Democratic Peace Theory - Summaries of Readings PDF

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Democratic Peace Theory Notes Theories for DPT Tutorial Notes DPT The overriding problem of this entire if anarchy influences states in such a way that they distrust each other, how can we explain that democracies DO trust each other? o DPT theorists have to prove that peace is rooted in attributes,...

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Democratic Peace Theory – Notes Theories for DPT Tutorial Notes – DPT -

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The overriding problem of this entire topic… if anarchy influences states in such a way that they distrust each other, how can we explain that democracies DO trust each other? o DPT theorists have to prove that peace is rooted in democracy’s attributes, or in those of liberal ideology… realists have to prove that DPT fails because security considerations/cost-benefit calculations truly stop countries from fighting! Counterarguments to Pax Americana o US diffused liberal norms in order to get deference from other countries… not just power of US is relevant then, but the values/norms themselves are too! DPT! o Even in a multipolar world (which we are arguably returning to), it’s difficult to imagine the UK and Germany fighting, for example. If you agree with DPT conclusion, then must state WHAT is the reason for its support… is it democracy, or another theory? If it’s another theory, is it a realist one? o Can argue that DPT holds, but not for liberal reasons… instead, for Mousseaureasons! Don’t teach in your essays… just give the things that you agree with, and those that you don’t! Rosato’s theory is more than just “DPT is wrong”, but extends to “DPT is actually Pax Americana”.

Wikipedia – DPT The theory -

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Dyadic peace – that democracies don’t fight one another – is generally accepted. Monadic peace – democracies are more peaceful in general – is rarely supported. 30 MIDs to 1 war ratio… using Correlates of War project, we could analyse the MIDs and show that there are various threats of power displayed. This helps the realist in their argument… yet Ray (2003) shows that democracies are still less prone to MIDs. Two types of explanations o Norms  Human rights; rejection of colonial values; liberal-democratic culture spreads a respect for negotiation and compromise  RUSSETT -- DPT is itself a norm – a social norm – emerging towards the end of the 19th century. Shown in the crises that were resolved before entering war… Fashoda, Venezuela, etc. Democracies and their ties were made stronger… which strengthened the norm further!  Mousseau – market-oriented development creates norms which aid the workings of market-based economies… supremacy of international law over brute power politics, equal and open trade, etc. Thus, when disputes arise amongst marketplace democracies with preferences for these economic things, they’ll opt for peace, in order to preserve the economic norms. o Democratic institutions  Gives influence to citizens – those most likely to bear the costs of war  Information – democracies can better signal their intentions to one another

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Constraints, readily apparent to other democracies, exist which limit countries from mobilising for war… need for public support, or for releaseof-funds, etc.  Net benefit to an autocrat (aka all of the spoils) of going to war exceeds net benefit (aka a share of the spoils) to a citizen of democracy… thus the former is more likely to go to war! Why do democracies still fight non-democracies? o Doyle – the same liberal ideologies that tie democracies together, inspire idealistic wars against illiberal states, thanks to a fear of and desire to democratic them.

Key criticisms -

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Conflation of correlation and causation o Trying to argue that *accountability, norms, or possessing greater wealth, etc.* are causes of peace between democracies is false… these things are only correlated. A realist would argue that DPT’s causal mechanisms are bollocks, and that instead, a “Pax Americana” exists, or that considerations of power are the key motivator for the alliances that exist. Statistical significance o With greater scope to what constitutes a war, sometimes statistical significance fails. However, that shouldn’t be taken to disprove anything, unless some new concept of “war” can be agreed upon as better, which has not been the case. Limited consequences o The fall of communism and sudden increase in the number of democratic states saw a decline in warfare… but perhaps decolonisation and the end of the cold war better explain why liberal democracies don’t fight with one another!  BUT, then we’d still need some explanation or why democracies don’t fight each other, and no convincing alternative on this front has been offered.

Mansfield & Snyder -

Countries in transition to democracy are especially likely to be involved in wars – democratising countries are far more warlike than stable democracies. o Does this challenge DPT? No. Why?  In some ways, it proves it – when states don’t have the contracting under their belt, they retain authoritarian characteristics, until they become normalised to democratic ways and constraints!

Other potential explanations  Perhaps they’re just “similar”, because they’re democratic… o Autocratic peace is observed too (Raknerud & Herge, 1997) o Perhaps general similarity drives peace… similarity in political outlook, not necessarily democracy. Pacifying effect through general similarity…  BUT – part of the DPT indeed espouses this view. I don’t see how this can be separated.  Capitalist peace o Developed economies simply face costs that are too high – not enough can be gained from war o Economic development is a primary factor driving stable democracy formation

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Poorest 4-5% of democracies are significantly more likely than other kinds of countries to fight one another (Mousseau).  Trade and economic interdependence are too valuable to give up. THESE are the variables the create a pacifying effect!  Taken one step further – Negri & Hardt – intertwined interests create rise of a global Empire, which has no outside, and no external enemies. Most have been absorbed… we have “entered the era of minor and internal conflicts”.  Gat – War in Human Civilisation – sociological reasons for a lack of war o Wealth/comfort – civilians less willing to endure hardship, they’re used to comfort o Sexual revolution – less enthusiasm for men to go to war and be chaste! o Greater life expectancy = fewer young males = less aggression o Fewer children per family – losing a child to war would now be less bearable o Nuclear weapons – MAD means no-one strikes o Women’s franchise within democracies – a less aggressive demographic!  Realist explanations o Considerations and evaluations of power cause war/its absence. Effects ascribed to democratic peace are actually thanks to alliance ties… and these are caused by realist factors!  Farber & Gowa – peace is only significant since 1945. It’s a Cold War artefact. o Pax Americana – hegemonic US has imposed and maintained a system of alliances… US intervened covertly in affairs of democratic states several times… Chilean coup 1973, 1953 coup in Iran, Nicaragua, British Guyana, etc.  Clinton and Bush have stressed a “DP” in their speeches… it suits their foreign policy interests!  RAY (2003) combats this possibility – controlling for common interests, reflected in alliance ties, he still finds a significant peace between democracies! o Nuclear deterrence  With nukes, no-one (almost) is willing to go to war. MAD means that neither side could see victory… trends of warmongering, predicted by realism, are simply lying dormant thanks to the proliferation of nukes amongst the strongest nations.  Kargil war – counter-example! o But not a great one… it was a truly limited war. o

Doyle – Three Pillars of the Liberal Peace – 2005 -

The factors only explain DPT when treated TOGETHER. Rosato’s method of taking them separately to attack them is utterly ridiculous. Three factors are, when taken together, a sufficient explanation for DPT 1. Republican representation  Just because it’s a republic, doesn’t mean the public don’t want war, or that a leader won’t undertake a realist foreign policy 2. An ideological commitment to fundamental human rights

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No expectation that because populations share liberal values, this automatically translates into policy 3. Transnational interdependence  No guarantee that interdependence can provide co-operation, it could just fuel rivalry and balance of power competition. What are the three hypotheses which make liberal states less likely to go to war? 1. Accountability is produced  Republican representative democratic governments created accountability between voter and state. Representation, with transparency, can provide effective signalling. It also ensures that only popular, liberal-principle backed wars, are fought. 2. Liberal principles create international respect  Norms for legitimate rights of the individual are diffused. Trust and accommodation towards fellow liberals is thus achieved, perhaps alongside producing distrust of non-liberals. Trust and co-operation breeds further trust and co-operation. 3. Material incentives sustain international normative commitments  Spirit of commerce creates incentives for peace and an aversion to war  Transactions determined by price, not coercion… thus, few securitymotivated searches for autarky!

BASICALLY… -

Liberal institutions Liberal ideas Transnational ties

… work in tandem to create the backing for the Democratic Peace. They establish grounds for cooperation, and an aversion to war. The very pillars that uphold democratic peace ALSO serve to cause additional conflict between liberal/non-liberal societies. Lipson – Reliable Partners: How Democracies Made a Separate Peace - 2003 Existing explanations (citizens dislike war costs… shared values and norms exist, as does trust… domestic institutions of democracy restrain elected leaders) merely allude to a central, interactive element of democratic peace, without developing it. The central feature? Peace has emerged from durable bargains and mutually profitable relationships that democracies have formed with one another. The explanation is contracting – democracies can make promises with each other, are better equipped to find mutual interests, and are more likely to settle conflicts or avoid them as a result. More points: -

Perceptions and beliefs do matter – the lack of information is decreased by democracies’ ability to communicate that in negotiation Common interests are located, and ways to achieve them together are undertaken. Reciprocal exchange of promises is established, and one wants to keep their reputation up on this front.

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Pre-existing explanations fit in around this… leaders are indeed incentivised not to break promises, and information does help, etc… but the key is the bargaining process and the repeated nature of it.

If the contracting explanation is true, we’d expect:  Alliances amongst democracies  Bargaining amongst democracies showing less concern of reneging on commitments, and less strong enforcement mechanisms in place  Democratic peace should have the weakest hold over new/unstable democracies  Peace becomes increasingly stable over time between democracies as they establish  If democracies do fight, it’ll be over more fundamental, existential issues, rather than peripheral ones o WE DO SEE ALL OF THESE THINGS. They’re true. Do we really have a Democratic Peace?  Is DPT statistically significant? o Yes. It exists since 1940s. Only one or two wars (Kargil, Russo-Finish) since 1900 under standard definitions of what constitutes a war.  Is it really DPT? Is it Pax Americana – a reflection of US power and influence over a vast number of states? Or even a Western peace?  No – little evidence or explanation then as to why democracies share common interests, and how this affects them  No – it doesn’t explain why the phenomenon would be limited simply to democracies  Is there something significant about democracies’ capacity to resolve conflicts? o Yes! Fashoda crisis provides a good example, between British and French. The democracies…  Clearly and credibly communicated their vital interests, for wish of conflict avoidance  Adhered to the bargains that they struck  Incorporated individual bargains into more durable partnerships  Mollified each other’s legitimate fears. Conclusion -

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Democracies have a contracting advantage, thanks to *other previous theories inserted here*. A unique capacity to diminish the risks of agreement helps them to forge stable, mutually profitable, bargaining relationships. Realists can’t provide a decent challenge to DPT o They try to state that the peace doesn’t exist (statistically bogus) o They try to claim that threats and confrontations still exist  Yes, but these are bargained out of being problems! o They claim that if normative explanations are right, democracies should be completely pacifistic  They aren’t utterly peaceful, despite a tendency to peaceful values. Conflicts can still arise… just not with other democracies! o They claim that democracies are primarily engaging in hard-nosed diplomacy, and just have sizeable militaries and alliances that put them off

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OBJECTION – excluding values and beliefs, as realists do, masks the deepseated differences that really do exist between different political regimes. Values inform and shape national interests… that is important! Democracies really do have a different relationship brah!

Flaws Layne – Kant or Can’t; The Myth of Democratic Peace – 1996 -

Russett – a world with a critical mass of democratic states could “supersede” realist principles (anarchy, security dilemma, etc.). Two strands to DPT – institutional constraints (public opinion, checks and balances embedded in the political system) and norms/democratic culture (shared commitment to peaceful adjudication of disputes). o Institutional constraints  Doyle – governments answer to citizens, who are reluctant to go to war  Checks and balances (executive selection, competition, pluralism of decisionmaking) ensure that democracies are constrained from fighting o Democratic norms  Democracies assume that one another subscribe to pacifism. Positive reputations and perceptions of one another are maintained!  Learning over time reinforces positive perceptions  Community of states with common interests is created  Harsher norms are adopted in relation to non-democracies, in an attempt to pre-emptively defend against the unknown.

How a Realist would reply… -

States are in fact acting along the lines of realism in their interactions with one another! The security dilemma is inescapable… when we observe this seeming peace, it’s essentially no different to before. o …really?

Examples – 4 of them, showing that democracies have NEARLY fought Trent Affair, Fashoda Crisis, Ruhr Crisis, Venezuela Crisis… do these prove anything?  I don’t think this undermines DPT. They nearly fought, yes… and these conflicts arose through realist foreign policies… but the fact that they DIDN’T fight? Doesn’t that somewhat show how the Democratic Peace undermined the realism, ensuring that they didn’t fancy warring with one another? o Fashoda, for example… British compensated France, allowing them greater power in Morocco, in exchange for their losses in Egypt. France backed down at the threat of British violence. Yes, they threatened one another… but still! They respected each other and backed down.  Furthermore, these examples are all old! Ruhr is the latest, and that’s from 1923. DPT has become further entrenched over time. o Détentes in relations occurred after Fashoda and Venezuela Crises

“War was avoided because of realist factors, with both sides pulling back from the brink due to vital strategic/reputational interests at stake” … tough to combat this. I’d have to argue that regardless of whether realism has made them nearly fight, liberalism has stopped them from fighting at all.  Layne argues… only look at the dyads where war is POSSIBLE between democracies, and then make a measure of what happened. I think that’s silly – why? The point of DPT is that war is made essentially impossible… realism would hold that war is forever possible, we’re always on the brink! We should look at all dyads, if you’re a realist! o

Rosato – The Flaws in the Democratic Peace Theory - 2003 -

The correlation isn’t challenged, it’s well established. However, causation is highly challenged! Farber and Gowa (1997) find Cold War, and the nuclear annihilation threat that it created, is the cause of a lack of fighting between democracies.

Logics of DPT explained Normative logics -

Political elites are socialised to act on basis of democratic, ‘live and let live’ norms Trust is fostered, and all states adopt the same norms and mutually respect one another  Thus, the two mechanisms are norm externalisation, and mutual trust/respect.  Explains wars between non-democracies… no respect, differing norms!

Institutionalist logics -

Democratic institutions are capable of making leaders accountable to groups which oppose war… economic interdependence has created groups averse to war… eventually, it becomes so hard to war, that democracies just don’t. This happens through five mechanisms…  Public constraint – democracies unwilling to resort to force, as leaders must respect the public’s aversion to war  Group constraint – democracies accountable to anti-war groups  Slow mobilisation – democracies cannot mobilise quickly for war, as public persuasion is a long and arduous process  Surprise attack – you can’t engage in surprise attacks, as mobilisation takes place in the public domain… negotiation under duress is thus more likely  Information – democracies provide information that averts war… you’ll only fight if you think you can win and have better resolve than your enemy – but both sides have good information about the resolve of the other state too!  So why do democracies and non-democracies fight? The latter isn’t bound by any of the same considerations, and the former believe peace bargains to be unattainable or unavailable. Aggression is more likely from both sides.

THE FLAWS Normative -

Domestic norms of conflict resolution are not adopted in international context – wars are fought for self-interest reasons (think American Cold War interventions, and Iraq, etc.). Trust and respect don’t exist when conflicts of interest do  Cold War – US and USSR prefer to destabilise one another through force

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Support for democracy sacrificed in name of American economic interests America sought to undermine already well-established democracies in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, etc., that the theory suggests they should have been trusting

Institutional -

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Little evidence that anti-war groups should win out over pro-war groups Publics are unlikely to constrain war proneness, as the costs fall on a small subset of the population  Nationalism often overwhelms the public when faced with the costs of war  Democracies aren’t peace-loving! They fight with non-democracies.  Democratic leaders are as likely to lead as to follow public opinion  Little protest when Roosevelt generated enthusiasm to bomb Japanese, killing over a million citizens…!  Objection to Rosato – all inter-democracy wars would be devastating, given the international set-up of alliances, and the UN. There’s little practical evidence that democracies are slow to mobilise their armies – in fact, due to their tendency to be wealthy, they’re probably richer, and thus quicker.  The US has taken military action abroad > 200 times… only 5 of these were declared wars by Congress and thus needed public/congressional support. Surprise attack – regardless of political type, most countries are unable to keep attacks secret. Information  Why should information always be a good signal? Which information is representative? Only PERFECT information could help states to avoid war.  OBJECTION TO ROSATO – so could trusted information!

Conclusions -

Democracies ...