The main weakness of the democratic peace theory is not just that there are

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1 Cody Raskin POS 467 Midterm Exam The main weakness of the democratic peace theory is not just that there are accumulated exceptions to the rule, but that the theory has ceased to be a useful explanation of behavior. The democratic peace theory has been under attack seemingly from its inception, perhaps deservedly. The idea which first became popular after World War I, and was later revived in the 1970s 1, has as its main premise that nations in which the populous has a strong voice in the decisions of the government are less likely to engage in war, and much less likely to engage in war with other nations which are also democracies. This was an extremely popular belief in the 1910s and 1920s in lieu of Woodrow Wilson s League of Nations. Thereafter, the idea was adopted wholeheartedly and became one of the many considerations in American foreign policy during the Cold War (though, as will be noted, it may not have been a consideration by those parties which mattered most). There were, however, many scholars then and there are many now that do not believe this theory is sound. Most of the opponents of the theory can be classified as realists, or neo-classical realists, or whatever else they choose to call themselves these days. Their core philosophy is based on the principle that nations will always engage in warfare regardless of their

2 respective forms of government, and they find means to attack this theory on several fronts. Firstly, there is scant convincing evidence that democracies don t engage in war with other democracies. Democracy as a form of government is relatively new, and up until recently was still a rarity among nations. It would be a gross statistical blunder to assume a causal relationship based on such few data points. 2 Under these conditions, it would be just as accurate to say that no countries that win gold medals in the Olympics will go to war with each other, or that any country that airs the Peanuts cartoon on Saturday mornings is not as likely to go to war with another country that also airs this cartoon. Moreover, there are cases in which democracies have actively engaged in war with other democracies the Spanish-American war, the war of For this reason alone, the argument that war hasn t happened and never will happen between democracies is something less than compelling. Secondly, there is absolutely no evidence that war has been averted between nations for the sole reason that both were democracies. It has not been shown with sufficient credibility that war planners refrain from violence proportional to the apparent level of democracy of their enemies when devising their strategic plans. Though, this is not to say the converse is not true among the many reasons for Nazi Germany s invasion of the Soviet Union was that the USSR represented, if only by name, a form of social democracy diametrically opposed to Nazi fascism. Regardless, if democracy is not a consideration that surfaces when the need for war arises, then all cases of democratic

3 nations at peace are meaningless coincidences, since in the end, democracies would be no safer from attack by other democracies than by purely authoritarian dictatorships. A proponent of the theory might point out that threats and abrasive posturing are not acceptable behaviors for democratic nations, and therefore, one democratic leader could reasonably expect that his counterpart in another nation would be sympathetic to the same sorts of pressures each leader faces. In other words, democratic nations would never expect an enemy in the form of another democracy. 2 This is absolute tosh, as is evidenced in the actions of the United States alone, which has consistently curbed the appearance of democracies in states where the US has divested economic interests that would be harmed by a popularly controlled government. It can be said that emerging democracies have everything to fear from the more powerful, industrialized democracies who interpret democratization in the third world as a threat to their economic vitality. But more importantly, to say that democratic leaders are somehow more civilized and therefore, less likely to react violently to the same pressures that would induce this behavior in nondemocratic leaders verges on racism. Thirdly, and more fundamental, proponents of the democratic peace theory define absolutely arbitrary criteria for what constitutes a democracy and what constitutes war to fit historical precedent. Grading a nation s level of apparent democracy on an objective 10-point scale is a futile exercise if other subjective characteristics are not considered on a case-by-case basis as well. For instance, Pakistan may score surprisingly high on the democracy scale, but the level of participation of the populous in deciding who is prime

4 minister is suspect. And on the other end of the spectrum, a purely socialist government might score extremely low for reasons of bias in favor of more capitalistic democracies, and yet may have a fairer election system than the United States (which, it can be argued, has one of the poorest election systems in Western civilization). As for what constitutes war, a minimum casualty number is a completely meaningless and arbitrary measure of the intentions of the nations involved. War means war regardless of the effectiveness of either side to eliminate the other, and it is doubtful democracies embark in open warfare with maximum casualty quotas of less than 1000 enemy kills in mind. 2 It may very well be the case that democracy and peace are related, though the connection is tenuous. However, there is no credible evidence of a causal relationship. What is much more likely is that the current collection of democracies shares other, more important factors which allow for a more peaceful relationship 2, such as economic cooperation, a shared culture, or perhaps it is simply a holdover from the WWII allied unison. Certainly it is more believable that countries that fought side-by-side against invading axis powers are not likely to forget that relationship any time soon, though US-Soviet relations are a notable exception. And yet, the US and the Soviet Union never did engage in open warfare by the definition of war proposed by the democratic peace theorists. And despite any correlations one might find with peace between nations and some arbitrary commonality, it would be a tragic miscalculation to make any assumptions on the future actions of another nation from these correlations. 3 Nor would it be legitimate to assume the G8 nations strive to selectively democratize and un-democratize the world for reasons of global peace.

5 References 1. James Ray, The Democratic Path to Peace 2. Miriam Elman, The Need for a Qualitative Test of the Democratic Peace Theory 3. John Harper, The Dream of Democratic Peace