Democracy do not fight each other

Statistical tests and academic works confirm that some form of peace exists between democratic states. But, whether democracy installed at gunpoint succeeds or not needs a separate debate.

The core idea that democracies never fight each other has been almost an empirical law in international relations, with one of the greatest possible policy relevance. The proponents of the democratic peace theory argue that although democracies are not more peace prone than other political regimes, democracies rarely go to war with one another.

Adding to the existing studies, Weart (1998), the first to cover the period prior to 1816, found that there wasn’t a single case of war between two “well-established” democratic states, granting a solid support for the universality of the democratic peace. He stressed that exceptions were either because the adversary were not the same sort of democracy or because there were a minimal level of violence. However, Mansfield and Snyder (1995) found that young democracies or nations undergoing democratisation process haven’t been entirely peaceful; they went to war much more frequently than stable autocracies or established democracies.

Statistical tests have persuaded most scholars about democratic peace hypothesis, confirming the result is neither by chance occurrence or in disregard of other phenomena like economic wealth, but it has yet to convince the opponents.

The precise difficulty is due to the definition of what qualified a state as democratic, because it is relatively a recent phenomenon, as well as because of the differences in the theory of war between the liberals and realists. While the later believes that strategic interests have prevented two democratic states to go to war, the former attributes democratic institutions and culture of tolerance for the success of peace.

Normative and Structural Explanations

The normative and structural are two key academic theories that explains “why” democracies do not fight each other.

With roots in Kant’s Perpetual Peace (1795), the normative side of the theory suggests tolerance and compromise are vital to a democratic political culture and that political elites will apply lessons learned at home to foreign policy. Ideological pressures, the spirit of negotiation, conciliation and peaceful competition are central to democracy’s political culture, which makes war between democracies less likely. Unlike non-democratic culture where acceptable norms allow “eliminate” political opponents and resolve political conflicts through force than compromise or dialogue.

The structural side of the theory maintains that democracies do not fight each other because of the constraints inherited in the complexity of the democratic process as here no single autocratic leader holds the power. Transparency, political pluralism, and legal rights minimise the possibilities of governments and leaders to abuse power and create false justifications to convince the population to go to war. This division of power and constraints and knocking effect on leaders’ chance to be re-elected help prevent democratic governments take hasty decisions to go to war. They maintain that transparency of democratic political culture also allow states to trust or understand the other’s intentions unlike in non-democratic regimes; this helps diminish security dilemma. It is noteworthy that security dilemma and balance of power are two main reasons for states to go to war, stressed enough by realists like Walt.

Reasonable doubts

Critics of democratic peace theory hold two main counterarguments; first that because democracies have been relatively rare throughout history, the thesis result may be a statistical artefact. In other words manufactured for convenience as Walt (1998) implied that at the height of the Cold War, Americans began to find Japan less liberal when they began to fear that Japan was overtaking them economically. The second is about the causal logic; the absence of war among democratic states has less to do with sense of tolerance and shared values, but more with strategic interests and maintaining hegemony.

In addition to the two arguments, Iraq War is a rather good example to further a third argument. Although it hardly diminishes the theory’s credibility- as Iraq was not a democracy- it weakens the claim that transparency, political pluralism minimise the possibilities of governments and leaders to fabricate false grounds to convince its people to go to war. The Chilcot Report illustrated how Bush and Blair administrations provided flawed information and deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam to intervene in Iraq. Not even mass protests dissuaded them.

Conclusion

Despite counter-arguments hold some water and structural and normative theories sound hollow in few points, most statistical tests and academic works confirm that some form of peace exists between democratic states (Maoz & Russet 1992). But, whether democracy installed at gunpoint succeeds or not needs a separate debate.

References

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Maoz, Z. and Russett, B. (1993). Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946-1986. The American Political Science Review, [online] 87(3), p.67. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2938740 [Accessed 9 Apr. 2017].

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