What are the primary explanations of the ‘democratic peace’ and what are some challenges to those explanations?

The central explanation behind the democratic peace theory lies in the assumption that democratic states rarely, if ever, fight wars against each other. This is based on the idea that ‘democratic dyads’ (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999: 791) tend to resolve disputes between one another through peaceful mechanisms of conflict management. Indeed, numerous statistical and anthropological studies have shown that, especially after the Second World War, democracies have almost never fought wars against each other (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999: 791, Chan 1997: 62). That being said, the democratic peace proposition does not deny the resort of democracies to violence against non-democratic and/or authoritarian states, even when its supporters have emphasised that this violent side of democracy is the exception to the rule rather than a systemic feature (Geis and Wagner 2011: 1564). This essay aims at discussing the main drawbacks of the democratic peace theory. To this end, I first synthesise the main explanations put forward by normative and institutional accounts before examining some of the criticisms that call into question the theoretical assumptions of the democratic peace. Finally, I argue that the democratic peace theory is founded on Western-centric and liberal claims that condone self-interested interventionism and cannot explain the use of covert means of violence between democratic states.

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To explain the proneness to peace that apparently permeates democratic states, authors of the democratic peace have mostly relied on normative and institutional or structural accounts. Normative explanations highlight the pervasiveness of shared liberal values and norms among democracies, which include the respect for individual rights and liberties, openness, interdependence, cooperation, and trade (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999, Chan 1997, Crandall et al. 2018, Geis and Wagner 2011). According to this approach, these common values prevent democracies from using violence not only against their own people, but also against other states deemed democratic (Crandall et al. 2018: 931, Geis and Wagner 2011: 1558). Thus, whilst negotiation is preferred in the case of democratic dyads, the same does not apply when confronting non-democratic and/or authoritarian regimes, since they do not share the same liberal norms (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999: 792). Regarding the institutional/structural approach to the democratic peace, its proponents have suggested that, because of the deliberative nature of democratic institutions, political leaders are held accountable and are constrained by electorates in deciding to undertake war. In this sense, citizens are seen as being highly protective of their security, which precludes their willingness to support conflict, considered costly and inefficient (Bueno de Mesquita et al 1999: 792, Chan 1997: 78, Geis and Wagner 2011: 1558, Crandall et al. 2018: 934).

Other authors have gone further in their analysis of the causes for the democratic peace, in part as a response to exceptions of conflict amongst democracies (Hayes 2011: 784). In this vein, John M. Owen has qualified that liberalism, and not democracy per se, sets the stage for peaceful relations between democratic states. In order to avoid conflict, Owen claims, a state must not only be democratic, but also liberal: ‘[A liberal democracy is] a state that instantiates liberal ideas, one where liberalism is the dominant ideology and citizens have leverage over war decisions’ (Owen 1994: 89). Moreover, it is not enough for a democracy to be liberal; it must also be regarded by fellow liberal democracies as being populated by ‘enlightened people’ and governed by ‘enlightened institutions’ (Owen 1994: 96). This focus on perception is Owen’s main contribution and implies that statesmen and elites might try to frame an adversary state as ‘non-democratic’ with the aim of persuading citizens of the necessity of waging war against it. This, in turn, would account for the presence of conflict among democratic states (Owen 1994: 100). Michael C. Williams has also emphasised the importance of perceptions and recognition in the democratic peace theory. According to this author, ‘an important element in the construction of liberal community … is a shared commitment … to discipline and conceal the unruly, violent, and irrational sides of themselves’ (Williams 2001: 539). This is further achieved by the construction of ‘outsiders’ that, in the eyes of liberals, actively prefer to be excluded from the ‘universal moral community’ by rejecting ‘the principles and actions that would merit inclusion’ (Williams 2001: 542).

Despite the attempts of these liberal accounts of the democratic peace theory to support its main propositions, a growing number of scholars, studies, and theoretical approaches have sought to challenge them. Departing from a realist perspective, Bueno de Mesquita et al. have argued that the desire of self-interested leaders to remain in office is a common feature to all systems (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999: 793). The difference lies in the fact that democratic leaders only decide to fight wars when they are reassured of the likelihood of victory and tend to invest more material resources, thereby gaining military advantage over authoritarian states. From this it follows that democracies are especially difficult to defeat, making negotiation the preferred mechanism of conflict resolution between them (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999: 804).

Cristopher Layne has similarly taken a realist perspective to question the democratic peace theory. In his view, democratic states have proven to act in a realist manner when faced with a crisis in which their interests are perceived to be threatened (Layne 1994: 14). This becomes even more evident if we consider civil and extra-systemic wars, for which the democratic peace proposition refrains from giving any comprehensive explanation (Chan 1997: 67). Indeed, the institutional and normative features of liberal democracies should be enough to prevent them from using violence in any shape or form. Yet, democratic states have resorted to coercive strategies between one another. As Crandall et al. have pointed out, when a democracy cannot achieve public approval for coercive policies against other democratic states through legitimizing discourses, its leaders and elites may decide to employ covert force (Crandall et al. 2018: 935). This seems to be the case of the United States, which has sought to harm other democratic, developing countries in a clear example of ‘liberal interventionism’ (Geis and Wagner 2011: 1570, Rosato 2003: 590). In this regard, it is not surprising that the transgressions of American democracy vis-à-vis other democracies have led some authors to conclude that the democratic peace theory is, rather, an ‘imperial peace based on American power’ (Rosato 2003: 599).

To sum up, whilst the combination of normative and structural factors, together with explanations based on perceptions and mutual recognition, have attempted to fill in some of the causal gaps within the democratic peace proposition, it remains unclear to what extent it is safe to say that democratic states are less prone than autocracies to use violence against one another. To begin with, the definition of ‘democracy’ continues to be problematic, as well as its binary opposition to so-called ‘non-democratic’, autocratic, and authoritarian regimes. Indeed, this division between democracies and non-democracies helps reinforce the alleged higher trustworthiness and morality of the former, thereby maintaining the power structure through which big democratic states justify their interventions and resort to clandestine operations against ‘weaker’ democracies and autocracies. Furthermore, as Anna Geis and Wolfgang Wagner have convincingly argued, democracy is a product of historic continuities that may take different paths in the future (Geis and Wagner 2011: 1575). Among other things, this explains why the democratic peace theory is unable to predict perpetual peace even in a hypothetic international system formed by democratic states. In this vein, it is worthwhile to note that ‘the possibility always exists that a democracy will revert to an authoritarian state’ (Measheimer 1990: 50). For this reason, in order to establish a less Western-centric, contentious, and binary relation between political systems in global affairs, future research should focus on the commonalities and differences of the security processes undertaken by those systems, thus helping make sense of the mechanisms that might prevent conflict, as well as allowing for more informational transparency vis-à-vis covert violence and ‘liberal interventionism’.

References

Bell, M. S. and Quek, K. (2018) ‘Authoritarian Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace’, International Organization, 72, 227-242.

Bueno de Mesquita, B., Morrow, J. D., Siverson, R. M., and Smith, A. (1999) ‘An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace’, American Political Science Review, 93(4), 791-807.

Chan, S. (1997) ‘In Search of Democratic Peace: Problems and Promise’, Mershon International Studies Review, 41(1), 59-91.

Crandall, C., Cox, O., Beasley, R., and Omelicheva, M. (2018) ‘Covert Operations, War, Detainee Destinations, and the Psychology of Democratic Peace’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 62(5), 929-956.

Geis, A. and Wagner, W. (2011) ‘How Far is It from Königsberg to Kandahar? Democratic Peace and Democratic Violence in International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 37(4), 1555-1577.

Hayes, J. (2011) ‘The Democratic Peace and the New Evolution of an Old Idea’, European Journal of International Relations, 18(4), 767-791.

Layne, C. (1994) ‘Kant or Can’t: The Myth of the Democratic Peace’, International Security, 19(2), 5-49.

Mearsheimer, J. J. (1990) ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War’, International Security, 15(1), 5-56.

Owen, J. M. (1994) ‘How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace’, International Security, 19(2), 87-125.

Rosato, S. (2003) ‘The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory’, The American Political Science Review, 97(4), 585-602.

Schafer, M. and Walker, S. G. (2006) ‘Democratic Leaders and the Democratic Peace: The Operational Codes of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton’, International Studies Quarterly, 50, 561-583.

Williams, M. C. (2001) ‘The Discipline of the Democratic Peace: Kant, Liberalism and the Social Construction of Security Communities’, European Journal of International Relations, 7(4), 525-553.