War had already started. However, research shows that attempts to create democracies by using external force has often failed eventually. Supporting internal democratic movements and using diplomacy may be far more succesful and less costly. Thus, the theory and related research, if they were correctly understood, may actually be an argument against a democratic crusade (Weart 1998), (Owen 2005), (Russet 2005).

DEFINITIONS

A democratic peace theory has to define what it means by "democracy" and what it means by "peace" (or, more often, "war").

Democracy

classifies the green nations in the map as liberal democracies.]]

Democracies have been defined differently by different theorists and researchers; this accounts for some of the variations in their findings. Some examples:

Kant (1795) opposed where individual liberty is protected from the will of the majority.

Singer (1976) define democracy as a nation that (1) holds periodic elections in which the opposition parties are as free to run as government parties, (2) allows at least 10% of the adult population to vote, and (3) has a parliament that either controls or enjoys parity with the executive branch of the government.

Doyle (1983) requires (1) that "liberal régimes" have market or private property economics, (2) they have polities that are externally sovereign, (3) they have citizens with juridical rights, and (4) they have representative governments. Either 30% of the adult males were able to vote or it was possible for every man to acquire voting rights as by attaining enough property. He allows greater power to hereditary monarchs than other theories; for example, he counts the rule of Louis-Philippe Of France - and that of Robespierre - as a liberal regíme. He describes Wilhelmine Germany as "a difficult case".Quote from Doyle 1983 footnote 8, pp.216-7.

Ray (1995) requires that at least 50% of the adult population is allowed to vote and that there has been at least one peaceful, constitutional transfer of executive power from one independent political party to another by means of an election.

Rummel (1997) states that "By democracy is meant liberal democracy, where those who hold power are elected in competitive elections with a secret ballot and wide franchise (loosely understood as including at least 2/3rds of adult males); where there is freedom of speech, religion, and organization; and a constitutional framework of law to which the government is subordinate and that guarantees equal rights."

Weart (1998). See Never At War .

Non-binary classificiations

The above definitions are binary, classifying nations into either democracies or nondemocracies. Many researchers have instead used more finely grained scales. One example is the Polity Data Series which scores each state on two scales, one of democracy and one for autocracy, for each year since 1800; as well as several others. Other such rankings have made by Steve Chan and by Ze'ev Maoz. Maoz 1997. See also ³ and ⁴ The use of the Polity Data has varied. Some researchers have done correlations between the democracy scale and belligerence; others have treated it as a binary classification by (as its maker does) calling all states with a high democracy score and a low autocracy score democracies; yet others have used the difference of the two scores, sometimes again making this into a binary classification (Gleditsch 1992).

Young democracies

Several researchers have observed that many of the possible exceptions to the democratic peace have occurred when at least one of the involved democracies was very young. They have therefore added a qualifier, typically stating that the peacefulness apply to democracies older than 3 years (Doyle 1983), (Russet 1993), (Rummel 1997), (Weart 1998). Rummel (1997) argues that this is enough time for "democratic procedures to be accepted, and democratic culture to settle in." Additionally, this may allow for other states to actually come to the recognition of the state as a democracy.

Wars and lesser conflicts

Quantitative research on international wars usually define war as a military conflict with more than 1000 killed in battle. This is the definition used in the Correlates Of War Project which has also supplied the data for many studies on war. It turns out that most of the military conflicts in question fall clearly above or below this threshold (Ray 1995, p. 193).

Some researchers have used different definitions. For example, Weart (1998) defines war as more than 200 battle deaths. Russett (1993, p. 50), when looking at Ancient Greece, only requires some real battle engagement, involving on both sides forces under state authorization.

Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs), in the Correlates of War Project classification, are lesser conflicts than wars. Such a conflict may be no more than military display of force with no battle deaths. MIDs and wars together are "militarized interstate conflicts" or MICs. MIDs include the conflicts that precede a war; so the difference between MIDs and MICs may be less than it appears.

WARS

The straightforward argument for the democratic peace is: given the number of wars over the past two centuries, if democracies fought each other as often as any other pair of states, there should have been many wars between democracies. Instead, depending on the study, we find zero or very few, and the possible exceptions generally involve doubtful democracies. A review lists many studies finding that this peacefulness is statistically significant.

The monadic and the dyadic peace

Most research is regarding the ''dyadic peace'', that democracies do not fight one another. Very few researchers have supported the ''monadic'' peace, that democracies are more peaceful in general. There are some recent papers, which find a slight monadic effect. Müller and Wolff (2004), in listing them, agree "that democracies on average might be slightly, but not strongly, less warlike than other states," but general "monadic explanations is neither necessary nor convincing". They note that democracies have varied greatly in their belligerence against non-democracies. The ''militant'' democracies since 1950 have been India , Israel , the United Kingdom and the United States .

Possible exceptions to no wars

See Also: Possible wars between liberal democracies

Several researchers find no wars between well-established liberal democracies. [http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/smith/dempeace.PDF , [http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101fareviewessay84611/john-m-owen-iv/iraq-and-the-democratic-peace.html [http://www.isanet.org/noarchive/wayman.html], (Rummel 1997), (Ray 1995), (Weart 1998). Jack Levy (1988) made an oft-quoted assertion that the theory is "as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations".

Others see one or two exceptions. Some wars commonly suggested as exceptions are the Spanish-American War and the Continuation War . Even some of those who see exceptions regard them as marginal cases. Doyle (1983); but his only exceptions are the Paquisha War and the Lebanese air force's intervention in the Six Day War, both of which he dismisses as technical. Gleditsch (1995) and Bremer (1993) each discuss one or two marginal exceptions; but neither of them find this an obstacle to supporting the existence and force of the democratic peace. The data set Bremer happened to be using showed one exception, the French-Thai War of 1940, which is spurious; it happened after the setting up of the Vichy Régime . Gleditsch sees the (somewhat technical) state of war between Finland and the Western Allies during World War II , as a special case, which should probably be treated separately: an incidental state of war between democracies during large multi-polar wars, which are fortunately rare. The importance of this exception depends on what forms of hostility you regard as serious. (Gowa 1999). (Maoz 1997, p.165).

Other authors simply describe war between democracies as "rare", "very rare", "rare or non-existent".For example: (Gleditsch 1995), (Chan 1998)

The question of no or few wars may be unimportant. Bremer (1992, 1993), who strongly supports the democratic peace, argues that it is impossible to prove a probability of exactly zero wars between democracies; thus is "fruitless to debate the question of whether democracies never or only very rarely fight one another". It is only possible to show a decrease in the probability of war.

Howver, at least one researcher (Rummel 1983) have argued that the inter-democratic peace is an absolute law. One exception will disprove the theory. Most researchers disagree (Gleditsch 1992).

LESSER CONFLICTS

. Norway was the first independent nation with complete Universal Suffrage in 1913 ]]

One problem with the research on wars is that, as the Realist Mearsheimer (1990, p. 50) put it, "democracies have been few in number over the past two centuries, and thus there have few opportunities where democracies were in a position to fight one another". Especially if using a strict definition of democracy, as by those finding no wars. Democracies have been very rare until recently. Even looser definitions of democracy, such as Doyle's, find only a dozen democracies before the late nineteenth century, and many of them short-lived or with limited franchise (Doyle 1983), (Doyle 1997, p. 261). Freedom House finds no independent state with Universal Suffrage in 1900.Freedom House. 1999. "Democracy’s Century: A Survey of Global Political Change in the 20th Century."

Thus, despite the studies mentioned earlier, some argue that there is not enough data to show that the absence of wars between democracies is statistically significant, especially if trying to control for possible external factors. Wayman (1998), a supporter of the democratic peace, states: "If we rely solely on whether there has been an inter-democratic war, it is going to take many more decades of peace to build our confidence in the stability of the democratic peace."

Many researchers reacted to this by studying lesser conflicts instead, since they have been far more common. There have been many more MIDs than wars; the Correlates of War Project counts several thousands during the last two centuries. A review lists many studies that have reported that democratic pairs of states are less likely to be involved in MIDs than other pairs of states.

Stuart Bremer (1993) and many others have also studied Multiple Correlation s involving peace or war. Bremer did a study of seven variables traditionally expected to produce peace or war. He found that ''six'' of them had a genuine effect, independent of all the others, in predicting whether a given pair of states were likely to go to war or not. Mutual democracy was fourth of these, behind the existence of a common boundary (which predicts war), an alliance between the two states, and higher than average wealth per head (both of which predict peace). There has been many similar studies after this, often giving very different results depending on methodology and included variables, which has caused criticism. However, a common thread in virtually all results is an emphasis on the relationship between democracy and peace , .

Another study finds that after both states have become democratic, there is a decreasing probability for MIDs within a year and this decreases almost to zero within five years.

When examining the inter-liberal MIDs in more detail, one study finds that they are less likely to involve third parties, the target of the hostility is less likely reciprocate, if the target reciprocates the response is usually proportional to the provocation, and the disputes are less likely to cause any loss of life. The most common action was "Seizure of Material or Personnel".

Studies find that the probability that disputes between states will be resolved peacefully is positively affected by the degree of democracy exhibited by the least democratic state involved in that dispute. Disputes between democratic states are significantly shorter than disputes involving at least one undemocratic state. Democratic states are more likely to be amenable to third party mediation when they are involved in disputes with each other .

In international crises that include the threat or use of military force, one study finds that if the parties are democracies, then relative military strength has no effect on who wins. This is different from when nondemocracies are involved. These results are the same also if the conflicting parties are formal allies . Similarly, a study of the behavior of states that joined ongoing militarized disputes reports that power is important only to autocracies: democracies do not seem to base their alignment on the power of the sides in the dispute .

INTERNAL VIOLENCE

Most of this article discusses research on relations between states. However, there is also evidence that democracies have less internal systematic violence. For instance, one study finds that the most democratic and the most authoritarian states have few Civil War s, and intermediate regimes the most. The probability for a civil war is also increased by political change, regardless whether toward greater democracy or greater autocracy. Intermediate regimes continue to be the most prone to civil war, regardless of the time since the political change. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in turn are less stable than democracies, durable democracy is the most probable end-point of the process of Democratization . One study finds that the most democratic nations have the least terrorism . One study finds that Genocide and Politicide are rare in democracies . Another that Democide is rare .

One study lists several other studies and states: "Repeatedly, democratic political systems have been found to decrease political bans, censorship, torture, disappearances and mass killing, doing so in a linear fashion across diverse measurements, methodologies, time periods, countries, and contexts." It concludes: "Across measures and methodological techniques, it is found that below a certain level, democracy has no impact on human rights violations, but above this level democracy infuences repression in a negative and roughly linear manner." One study states that thirty years worth of statistical research has revealed that only two variables decrease human rights violations: political democracy and economic development. Of this democracy is more important and more easily created.

CAUSES

These theories have traditionally been categorized into two groups: explanations that focus on democratic norms and explanations that focus on democratic
political structures . Note that most of these explanations apply to interstate relations. Note that they usually are meant to be explanations for little violence between democracies, not for a low level of internal violence in democracies.

Several of these mechanisms may also apply to Oligarchies . The book Never At War find evidence for an oligarchic peace. One example is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , in which the Sejm resisted and vetoed most royal proposals for warFor a description, see ⁵ 2000. Especially Pp. 9-11, 114, 181, 323. , like those of Władysław IV Vasa .

Democratic norms

One example from the first group is that the democratic culture may make the leaders accustomed to negotiation and compromise , (Müller & Wolff 2004). A belief in human rights may make people in democracies reluctant to go to war, especially against other democracies. The decline in colonialism, also by democracies, may be related to a change in perception of non-European peoples and their rights .

Bruce Russett (1993, p. 5-11, 35, 59-62, 73-4) also argues that the democratic culture affect the way leaders resolve conflicts. In addition, he holds that a social norm emerged toward the end of the nineteenth, that democracies should not fight each other, which strengthened when the democratic culture and the degree of democracy increased, for example by widening the franchise. Increasing democratic stability allowed partners in foreign affairs to perceive a nation as reliable democratic. The alliances between democracies during the two World Wars and the Cold War also strengthened the norms. He sees less effective traces of this norm in Greek antiquity.

Democratic political structures

The case for institutional constrainsts goes back to Kant (1795), who wrote :
:" {Link without Title} f the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared (and in this constitution it cannot but be the case), nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themselves all the calamities of war. Among the latter would be: having to fight, having to pay the costs of war from their own resources, having painfully to repair the devastation war leaves behind, and, to fill up the measure of evils, load themselves with a heavy national debt that would embitter peace itself and that can never be liquidated on account of constant wars in the future"

Democracy thus gives influence to those most likely to be killed or wounded in wars, and their relatives and friends (and to those who pay the bulk of the war taxes) Russet (1993, p. 30). This monadic theory must, however, explain why democracies do attack non-democratic states. One explanation is that these democracies were threatened or otherwise were provoked by the non-democratic states. Doyle (1997, p. 272) argued that the absence of a monadic peace is only to be expected: the same ideologies that cause liberal states to be at peace with each other inspire idealistic wars with the illiberal, whether to defend oppressed foreign minorities or avenge countrymen settled abroad. Doyle also notes (p. 292) liberal states do conduct covert operations against each other; the covert nature of the operation, however, prevents the publicity otherwise characteristic of a free state from applying to the question

It has also been suggested that democracies rarely fight wars because war, or impending war, tends to destroy democracy; This argument depends only on the internal conditions of one state; it shouldn't matter whether the war is with a democracy or not. It is therefore a mechanism for the general, or monadic, peacefulness of democracies. Mousseau and Shi (1999) finds this explanation unlikely. They studied all states, inquiring whether the onset of war decreased democracy, either temporarily or permanently, and found most wars had no significant effect, but some did.

Studies show that democratic states are more likely than autocratic states to win the wars. One explanation is that democracies, for internal political and economic reasons, have greater resources. This might mean that democratic leaders are unlikely to select other democratic states as targets because they perceive them to be particularly formidable opponents. One study finds that interstate wars have important impacts on the fate of political regimes, and that the probability that a political leader will fall from power in the wake of a lost war is particularly high in democratic states .

As decribed in , several studies have argued that liberal leaders face institutionalized constraints that impede their capacity to mobilize the state’s resources for war without the consent of a broad spectrum of interests. Moreover, these constraints are readily apparent to other states and cannot be manipulated by leaders. Thus, democracies send credible signals to other states of an aversion to using force. These signals allow democratic states to avoid conflicts with one another, but they may attract aggression from nondemocratic states. Democracies may be pressured to respond to such aggression—perhaps even preemptively—through the use of force. Also as described in , studies have argued that when democratic leaders do choose to escalate international crises, their threats are taken as highly credible, since there must be a relatively large public opinion for these actions. In disputes between liberal states, the credibility of their bargaining signals allows them to negotiate a peaceful settlement before mobilization.

A Game-theoretic explanation similar to the last two above is that the participation of the public and the open debate send clear and reliable information regarding the intentions of democracies to other states. In contrast, it is difficult to know the intentions of nondemocratic leaders, what effect concessions will have, and if promises will be kept. Thus there will be mistrust and unwillingness to make concessions if at least one of the parties in a dispute is a nondemocracy .

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Kantian peace theory

Several studies find that democracy, more Trade causing greater economic Interdependence , and membership in more Intergovernmental Organizations reduce the risk of war. This is often called the Kantian peace theory since it is similar to Kant's earlier theory about a perpetual peace. These variables positively affect each other but each has an independent pacifying effect. For example, democracy may empower economic interest groups that may be opposed to disruptive wars (Russett & Oneal 2001), , . However, some recent studies find no effect from trade but only from democracy , .

It was Michael Doyle (1983, 1997) who reintroduced Kant's three articles into democratic peace theory. He argued that a pacific union of liberal states has been growing for the past two centuries. He denies that a pair of states will be peaceful simply because they are both liberal democracies; if that were enough, liberal states would not be aggressive towards weak non-liberal states (as the history of American relations with Mexico shows they are). Rather, liberal democracy is a necessary condition for international organization and hospitality (which are Kant's other two articles) — and all three are sufficient to produce peace. Other Kantians have not repeated Doyle's argument that all three in the triad must be present, instead stating that all three reduce the risk of war.

CRITICISMS AND COUNTER-CRITICISMS

There are several logically distinguishable classes of criticism. Note that they usually apply to no wars or few MIDs between democracies, not to little systematic violence in democracies. See also the discussion of specific historic conflicts in Possible Wars Between Liberal Democracies .

There may be problems with the definitions used for liberal democracy and war

Democracy has meant different things at different times but the research has applied the same criteria to all periods.

Definitions of democracy that require an actual transfer of power between different political parties sometimes exclude long periods often viewed as democratic. For example, the United States until 1800, India from independence until 1979, and Japan until 1993 (Ray, 1995, p. 100).

Some democratic peace researchers require that the executive result from a substantively contested election. This may be a cautious definition: For example, the National Archives of the United States notes that "For all intents and purposes, George Washington was unopposed for election as President, both in 1789 and 1792". (Under the original provisions for the Electoral College , there was no distinction between votes for President and Vice-President: each elector was required to vote for two distinct candidates, with the runner-up to be Vice-President. Every elector cast one of his votes for Washington [http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/votes/1789_1821.html#1788 , John Adams received a majority of the other votes; there were several other candidates: so the election for Vice President was contested.)

The military affairs columnist of the newspaper ''Asia Times'' criticizes the theory as subject to the No True Scotsman problem. Exceptions are explained away as not being being between ''real'' democracies or being ''real'' wars. No true Scotsman fights a war ''Asia Times'' 31 January 2006, by their military affairs columnist

There may be errors in the data and the classification

For example, there may be mistakes regarding battle deaths in the Correlates Of War Project data.

There may be errors in methodology

Spiro's (1994) most serious crticism applies to the statistical methods which calculate an expected number of wars between pairs of democracies by calculating the whole number of pairs of states at war and then multiplying by the proportion of pairs of states which are both democracies. He argues that the whole number of belligerent pairs is inflated by counting relatively formal states of war: In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, several lesser German principalities took part on both sides. The number of pairs here is vastly increased by counting all of these as at war with each other, even when their forces never met. Again, Belgium was formally at war with North Korea and China during the Korean War , although fewer Belgians were killed than by falling off ladders. Spiro also shows that both wars and democracies are so rare that a war between democracies is unlikely in most years, even before making these corrections. One complication is that few states have been democracies continuously for two centuries; which can be handled by weighting each pair of democracies by the number of years they have ''both'' been democratic. Another is ''how do you count wars?'' If years matter, do you weight a war that lasts ten years ten times as much as a war that lasts one; or do you count onsets of war, and count each of these as one war? If countries A, B, and C, go to war against the alliance of D and E, is that one war or six? Is it still six if C never meets E on the battlefield? Russet (1995) and Maoz (1997) responded to this, for example with different methodology.

Some democratic peace researchers have been criticzed for reclassifiying some conflitcs without pruning the whole list of formal wars similarly. Supporters and opponents of the democratic peace Bremer 1992, Gleditsch 1995; Gowa ''Ballots and Bullets''. agree that this is bad statistics.

There may be other explanations than democracy for the peace

It may not be democracy itself but some other external factor(s) which happened to be associated with democratic states that explain the peace.

Realist explanations

Supporters of Realism In International Relations argue that it is not democracy that causes the peace. Spiro (1994) points out at some length that much of the democratic peace is in fact peace between ''allied'' democratic states, which have (unlike other alliances), not broken down into war between the allies. He regards this effect as the reality of the demcratic peace; ascribing the rest of it to chance. However, this does not explain why democratic alliances are different.

Another realist, Layne (1994) analysed the crises and brinkmanship that took place between non-allied democratic great powers, during the relatively brief period when such existed. He found no evidence either of institutional or cultural constraints against war; indeed, there was popular sentiment in favor of war on both sides. Instead, in all cases, one side concluded that it could not afford to risk that war at that time, and made the necessary concessions. However, other researches have examined some of these crises and reached different conclusions, arguing that perceptions of democracy prevented escalation. Also, there are new explanations different from those that Layne criticzed, like the game-theoretic one discussed below. Democratic Peace – Warlike Democracies? A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument In addition, if the realist explanation were true of all democracies, the results of crises between them would largely depend on their relative strength. A more recent study (Gelpi & Griesdorf 2001) denies this.

Probably the most well-known realist critic, Gowa (1999) finds that there were so few democracies before 1939 that the claims of the theory are not statistically significant. The peace between democracies during the 1945-1980 period she finds statistically significant. However, this is explained not be democracy, but by the external threat from the Communist states during the Cold War , which forced the democratic states to ally with one another. (Mearsheimer (1990) offers a similar analysis of the Anglo-American peace before 1945, caused by the German threat.)

Gowa's use of statistics has been criticized, with several other studies and reviews finding opposing results, . Ray (1998) objects that the same arguments should show that the Communist bloc would be at peace within itself. Exceptions include the 1956 Hungarian Revolution , the Prague Spring , the Sino-Soviet Border Conflict , the Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan , the Cambodian-Vietnamese War , and the Sino-Vietnamese War . The external threat did not prevent conflicts in the Western bloc when at least one of the involved states was a nondemocracy, such as the Turkish Invasion Of Cyprus , the Falklands War , and the Football War . Note that some of these conflicts did not have more than a thousand battle deaths. One study also notes that the explanation "goes increasingly stale as the post-Cold War world accumulates an increasing number of peaceful dyad-years between democracies."

Supporters of the democratic peace do not deny that realist factors are also important. Research supporting the theory has also shown that factors such as geographic contiguity, alliance ties, and major power status impact interstate conflict behavior .

Correlation is not causation

Correlation is not causation. However, many studies, as those discussed in , , , supporting the theory have controlled for many possible alternative causes of the peace. Examples of factors controlled for are geographic distance, geographic contiguity, power status, alliance ties, militarization, economic wealth and economic growth, power ratio, and political stability. Several studies have also controlled for the possibility of reverse causality from peace to democracy ,, .

Weart (1998) argues that the peacefulness appears and disappears rapidly when democracy appears and disappears. This makes it unlikely that variables that change more slowly are the explanation.

Wars tend very strongly to be between neighboring states. Gleditsch (1995) showed that the average distance between democracies is about 8000 miles, the same as the average distance between all states. He believes that the effect of distance in preventing war, modified by the democratic peace, explains the incidence of war as fully as it can be explained.

Also regarding economic development, one study (Mousseau, Hegre & Oneal 2003) indicates that independently of trade, democracy is not a significant factor unless both of the democracies have a GDP/capita of at least 1400 USD. The chance of MIDs even increase if the economic development is below this level. This level is quite low, Zimbabwe had that level at the time of the study. 91% of all the democratic pairs passed this criteria during the 1885–1992 period and all in 1992. Still, higher economic development than this makes the effect of democracy stronger. Low economic development may hinder development of liberal institutions and values. Similarly, Hegre (2003) finds that democracy is correlated with civil peace only for developed countries, and for countries with high levels of literacy. Conversely, the risk of civil war decreases with development only for democratic countries.

There may be limited consequences of the peace

The peacefulness may have various limitations and qualifiers and may not actually mean very much in the real-world.

Many democratic peace researchers do not count as wars conflicts which do not kill a thousand on the battlefield; thus they exclude for example the bloodless Cod Wars . However, as noted earlier, research has also found a peacefulness between democrcies when looking at lesser conflicts.

Mansfield and Snyder (2005), who support that well-established liberal democracies have not made war, state that emerging democracies with weak political institutions are especially likely to go to war, whether or not they win, as a means of handling internal tension. They find that all wars between democracies involve one less than five years old. See (Owen 2005) for an online description. A review cites several other studies finding that this increase in the risk of war happens only if many or most of the surrounding nations are undemocratic. Ray also argues that since one of articles by Mansfield and Snyder were published in ''Foreign Affairs'', they "obviously intended to discourage policies inspired by the democratic peace proposition that were designed to bring about such transitions."

Democracies were involved in more colonial and imperialistic wars than other states during the 1816-1945 period. On the other hand, this relation disappears if controlling for factors like power and number of colonies. Liberal democracies have less of these wars than other states after 1945. This might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples, as embodied in the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights (Ravlo & Glieditsch 2000).

Related to this is the human rights violations committed against Native People , sometimes by liberal democracies. One response is that many of the worst crimes were committed by nondemocracies, like in the European colonies before the nineteenth century, in King Leopold II Of Belgium 's privately owned Congo Free State , and in Stalin 's Soviet Union . England abolished slavery in British territory in 1833, immediately after the Reform Act 1832 had significantly enlarged the franchise. (Of course, the abolition of the slave trade had been enacted in 1807; and many DPT supporters would deny that England was a liberal democracy in 1833 when examining interstate wars.)

Rummel argues that the continuing increase in democracy worldwide will soon lead to an end to wars and and the increase in the number of democratic states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in total warfare, interstate wars, Ethnic wars, Revolutionary wars, and the number of Refugees and Displaced Person s.⁶ One report claims that the two main causes of this decline in warfare are the end of the Cold War itself and Decolonization ; but also claims that the three Kantian factors have contributed materially. Human Security Report 2005 p.148-150.

General counter-criticisms

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The theory is well-studied with more than a hundred researchers having published many more articles. ⁷ Several Peer-reviewed studies mention in their introduction that most researchers accept the theory as an empirical fact. For example: {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} , {Link without Title} .

Several studies and reviews argue that the Realist criticisms are flawed. This include the critical studies made by Layne, Spiro, Gowa, and Rosato mentioned above. The critical realist studies are argued to have methodological problems and be contradicted by others which are better made. , , , .

Imre Lakatos suggested that what he called a "progressive research program" is better than a "degenerative" when it is can explain the same phenomena as the "degenerative" one, but is also marked by growth and the discovery of important novel facts. In contrast, the supporters of the "degenerative" program do not make important new empirical discoveries, but instead mostly adjustments to their theory in order to defend it from competitors. On study argues that the democratic peace theory is now the "progressive" program in international relations. The theory can explain the empirical phenomena previously explained by the earlier dominant research program, Realism In International Relations . In addition, the initial discovery, that democracies do not make war on one another, has created a rapidly growing literature and a constantly growing list of novel empirical regularities. , , . Many of these findings are mentioned above. Another example is that a review lists several studies finding that democracies are more likely to ally with one another than with other states. Such alliances are likely to last longer than alliances involving nondemocracies. One study finds and mentions several other studies finding that democracies conduct diplomacy differently and more conciliatory compared do nondemocracies.

SOURCES

Babst, Dean V. "Elective Governments--A Force For Peace." ''The Wisconsin Sociologist'' 3 (1, 1964): 9-14.

Babst, Dean V.. "A Force For Peace." ''Industrial Research'' (April 1972): 55-58.

⁸.

⁹ Link failed 22 January 2006.

¹⁰

¹¹

Brown, Michael E., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. ''Debating the Democratic Peace''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 0262522136.

¹²

¹³

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