we ask that you provide a 3,000-word  6 to 7 pages not include citations, academic essay on the topic below. Your essay must include citations for sources as well as a bibliography. Students can choose between any citation/referencing style they like (MLA, Chicago 16th) but referencing should be consistent in the document. 

 the question is: “Will the spread of democracy solves the problem of war?”  

A brief backgrounder to get you started with research: This argument revolves around the idea of “Democratic Peace Theory” which has its roots in Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace”. In contemporary international affairs western states, in particular, the United States, have pursued policies of democracy promotion as a solution to the problem of war. The idea of the Democratic Peace also relies upon the idea of liberal economic policies (free trade) to support democracy promotion. You may want to consider these texts in your research, but you should cite a wider array of sources. 

This list is just a starting point. 

• M. W. Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs” Philosophy and Foreign Affairs 12 (1983).
• Christopher Layne, “Kant or Cant: The Myth of Democratic Peace” International Security 19: 2 (1994).
• Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Democratic Pace – Warlike Democracies? A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument” European Journal of International Relations 1: 4 (1995).
• Helen Milner and Keiko Kubota, “Why the Move to Free Trade? Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries” International Organization 59:1 (2005).

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Will the spread of democracy solve the problem of war?

Introduction

The proposition of democratic peace has dominated international politics and how democratic states interact with each other. This assertion counters the realist tradition that has been in place since the beginning of the second half of the 20th century—the evaluation of the idea that democratic peace propositions reinforce new data and analytical techniques of international politics. During the Cold War, countries were bound by the common interest to preserve peace among multiple democracies despite the clashing ideological differences. Experts have criticized such intuitive arguments in this field. Significantly the transition to democratic principles has made countries more prone to wars. The diversity of scholarly evidence points to the basis of a person the democratic peace proposition, which aims to answer the question ” will the spread of democracy solve the problem of War?”

Democratic Peace Theory and Political Science

The Democratic Peace Theory draws from multiple premises that include the idea that populations tend to restrain elected leaders in open democracies. This assertion is founded on the rationale that people choose between the cost of wars in terms of human and financial losses. Secondly, the premise that democracies are class is internal political institutions to conclude when domestic disputes arise. Therefore, a democratic society’s political disputes are more or less settled using internationally recognized bodies such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. Another argument is that democratic societies have developed a political culture of consolation and finding common ground whenever there is a conflict. More so, people have been educated o democratic principles of non-violence as a means of conflict resolution. Additionally, the argument holds that belligerent leaders will be held accountable by other Arms of government such as the legislature to come to power and want to move the country to war. According to (Drerup 520), it is argued that people in democratic societies are more tolerant and do not resolve if there is an internal conflict. Therefore, this views the treatment of War in terms of institutional constraints and common nouns present in democratic societies.

At the height of the cold war in the 1970s, scholars examined the proposition of democratic peace using social science tools. The significant amount of empirical evidence supports and at the same time refute this thesis. An example in (Bruce 235) established that no democratic countries had fought Wars against each other during the 20th century. (Mousseau 180) confirmed that the probability of democratic countries fighting against each other is less. However, such findings do not exclude the fact that democratic governments have against perceived democratic ones. Therefore, there is a consistent argument that supports the counter idea of democracy as a treatment of war.

The American Foreign Policy and Democratic Peace

The concept of impressing representative liberal governments is based on the fact that this proposition reduces war occurrence. Yet, this argument is both influential and controversial in international politics. For centuries political thinkers have argued in favor of democracy to establish perpetual want to piece. For example, Immanuel Kant’s essay in 1795 entitled “Perpetual Peace” highlights the importance of democracy in controlling the occurrence of war. Similarly, the non-aggression policy advanced by President Woodrow Wilson of the United States draws from the idea that the creation of democracies as a better way of fostering a less hostile world environment.

Consequently, this proposition created a foundation for subsequent presidential administrations that pursued the policy objective of promoting democracy as a way of avoiding war and promoting world peace (Christopher 2). For example, President Bill Clinton, in his State of the Union address of 1994, proclaimed that, “Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advancement of democracy elsewhere. Democracies do not attack each other.” These sentiments were echoed by the 43rd president of the United States, George W Bush, who said, ” And the reason I am so strong on democracy is democracies don’t go to war with each other… I have got great faith in democracy and to promote peace.” The discussion of world peace democracies has created a general excitement among the Western publics and those in policy-making as the pathway towards ensuring enduring world peace. Therefore, the Democratic Peace Theory has served as the conventional wisdom and the foundation for political missions that incorporate both moral and ethical principles in international politics.

The Drawbacks of Democratic Peace

Despite the support for democratic peace Theory, the proposition has generated significant criticisms. The objection stems from one of the original authors of the United States constitution Alexander Hamilton. In Federalist Paper No. 6, Hamilton opined that the democracies such as Athens and Carthage often engaged in wars with neighboring monarchies. Even though these were democratic societies, the propensities to engage in the war were excluded in their plans to conquer other kingdoms.

Modern research establishing the causation effect of wars about democracies has been a problem for many scholars. In particular, there has been no concrete evidence as to why democracies are relatively peaceful. Also, the challenge lies in the definition of war, peace, and democracy. In the Mac peace Theory, it is argued that democratic societies are stable because of economic development. In particular, democratic societies do not support the government to go into war with other countries because it may threaten their living standards. And they have the hand this theory maintains that the powerful economic elites who have more significant control over the government’s actions may not allow the political class to go into war with countries where they have a financial interest (Helen & Keiko, 1). This proposition supports one of the Democratic Peace Theory founded on peaceful coexistence between democracies with similar standards or economic development. According to (Adams et al. 139), poorer countries with weak democratic systems are more likely to fight each other. Therefore, it suffices to conclude that it is the economic development and globalism that maintains peace among countries in a global capitalist system rather than democracy.

Stronger criticism lies in good science, which has been credited for creating dangerous foreign policy decisions. To this end, powerful western democracies are motivated to advocate for democracy crusades in countries that are regarded as undemocratic. The real danger is based on the assumption that liberal democracies create a successful environment of like-minded people. The critical question is whether a popular will can prevent war because armed conflict is popular in some western democracies. For example, the United States’ past presidents seemed to enjoy higher approval ratings among the public after going into war with another country. A classic example is during the 1991 Persian Gulf War between the United States and Iraq, where then George H.W. Bush had an approval rating of more than 89% among the American public (Giovannini 5). From this assessment, it is certain that the war crusade was meant to galvanize the war crusade and call the citizens to ‘rally around the flag’ instead of the real intentions of helping others achieve real democracy. Other than other reasons why the U.S. waged war on Iraq at the premise of the ‘War on Terror’, it is evident that the mission failed to resuscitate the dead democracy in the country despite huge human and property loss.

Therefore, the most pressing issue of democratic peace regards how to create a world of liberal democracies (Doyle 12). The competing arguments of the active and passive pursuit of global policy to promote democracy represent one of the main implementation challenges. As argued by the founding fathers, the passive policy is reflected in Thomas Jefferson’s proclamation that, ” A just and solid Republican government maintained there will be a standard monument and an example for… people of other countries”. This argument is modeled on the Western-type democracy of the rule of law and self-restraint that can be replicated elsewhere. On the contrary, active policy involves fast food implementation of democratic political systems by superior countries such as the United States. The basic assumption is that those who champion the democratic crusades will be welcomed by those who need and desire democracy where it lacks thereof. However, not all Arab countries receptive to this idea, and some can interpret it as disguised imperialism. In this regard, the move to false democracy or others is viewed as an attempt to delegitimize and internal institutions. Therefore, instead of viewing this attempt as liberating the local population and the leadership view this policy mandate as forceful and unnecessary. In particular, the ‘gunpoint democracy’ is not viewed as representative of the Democratic Peace Theory and rather creates a contentious debate about the contradictions of self-rule and nonviolent approach to conflict resolution.

Another point of contention is when democratically elected governments do not pursue the democratic and peaceful interests of the electorate. In countries where the US assimilates and economic interests, the government’s help to install may not always pursue agendas aligned with American interests. For example, when the US invaded Iraq in 2001, elected governments supported by the Americans did not intend to continue the democratic spirit as it was earlier anticipated. Similar cases in Palestine and Afghanistan demonstrate the ineffectiveness of democratic crusades as the government pursues agendas that do not reflect the cause for peace.

It is important to note that the United States took a long time to achieve the democratic success it enjoys today for over 200 years since independence, the country has endured violent civil rights movements and civil wars that were not peaceful. Away from what was envisaged by the Founding Father, subsequent leaderships have taken steps to limit democratic freedoms such as universal suffrage for women and the people of color. Because voting is part of a democratic process, such actions as denying others this privilege goes against the principles of democracy and peaceful coexistence. Despite being dubbed as the beacon of democracy, the United States, throughout generations, has undergone periods of intolerance as a transitional democracy. Even as the US attempts to impose democratic values in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the journey to achieve its intended goals will take time as more countries are incorporated into the league of democracies based on freedom and peace.

Scholars have expressed guarded optimism about the effectiveness of democratic peace. In particular, the implementation requires a fine instrument and an in-depth understanding of the subject. Notably, the practice of forcing democratic principles on non-democratic countries may not yield the required results. Forcing western democracy in other countries that are not ready to accept this tradition could be ineffective and results in violence. Therefore, the democratic peace approach requires sophisticated policy-making that incorporates authentic and stable models of both social and economic incentives to encourage these countries to accept democracy with ease. Without economic development, populations in undemocratic countries may interpret the process of transplanting western-style democracy as a form of imperialism that needs to be resisted.

Ideally, democratic peace requires an intuitive and defensible operational threshold as a treatment for wars. For example, it can be argued that States could avoid wars if all the processes of democracy, including free competitive and fair elections, are held. Importantly this threshold can be defined by a political environment characterized by competitive elections between or among political parties which present the candidates to the adult electorate. By extension, elections will be determined as free and fair if the winning candidates achieve the minimum constitutional requirements. The political system allows for a peaceful transfer of executive power by the incumbent leader to a political figure who has been declared a winner through the electoral process. The constitutional transfer of power criterion is not sufficiently discernible at the minimum threshold theoretically applicable in democratic peace. For instance, the Spanish-American war represents a classic example of democratic States fighting each other because one of the parties involved was not democratic enough to hand over power to a democratically elected government. Therefore, it is sufficient to argue that democratic peace does not always minimize the risk of war between countries supposed to be allies.

Attempts to study the correlation between autocratic regimes and war has been widely reported. According to (Sombatpoonsiri 2), autocratic countries tend to disrupt democratic order when anticipating war. Accordingly, the democratic peace proposition is hindered by regimes that attempt to undo democratic progress when they feel that waging war negates the need for democracy. Therefore, democracy’s correlation does not always hold when countries have been on a war footing in the recent past. Also, the argument that democracy minimizes conflict may not be true because the direction of causality always changes depending on the prevailing circumstances. Importantly attempts to ascertain the real cause of war coincide with the democratic peace proposition and conflict anticipation. For this reason, democratic peace proposition and war present a challenge even for the Western leadership. A country such as the United States may justify the need for waging war against a perceived undemocratic country by sponsoring mass protests to topple democratically elected governments. Thereafter it goes on to declare war on the regime in the name of restoring peace and democracy. This has repeatedly happened in countries such as Libya and Iraq. Such interventions may not work in the long-term because it will breed resentment towards the invading country. The move sets a dangerous precedent for other ‘relatively’ democratic countries to engage in the adventure of imposing democracy on others.

There is compelling evidence that the so-called democratic countries are relatively warlike, not so different from these democratic ones (Thomas 2). According to (Kuehn 162), democracies have in the past and present initiated wars against undemocratic regimes and are less controlling for their military posture. For instance, Western democracies such as Great Britain and the United States have jointly initiated Wars against countries, particularly in the Middle East. A classic example is a military coalition among NATO allies led by Britain and the United States during Iraq’s invasion. On a system level, the research on the frequency of wars between and among countries that demonstrate intermediate share of democracy increases when democratic and non-democratic values and beliefs clash. However, because of systematic democratization, the probabilities for initiating conflicts based on the difference in democratic values decrease as more countries begin to share common values and interact internationally. For this reason, the probabilities of conflict erupting because of the need to impose democratic principles other countries reduce as more countries are willing and ready to democratize. Based on the standard account of Immanuel Kant, the actualization of democratic peace depends on a dialectic process where like-minded countries form International relations and gradually learn from one another. Nonetheless, the risk of war may not entirely vanish because of democratic peace; rather, it minimizes the chance of conflict as countries adopt norms and mechanisms for conflict resolution.

In Kim (407), there is evidence that non-democracies are more likely to settle disputes by resorting to wars. Also, relatively democratic countries bordering undemocratic ones may choose a warpath to resolve the territorial claim. This had happened in Eastern Europe when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 due to the disputed enclave of Abkhazia. While Russia can be regarded as relatively undemocratic, Georgia has made games to reform its political system introducing free and fair elections after the fall of the Soviet Union. When provoked, democratic countries may choose to defend their territorial claims if other conflict resolution mechanisms such as diplomacy fail to prevent an imminent war. Nonetheless, the risk of conflict between democracies has reduced over the years, while those between non-democracies have declined less swiftly.

In sum, as strong support for the contrary opinion that democratic peace is a war treatment. Democratic universalism does not solve the interstate war; rather, it is construed as a dangerous foreign policy. Non-democracies do not welcome the idea of being imposed democratic values by Western societies. Many scholars highlight the precarious balance of creating democracies in countries that are traditionally democratic. Also, it is a complicated process that may include meddling in other internal affairs in the name of creating a democratic environment. Importantly it’s not possible to create moderate democracies where they did not exist before. Other factors such as the rule of law, civic culture, and economic development contribute to the legislation of a democratic system which takes time to build and stabilize. For this reason, transitional democracies are more prone to start the conflict when they feel like that and external power attempts to impose an unfamiliar democratic system. Democratic crusades do not produce a guaranteed and smooth transition to liberal democracy. Vested interest by the political elite hinders the smooth and permanent results of democratic peace. Some literature determines that translational democracies are weak and cannot sustain democratic gains. Therefore, it is sufficient to argue that democratic peace, despite counter propositions in support of the same, represents a flawed attempt to force democratic values on others.

Conclusion

Vast literature aims to answer the big question: “Will the spread of democracy solve the problem of war?” The ongoing research has yielded empirical evidence that opposes and supports the proposition that democratic peace leads to lesser interstate wars. Since the end of World War II, countries led by the West have taken deliberate measures to limit the risk of war by promoting western-style democracy worldwide. Despite widespread evidence supporting this proposition, the adjusting persuasive counter-arguments draws from the theoretical basis regarding the war in highly developed democracies are both complementary and competitive. For instance, some factors lead democratic countries to engage in militarized conflicts to resolve disputes. For example, the United States has been fighting wars in the Middle East in the name of promoting democracy and fighting terrorism. Of note, there is no definitive scientific evidence to conclusively identify failures of democratic peace, especially in the post-Cold War era. At least for the moment, the existing theoretical basis solidifies the evidence opposing the democratic peace proposition. Indeed, the more defensible and definitive answer to the critical question, “Will the spread of democracy solve the problem of war?” is “No.”

Works Cited

Adams, Dawda, et al. “Globalisation, governance, accountability and the natural resource ‘curse’: Implications for socio-economic growth of oil-rich developing countries.” Resources Policy 61 (2019): 128-140.

Bruce, Russett. “How Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations Create a System for Peace,” in Charles W. Kegley Jr. and Eugene Wittfopk (eds.) The Global Agenda 6th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill. (2000) 235

Christopher, Layne. “Kant or Cant: The Myth of Democratic Peace” International Security, (1994) 19-2.

Doyle, M. W. “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs” Philosophy and Foreign Affairs, (1983): 12

Drerup, Johannes. “Education for democratic tolerance, respect and the limits of political liberalism.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 52.3 (2018): 515-532.

Giovannini, Kyle. “The Vietnam Syndrome and Its Effects on the US Public and Foreign and Domestic Policy Decisions During the Post-Vietnam Era Between 1975-1991.” (2020).

Helen Milner and Keiko Kubota, “Why the Move to Free Trade? Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries” International Organization, (2005):59-1

Kim, Nam Kyu. “Territorial disputes and individual willingness to fight.” Journal of Peace Research 57.3 (2020): 406-421.

Kuehn, David. “Democratic control of the military.” Handbook of the Sociology of the Military. Springer, Cham, 2018. 161-178.

Mousseau, Michael. “Grasping the scientific evidence: The contractualist peace supersedes the democratic peace.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 35.2 (2018): 175-192.

Sombatpoonsiri, J. (2021). ‘Authoritarian civil society’: How anti-democracy activism shapes Thailand’s autocracy. Journal of Civil Society, 1-18.

Thomas, Risse-Kappen, “Democratic Pace – Warlike Democracies? A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument” European Journal of International Relations, (1995): 1-4