THC Science

The democratic peace theory or simply democratic peace (often DPT) is a theory in international relations, political science, and philosophy which holds that democracies—specifically, liberal democracies—never or almost never go to war with one another.

The original theory and research on wars has been followed by many similar theories and related research on the relationship between democracy and peace, like that lesser conflicts than wars are rare between democracies, and that systematic violence is in general less common within democracies.

History

The democratic peace theory is a relatively new development. No early author seems to have considered it true. One explanation is that democratic governments were scarce before the late 19th century.

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Immanuel Kant

It was Immanuel Kant who first foreshadowed the theory in his essay Perpetual Peace written in 1795, although he thought that liberal democracy was only one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace.

Dean Babst, a criminologist, was the first to do statistical research and write an academic paper supporting the theory, in 1964, in Wisconsin Sociologist; he published a slightly more popularized version, eight years later, in the trade journal Industrial Research. Both versions initially received little attention.

J. David Singer and Melvin Small (1976) eventually responded and denied that democracies were in general less war-like than other nations; but they found only two marginal cases of democracies fighting each other. This paper was published in a political science journal, the Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, and this finally brought more widespread attention to the theory — also partly through Michael Doyle's (1983) lengthy discussion of the topic.

Rudolph J. Rummel cited Babst's work in the fourth book of his five-volume work, Understanding Conflict and War (1975-1981). He has since written extensively on the democratic peace, and has also drawn considerable lay attention to the subject.

There have been numerous studies in the field since.^[1] Most studies have found some form of democratic peace exists; although neither methodological disputes nor doubtful cases are entirely resolved (Kinsella 2005).

Influence

The democratic peace theory has been extremely divisive among political scientists. It is rooted in the idealism in international relations and classical liberalism traditions; and is opposed to the previously dominant theory, realism in international relations. However, democratic peace theory has come to be more widely accepted and has in some democracies affected policy.

Presidents of both the major American parties have expressed support for the theory. Former President Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party: "Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other." ^[2] Current President George W. Bush of the Republican Party: "And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy." ^[3]

Some fear that the democratic peace theory may be used to justify wars against nondemocracies in order to bring lasting peace, in a democratic crusade(Chan 1997, p. 59). Woodrow Wilson in 1917 asked Congress to declare war against Imperial Germany, citing Germany's sinking of American ships due to unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram, but also stating that "A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations" and "The world must be made safe for democracy."^[4] Some point out that the democratic peace theory has been used to justify the 2003 Iraq War, others argue that this justification was used only after the War had already started. However, research shows that attempts to create democracies by using external force has often failed eventually. Those attempts that have succeeded, like creating a stable democracy in occupied Japan after WWII, have involved a drastic change of the whole political culture. Supporting internal democratic movements and using diplomacy may be far more successful and less costly. Thus, the theory and related research, if they were correctly understood, may actually be an argument against a democratic crusade (Weart 1998), (Owen 2005), (Russett 2005).

Definitions

A democratic peace theory has to define what it means by "democracy" and what it means by "peace" (or, more often, "war").

Democracy

Democracies have been defined differently by different theorists and researchers; this accounts for some of the variations in their findings. Some examples:

Kant (1795) opposed direct democracy since it is "necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty." Instead, Kant favors a constitutional republic where individual liberty is protected from the will of the majority.

Singer (1976) define democracy as a nation that (1) holds periodic elections in which the opposition parties are as free to run as government parties, (2) allows at least 10% of the adult population to vote, and (3) has a parliament that either controls or enjoys parity with the executive branch of the government.

Doyle (1983) requires (1) that "liberal régimes" have market or private property economics, (2) they have polities that are externally sovereign, (3) they have citizens with juridical rights, and (4) they have representative governments. Either 30% of the adult males were able to vote or it was possible for every man to acquire voting rights as by attaining enough property. He allows greater power to hereditary monarchs than other researchers; for example, he counts the rule of Louis-Philippe of France as a liberal régime.

Ray (1995) requires that at least 50% of the adult population is allowed to vote and that there has been at least one peaceful, constitutional transfer of executive power from one independent political party to another by means of an election.

Rummel (1997) states that "By democracy is meant liberal democracy, where those who hold power are elected in competitive elections with a secret ballot and wide franchise (loosely understood as including at least 2/3rds of adult males); where there is freedom of speech, religion, and organization; and a constitutional framework of law to which the government is subordinate and that guarantees equal rights."

Weart (1998). See Never at War.

Non-binary classifications

The above definitions are binary, classifying nations into either democracies or nondemocracies. Many researchers have instead used more finely grained scales. One example is the Polity data series which scores each state on two scales, one for democracy and one for autocracy, for each year since 1800; as well as several others.^[5] The use of the Polity Data has varied. Some researchers have done correlations between the democracy scale and belligerence; others have treated it as a binary classification by (as its maker does) calling all states with a high democracy score and a low autocracy score democracies; yet others have used the difference of the two scores, sometimes again making this into a binary classification (Gleditsch 1992).

Young democracies

Several researchers have observed that many of the possible exceptions to the democratic peace have occurred when at least one of the involved democracies was very young. They have therefore added a qualifier, typically stating that the peacefulness apply to democracies older than 3 years (Doyle 1983), (Russett 1993), (Rummel 1997), (Weart 1998). Rummel (1997) argues that this is enough time for "democratic procedures to be accepted, and democratic culture to settle in." Additionally, this may allow for other states to actually come to the recognition of the state as a democracy.

Wars and lesser conflicts

Quantitative research on international wars usually define war as a military conflict with more than 1000 killed in battle. This is the definition used in the Correlates of War Project which has also supplied the data for many studies on war. It turns out that most of the military conflicts in question fall clearly above or below this threshold (Ray 1995, p. 103).

Some researchers have used different definitions. For example, Weart (1998) defines war as more than 200 battle deaths. Russett (1993, p. 50), when looking at Ancient Greece, only requires some real battle engagement, involving on both sides forces under state authorization.

Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs), in the Correlates of War Project classification, are lesser conflicts than wars. Such a conflict may be no more than military display of force with no battle deaths. MIDs and wars together are "militarized interstate conflicts" or MICs. MIDs include the conflicts that precede a war; so the difference between MIDs and MICs may be less than it appears.

Wars

The straightforward argument for the democratic peace is: given the number of wars over the past two centuries, if democracies fought each other as often as any other pair of states, there should have been many wars between democracies. Instead, depending on the study, we find zero or very few, and the possible exceptions generally involve doubtful democracies. A review (Ray 1998) lists many studies finding that this peacefulness is statistically significant.

Possible exceptions to no wars

Template:TotallyDisputed

Several researchers find no wars between well-established liberal democracies.^[6] Jack Levy (1988) made an oft-quoted assertion that the theory is "as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations".

Others see one or two exceptions. Some wars commonly suggested as exceptions are the Spanish-American War and the Continuation War. Even some of those who see exceptions regard them as marginal cases.^[7]

Other authors simply describe war between democracies as "rare", "very rare", "rare or non-existent".^[8]

The question of no or few wars may be unimportant. Bremer (1992, 1993), who strongly supports the democratic peace, argues that it is impossible to prove a probability of exactly zero wars between democracies; thus is "fruitless to debate the question of whether democracies never or only very rarely fight one another". It is only possible to show a decrease in the probability of war.

However, at least one researcher (Rummel 1983) have argued that the inter-democratic peace is an absolute law. One exception will disprove the theory. Most researchers disagree (Gleditsch 1992).

Ancient

Conflict	Dates	Arguments for being a war between well-established liberal democracies	Arguments against being a war between well-established liberal democracies
Wars involving the Athenian democracy. Most notable is the Sicilian Expedition.	Sicilian Expedition: 415 BC-413 BC	Russet finds 13 conflicts between "clear" democractic pairs (most of these being Athens and allies in the Sicilian Expedition) and 25 involving "other" democratic pairs.	Russett finds no wars between liberal democracies in modern times but uses different definitions for democracy and war for Ancient Greece. Still, he argues that some of these may have been caused by misperception caused by the poor communications. He also finds much textual evidence that democracies and oligarchies were reluctant to attack and frequently allied with states that had the same political arrangement. The city states in Ancient Greece had large numbers of non-voting slaves and metics. At most half of the adult males in Athens could vote. Many of the government leaders in Athens were selected by allotment and thus did not have to worry about being elected or re-elected. Ray argues that these states had little resemblance to modern liberal democracies and did not fulfill the criteria above. Weart in his book Never at War instead argues that Athens was a borderline democracy but that the opposing states did not fulfill the criteria above or that the conflicts caused no or very few battle deaths. ^[9] p. 41-62 ^[10] p. 103-105.^[11] p. 24-37, 298-300.
Wars involving the Roman Republic. In particular, the Punic Wars.	Punic Wars: 264 BC-146 BC		Both states usually considered oligarchies. The Roman Republic had large numbers of non-voting slaves, former slaves, Italian allies, and foreigners. Roman citizens had different political rights based on heredity and wealth. The Roman Senate had the real power and was dominated by noble families. See also the discussion in Never at War regarding whether there is enough information about Carthage to determine the exact form of government there at the start of each of these wars. ^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15] "In practice, however, the constitution became an oligarchy."^[16]

Modern

Conflict	Dates	Arguments for being a war between well-established liberal democracies	Arguments against being a war between well-established liberal democracies
Conflicts involving certain tribes. For example, Hurons vs. Iroquois.		Frequent raids on and eventual destruction of most of the Hurons by the Iroquois. Both had some democratic elements.	Were not liberal democratic states but rather tribes formed by the extended kinship group. Weart argues that the most important difference to states was the lack effective control of personal raids against non-kinship groups which eventually escalated by involving relatives and friends to vendettas and wars.^[11] p. 253-254.
American Revolutionary War	1775–1783		The United States can be considered a liberal democracy after the Continental Congress but was less than three years old. Only a few percent had the right to vote in the United Kingdom, many new urban areas had no representation, the ballot was not secret, many seats in Parliament were appointed or openly bought from the owners of rotten boroughs, and the House of Lords could veto all laws. The monarchy under George III retained important powers, in particular regarding the appointment of colonial officials and the power to declare war. ^[17] ^[18] ^[10] p. 106-107. ^[11] p. 304-305.
Quasi-War	1798–1800		Less than 1000 battle deaths: a few dozen. The franchise in the French Directory was restricted to a minority of wealthy Frenchmen. In 1797 there was a coup d'etat which used troops against the opposition, closed down opposing newspapers, cancelled election results, and condemned hundreds of opponents to exile or death. ^[11]p. 305-306.
War of 1812	1812-1815		Only a few percent had the right to vote in the United Kingdom, many new urban areas had no representation, the ballot was not secret, many seats in Parliament were appointed or openly bought from the owners of rotten boroughs, and the House of Lords could veto all laws. The monarchy retained important powers. ^[17]^[18]^[10] p. 106-107. ^[11] p. 135-138, 184-186, 306.
Trail of Tears	1838	The Cherokees had created a republican constitution in 1827.	The nation allowed slaveholding and become increasingly authoritarian, in the end beating, censoring and even murdering those advocating a voluntary removal. The state of Georgia decreed that the government was dissolved in 1828 which was before three years had passed since the creation of the constitution. No battle deaths. ^[11] p. 225-226, 306-7.
Mexican-American War	1846-1848		Mexican President Mariano Paredes was a general that took power in a coup d'etat. ^[11] p. 201-204, 207, 214.
Sonderbund War	1847	A majority of the males had the vote in some Cantons on both sides.	Less than 1000 battle deaths: fewer than a hundred. Democracy was less than 3 years old in Zurich which was the leading Protestant Canton. The Catholic Cantons restricted the suffrage to Catholic men and in many also to a group that descended from the original inhabitants. The Protestants and liberals attempted a rebellion in Catholic Lucerne but were defeated. Some fled what they called a Catholic "reign of terror". Lucerne announced that Jesuits would be responsible for the educational system. This was perceived as evidence that Lucerne was now a regime under the thumb of the autocratic Pope. A private expedition of volunteers tried to "liberate" Lucerne but failed. The perceptions of nondemocracy was strengthened when the Catholic Cantons refused to comply with the majority of the Swiss Federal Council and turned for aid to foreign Catholic powers like the Habsburgs. ^[11] p. 26-27, 309-310. Switzerland had once gained independence from autocratic Habsburg rulers and had also later fought several wars with them.
French Second Republic vs. Roman Republic (19th century)	1849		Both young democracies less than 3 years old. The Pope had promised to excommunicate those that took part in the elections, leaving only inexperienced radicals in the Roman government during the few months it existed. The French President and later Emperor Louis Napoleon needed support from the conservative Catholics and the military. The young French assembly was led to believe that the French expedition was a simple police action in order to restore order in a chaotic regime and to protect Rome from foreign monarchies that planned an intervention. The army officers on the scene distrusted everything republican and despite the unexpected resistance launched an attack and conquered Rome without a mandate from the French assembly. The news of this caused violent uprisings in France. The critics called the military repression of these the "the Roman expedition into the interior". ^[11] p. 156-160, 310-311.
American Civil War	1861-1865	The delegates from the six states at the Montgomery Convention informally discussed several possible presidential candidates. Only the final votes, from approving documents to electing officers, were to be unanimous in order to impress the Union and the border states. ^[19]	Weart argues that the Confederate States of America was less than 3 years old at the start of the war. Less than 2/3 of the adult male population could vote in the Confederacy. The state was created in order to continue the suppression of the black slave population. Wealthy planters played on racial fears in order to avoid criticism from poor whites. Abolitionists were censored and imprisoned even before Lincoln was elected and he was not on the ballot in most parts of the South. In the first elections in the confederacy, voters in many areas again had no choice of candidates. Ray argues that there was never a competitive presidential election in the confederacy. There was no choice of candidates in the 1861 presidential election. Only in some districts were there two candidates for the Confederate Congress. ^[10] p. 110-111.^[11] p. 114-119, 311.
Ecuador vs. Colombia	1863		Ecuadorian presidet Gabriel Garcia Moreno headed an autocratic regime. The regime in Colombia was less than three years old, Colombia had gained a new constitution after a revolution the same year as the war.^[9] p. 18.
War of the Pacific	1879-1884		Only one man in fifty could vote in Chile and Peru. ^[11] p. 67.
First Boer War	1880-1881		Britan was not a liberal democracy before the Representation of the People Act 1884. The new Boer state was less than 3 years old and the Black population was excluded from the franchise. Less than 1000 battle deaths: several hundred. ^[11] p. 307-308.
Fashoda Incident	1898		No battle deaths. ^[11] p. 311.
Spanish-American War	1898	This is one of Gowa's two claimed exceptions to the democratic peace. She notes that Spain received a score of 6 out of 10 for democracy in the Polity data set which in this data set is categorized as "democratic". ^[20] p. 50. ^[21] In Spain all males could vote and the constitution in theory protected many civil liberties. Another argument for Spain being a democracy may be that the failed war caused a change in leadership.	There was the Turno system where corrupt officials manipulated the elections to return to office as many of their own party as they wished. Election results were often published in the press before the elections. Dissidents were jailed. 1/4 of the members of the Cortes were appointed by the King or had hereditary positions. The monarchy retained important powers like appointing the ministry. A military coup d'etat was feared if Spain would compromise in the negotiations. ^[10] p. 111-115.^[11] p. 141-2, 204-205, 311. ^[9] p. 19. A change in leadership due to a failed war has happened in undisputed dictatorships, like in Argentina that was ruled by a military junta before the unsuccessful Falklands war.
Philippine-American War	1899–1913		No democratic elections in the Philippines. The Philippine regime was less than 3 years old. One group of Filipinos had proclaimed a constitution which explicitly gave the power to a small group of landowners and professionals. Emilio Aguinaldo was declared president without elections. He was suspected of killing two of his main political rivals and nearly all foreign observers saw no chance for genuine self-government, but only different regional groups and bandits. US president William McKinley stated that it would be immoral to withdraw and leave the Filipinos to fight one another or be occupied by an European power or Japan. ^[11] p. 207-210, 308-309.
Second Boer War	1899–1902		Only males from the minority White population had the right to vote in the Boer states. White Uitlanders were excluded from the franchise in Transvaal. ^[11] p. 124-128, 308. ^[22]
World War I	1914-1918	The German Reichstag was elected by all adult males and it did vote overwhelmingly to fund the war. For comparison, the United Kingdom is often considered a liberal democracy at this time but only approximately 60% of British males could vote. The British Monarch and the House of Lords was not democratically elected.	The German Kaiser retained most of the power. All the appointments to the bureaucracy, the armed forces, and the diplomatic forces were made at his sole discretion. It was common knowledge that the army strongly supported him and would would arrest his opponents if he so desired. Open criticisms could and was punished as lese majesty. The German Chancellor in 1913 ignored a vote of no confidence, explaining that he served at the discretion of the Kaiser alone. The Reichstag was not consulted regarding the declaration of war, but only informed after the fact that its support was required to approve the allocation of funds for the defence against the Tsarist Russia. ^[11] p. 142-145, 191-195, 311-312. The comparison to the United Kingdom ignores that the House of Lords and the Monarchy had lost most real power during the previous century. The Parliament Act 1911 limited the powers of the House of Lords to reject bills. Also, if the United Kingdom was not a liberal democracy at this time, then this is another reason for WWI not being a war between democracies.
Irish War of Independence	1919-1921		The Irish state was less than 3 years old. The initial violence involved rebels acting on their own outside democratic control. Later democratic control of the Irish Republican Army was doubtful and immediately after the war one part of the IRA tried to overthrow the government in the Irish Civil War. ^[11] p. 312.
Occupation of the Ruhr	1923-1924		No battle deaths. ^[11] p. 164-171, 312-313.
World War II	1939-1945	Adolf Hitler was democratically elected.	Adolf Hitler lost the 1932 presidential election to Paul von Hindenburg. The Nazis gained the largest minority vote in the 1933 Reichstag election after the Reichstag fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree, and an election campaign where the Nazis used threats and violence. A voting coalition with the DNVP allowed them to pass the Enabling Act. Thereafter they ruled by decree and all political parties except the NSDAP were dissolved. There were no free elections and civil liberties were ignored.
Continuation War	1941-1944	This is one of Gowa's two claimed exceptions to the democratic peace. The United Kingdom issued a formal declaration of war on Finland. Finnish territory was bombed. Another argument is that Finland lost 69 merchant ships outside the Baltic Sea. ^[23]	Five months after the start of the war, the United Kingdom reluctantly declared war due to pressure from Soviet Union. However, the United Kingdom's only significant act of war happened prior to the declaration, a Royal Air Force raid on German-run mining operations. The British were not attacking Finns. The formal declaration meant nothing but some financial restrictions and the seizure of shipping. ^[11] p. 313. ^[20] p. 48. Neutral Sweden lost 200 merchant ships outside the Baltic Sea. ^[24] Finland spent WWII fighting a totalitarian opponent, the Soviet Union, who had previously attacked the nation. Using a formal declaration of war as the definition of war would mean that there have been very few wars after WWII. For example, there has been no declaration of war by the United States since WWII despite involvement in several large scale conflicts causing many battle deaths.
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947	1947-1948		Both states less than 3 years old. Poorly functioning democracy in Pakistan. ^[10] p. 120.
1948 Arab-Israeli War	1947-1949	Lebanon sent troops to aid the Arab side. The United Kingdom was officially neutral but gave some unofficial support to the Arab side.	The Israeli state was less than 3 years old and had never had a democratic election. Lebanon was only formally democratic. Less than 1000 battle deaths: 129 Israelis and probably at least as many Lebanese.The only direct combat action involving the UK was when Israel shot down five Royal Air force Spitfires on a reconnaissance mission. ^[10] p. 120. ^[11] p. 313-314
Operation Ajax	1953	Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically elected.	British and US supported coup d'etat. Less than 1000 battle deaths. Iran was perceived as turning into a Communist dictatorship.
Operation Pbsuccess	1954	President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was democratically elected.	United States supported coup d'etat. Less than 1000 battle deaths: less than a hundred. The United States perceived Guatemala as a nascent Communist dictatorship. ^[11] p. 221-224, 314.
Cod Wars	1958-1976		No battle deaths. ^[11] p. 315.
Operation Power Pack	1965		Military coup d'etat in 1963 in the Dominican Republic took power from Juan Bosch. An uprising in 1965 seized the presidential palace and installed a provisional president, Rafael Molina Ureña. Followed by civil war. The new regime was less than 3 years old and not democratically elected when the United States intervened, fearing a Communist takeover. ^[25]
Six-Day War	1967	Lebanon sent jets into Israel at beginning of the war.	No battle deaths. Poorly functioning democracy in Lebanon. ^[10] p. 120. ^[9] p. 18.
Chilean coup of 1973	1973	President Salvador Allende was democratically elected.	The United States tried to undermine Salvador Allende's regime but was not directly involved in the coup d'etat. Chile was perceived as turning into a Communist dictatorship.^[11] p. 227-228. Far less than 1000 battle deaths.
Turkish Invasion of Cyprus	1974		Initial hostilities after a coup d'etat in Cyprus. Both the later formally democratic regime in Cyprus and that in Turkey was less than 3 years old. The military retained significant influence in both. Less than 1000 battle deaths: a few hundred. ^[10] p. 120-121. ^[11] 314-315.
Paquisha War	1981		Less than 1000 battle deaths: as high as two hundred. Both young democracies less than 3 years old. Lacking democratic control over the military on both nations. ^[11] p. 70, 316.
Yugoslav Wars	1991-1999		Serbia did not fulfill the criteria for a liberal democracy. Frequent and arbitrary changes of election laws and districts, even retroactively after elections. Press freedom greatly restricted. Slobodan Milosevic's regime controlled the state television and radio broadcasts. Electoral manipulation including: massive double voting, "voting" of persons being permanently absent or deceased, the pressure on employees by the management of "socially owned companies", organised planting of already prepared voting ballots into the polling boxes, forging of electoral records and election board records, alteration of the election results made by electoral commissions, the large-scale annulment of the election results by courts rulings, and changing the number of participating voters in order to fulfil the legal requirements for the validity of the elections. ^[26] In addition, the Ten-Day War and the War in Croatia would be excluded as both sides were less than 3 years old. Also, Croatia was not a liberal democracy for similar reasons as those mentioned for Serbia. ^[11] p. 316-318.
Cenepa War	1995	President Alberto Fujimori was democratically elected.	Alberto Fujimori had made an auto-coup in 1992 and took on dictatorial powers. ^[27] Less than 1000 battle deaths.
Eritrean-Ethiopian War	1998-2000		No elections in Eritrea before the war. Authoritarian regime not respecting civil and political liberties. Poorly functioning democracy in Ethiopia. ^[28] ^[29]
Kargil War	1999	Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was democratically elected.	Nawaz Sharif's regime suppressed opposition-led demonstrations, arrested opposition activists, curtailed civil liberties, and persecuted independent NGOs and journalists. The judiciary at first tried to check the Sharif, but later gave up. His supporters stormed the Supreme Court of Pakistan and he forced the Chief Justice out of office. He also passed laws removing the legal possibilities to dismiss him from office and stating that party leaders could dismiss any of their legislators if they failed to vote as they were told. ^[30]^[31]^[32]

Ongoing

Conflict	Dates	Arguments for being a war between well-established liberal democracies	Arguments against being a war between well-established liberal democracies
Burundi Civil War	1993-		The democracy was less than 3 years old when the elected leaders were killed in an attempted military coup d'etat a few months after the first democratic election in 1993. Followed by ethnic massacres and civil war. New elections in 2005. Still some fighting from a guerilla group that tried to disrupt the elections. ^[33]^[34]
Al-Aqsa Intifada	2000-	Yasser Arafat was elected president in 1996. Since 2005, an elected Hamas government.	New elections were postponed in 1998. The Infifada started in 2000. Arafat's regime ignored many civil liberties and ruled autocratically. ^[35] Elections in 2005 and 2006 following Arafat's death but the new regime is less than 3 years old.
Waziristan War	2004-	In Waziristan many decisions in tribal life are made by a Jirga of elders.	The current conflict started before 3 years had passed since the first elections after Pervez Musharraf's coup d'etat. Democracy still functions poorly in Pakistan. ^[36] Frequent blood feuds and vendettas. Not a liberal democratic state but rather tribes having some similarity to the earlier mentioned Iroquois and Hurons.

The monadic peace and the dyadic peace

Most research is regarding the dyadic peace, that democracies do not fight one another. Very few researchers have supported the monadic peace, that democracies are more peaceful in general. There are some recent papers, which find a slight monadic effect. Müller and Wolff (2004), in listing them, agree "that democracies on average might be slightly, but not strongly, less warlike than other states," but general "monadic explanations is neither necessary nor convincing". They note that democracies have varied greatly in their belligerence against non-democracies. The most militant democracies since 1950 have been India, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Lesser conflicts

One problem with the research on wars is that, as the Realist Mearsheimer (1990, p. 50) put it, "democracies have been few in number over the past two centuries, and thus there have few opportunities where democracies were in a position to fight one another". Especially if using a strict definition of democracy, as by those finding no wars. Democracies have been very rare until recently. Even looser definitions of democracy, such as Doyle's, find only a dozen democracies before the late nineteenth century, and many of them short-lived or with limited franchise (Doyle 1983), (Doyle 1997, p. 261). Freedom House finds no independent state with universal suffrage in 1900.^[37]

Thus, despite the studies mentioned earlier, some argue that there is not enough data to show that the absence of wars between democracies is statistically significant, especially if trying to control for possible external factors. Wayman (1998), a supporter of the democratic peace, states: "If we rely solely on whether there has been an inter-democratic war, it is going to take many more decades of peace to build our confidence in the stability of the democratic peace."

Many researchers reacted to this by studying lesser conflicts instead, since they have been far more common. There have been many more MIDs than wars; the Correlates of War Project counts several thousands during the last two centuries. A review (Ray 2003) lists many studies that have reported that democratic pairs of states are less likely to be involved in MIDs than other pairs of states.

Another study (Hensel, Goertz & Diehl 2000) finds that after both states have become democratic, there is a decreasing probability for MIDs within a year and this decreases almost to zero within five years.

When examining the inter-liberal MIDs in more detail, one study (Wayman 2002) finds that they are less likely to involve third parties, the target of the hostility is less likely reciprocate, if the target reciprocates the response is usually proportional to the provocation, and the disputes are less likely to cause any loss of life. The most common action was "Seizure of Material or Personnel".

Studies find that the probability that disputes between states will be resolved peacefully is positively affected by the degree of democracy exhibited by the least democratic state involved in that dispute. Disputes between democratic states are significantly shorter than disputes involving at least one undemocratic state. Democratic states are more likely to be amenable to third party mediation when they are involved in disputes with each other (Ray 2003).

In international crises that include the threat or use of military force, one study finds that if the parties are democracies, then relative military strength has no effect on who wins. This is different from when nondemocracies are involved. These results are the same also if the conflicting parties are formal allies (Gelpi & Griesdorf 2001). Similarly, a study of the behavior of states that joined ongoing militarized disputes reports that power is important only to autocracies: democracies do not seem to base their alignment on the power of the sides in the dispute (Werner & Lemke 1997).

Internal violence

Most of this article discusses research on relations between states. However, there is also evidence that democracies have less internal systematic violence. For instance, one study finds that the most democratic and the most authoritarian states have few civil wars, and intermediate regimes the most. The probability for a civil war is also increased by political change, regardless whether toward greater democracy or greater autocracy. Intermediate regimes continue to be the most prone to civil war, regardless of the time since the political change. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in turn are less stable than democracies, durable democracy is the most probable end-point of the process of democratization (Hegre et al. 2001). One study finds that the most democratic nations have the least terrorism (Abadie 2004). One study finds that genocide and politicide are rare in democracies (Harff 2003). Another that democide is rare (Rummel 1997).

One study (Davenport & Armstrong II 2004) lists several other studies and states: "Repeatedly, democratic political systems have been found to decrease political bans, censorship, torture, disappearances and mass killing, doing so in a linear fashion across diverse measurements, methodologies, time periods, countries, and contexts." It concludes: "Across measures and methodological techniques, it is found that below a certain level, democracy has no impact on human rights violations, but above this level democracy influences repression in a negative and roughly linear manner." One study (Davenport & Armstrong II 2003) states that thirty years worth of statistical research has revealed that only two variables decrease human rights violations: political democracy and economic development. Of this democracy is more important and more easily created.

Causes

These theories have traditionally been categorized into two groups: explanations that focus on democratic norms and explanations that focus on democratic political structures (Gelpi & Griesdorf 2001). Note that they usually are meant to be explanations for little violence between democracies, not for a low level of internal violence in democracies.

Several of these mechanisms may also apply to oligarchies. The book Never at War find evidence for an oligarchic peace. One example is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in which the Sejm resisted and vetoed most royal proposals for war^[38], like those of Władysław IV Vasa.

Democratic norms

One example from the first group is that the democratic culture may make the leaders accustomed to negotiation and compromise (Weart 1998), (Müller & Wolff 2004). Another that a belief in human rights may make people in democracies reluctant to go to war, especially against other democracies. The decline in colonialism, also by democracies, may be related to a change in perception of non-European peoples and their rights (Ravlo & Gleditsch 2000).

Bruce Russett (1993, p. 5-11, 35, 59-62, 73-4) also argues that the democratic culture affect the way leaders resolve conflicts. In addition, he holds that a social norm emerged toward the end of the nineteenth, that democracies should not fight each other, which strengthened when the democratic culture and the degree of democracy increased, for example by widening the franchise. Increasing democratic stability allowed partners in foreign affairs to perceive a nation as reliable democratic. The alliances between democracies during the two World Wars and the Cold War also strengthened the norms. He sees less effective traces of this norm in Greek antiquity.

Democratic political structures

The case for institutional constraints goes back to Kant (1795), who wrote :

"[I]f the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared (and in this constitution it cannot but be the case), nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themselves all the calamities of war. Among the latter would be: having to fight, having to pay the costs of war from their own resources, having painfully to repair the devastation war leaves behind, and, to fill up the measure of evils, load themselves with a heavy national debt that would embitter peace itself and that can never be liquidated on account of constant wars in the future"

Democracy thus gives influence to those most likely to be killed or wounded in wars, and their relatives and friends (and to those who pay the bulk of the war taxes) Russett (1993, p. 30). This monadic theory must, however, explain why democracies do attack non-democratic states. One explanation is that these democracies were threatened or otherwise were provoked by the non-democratic states. Doyle (1997, p. 272) argued that the absence of a monadic peace is only to be expected: the same ideologies that cause liberal states to be at peace with each other inspire idealistic wars with the illiberal, whether to defend oppressed foreign minorities or avenge countrymen settled abroad. Doyle also notes (p. 292) liberal states do conduct covert operations against each other; the covert nature of the operation, however, prevents the publicity otherwise characteristic of a free state from applying to the question

It has also been suggested that democracies rarely fight wars because war, or impending war, tends to destroy democracy; This argument depends only on the internal conditions of one state; it shouldn't matter whether the war is with a democracy or not. It is therefore a mechanism for the general, or monadic, peacefulness of democracies. Mousseau and Shi (1999) finds this explanation unlikely. They studied all states, inquiring whether the onset of war decreased democracy, either temporarily or permanently, and found most wars had no significant effect, but some did.

Studies show that democratic states are more likely than autocratic states to win the wars. One explanation is that democracies, for internal political and economic reasons, have greater resources. This might mean that democratic leaders are unlikely to select other democratic states as targets because they perceive them to be particularly formidable opponents. One study finds that interstate wars have important impacts on the fate of political regimes, and that the probability that a political leader will fall from power in the wake of a lost war is particularly high in democratic states (Ray 1998).

As described in (Gelpi & Griesdorf 2001), several studies have argued that liberal leaders face institutionalized constraints that impede their capacity to mobilize the state’s resources for war without the consent of a broad spectrum of interests. Moreover, these constraints are readily apparent to other states and cannot be manipulated by leaders. Thus, democracies send credible signals to other states of an aversion to using force. These signals allow democratic states to avoid conflicts with one another, but they may attract aggression from nondemocratic states. Democracies may be pressured to respond to such aggression—perhaps even preemptively—through the use of force. Also as described in (Gelpi & Griesdorf 2001), studies have argued that when democratic leaders do choose to escalate international crises, their threats are taken as highly credible, since there must be a relatively large public opinion for these actions. In disputes between liberal states, the credibility of their bargaining signals allows them to negotiate a peaceful settlement before mobilization.

A game-theoretic explanation similar to the last two above is that the participation of the public and the open debate send clear and reliable information regarding the intentions of democracies to other states. In contrast, it is difficult to know the intentions of nondemocratic leaders, what effect concessions will have, and if promises will be kept. Thus there will be mistrust and unwillingness to make concessions if at least one of the parties in a dispute is a nondemocracy (Levy & Razin 2004).

Kantian peace theory

Several studies find that democracy, more trade causing greater economic interdependence, and membership in more intergovernmental organizations reduce the risk of war. This is often called the Kantian peace theory since it is similar to Kant's earlier theory about a perpetual peace. These variables positively affect each other but each has an independent pacifying effect. For example, democracy may empower economic interest groups that may be opposed to disruptive wars (Russett & Oneal 2001), (Lagazio & Russett 2004), (Oneal & Russett 2004). However, some recent studies find no effect from trade but only from democracy (Goenner 2004), (Kim & Rousseau 2005).

It was Michael Doyle (1983, 1997) who reintroduced Kant's three articles into democratic peace theory. He argued that a pacific union of liberal states has been growing for the past two centuries. He denies that a pair of states will be peaceful simply because they are both liberal democracies; if that were enough, liberal states would not be aggressive towards weak non-liberal states (as the history of American relations with Mexico shows they are). Rather, liberal democracy is a necessary condition for international organization and hospitality (which are Kant's other two articles) — and all three are sufficient to produce peace. Other Kantians have not repeated Doyle's argument that all three in the triad must be present, instead stating that all three reduce the risk of war.

Criticisms and counter-criticisms

There are several logically distinguishable classes of criticism. Note that they usually apply to no wars or few MIDs between democracies, not to little systematic violence in democracies. See also the discussion of specific historic conflicts above.

Definitions used for liberal democracy and war

Democracy has meant different things at different times but the research has applied the same criteria to all periods.

Definitions of democracy that require an actual transfer of power between different political parties sometimes exclude long periods often viewed as democratic. For example, the United States until 1800, India from independence until 1979, and Japan until 1993 (Ray 1995, p. 100).

Some democratic peace researchers require that the executive result from a substantively contested election. This may be a cautious definition: For example, the National Archives of the United States notes that "For all intents and purposes, George Washington was unopposed for election as President, both in 1789 and 1792". (Under the original provisions for the Electoral College, there was no distinction between votes for President and Vice-President: each elector was required to vote for two distinct candidates, with the runner-up to be Vice-President. Every elector cast one of his votes for Washington^[39], John Adams received a majority of the other votes; there were several other candidates: so the election for Vice President was contested.)

The military affairs columnist of the newspaper Asia Times criticizes the theory as subject to the no true Scotsman problem. Exceptions are explained away as not being being between real democracies or being real wars.^[40]

There may be errors in the data and the classification

For example, there may be mistakes regarding battle deaths in the data set used, such as the Correlates of War Project data.

There may be errors in methodology

Spiro's (1994) made several criticisms of the statistical methods used. Russett (1995) and and a series of papers as described by Ray (2003) responded to this, for example with different methodology.

Some democratic peace researchers have been criticized for reclassifying some specific conflicts or political systems without checking and correcting the whole data set used similarly. Supporters and opponents of the democratic peace agree that this is bad statistics, even if a plausible case can be made for the correction (Bremer 1992), (Gleditsch 1995), (Gowa 1999).

Other explanations than democracy for the peace

It may not be democracy itself but some other external factor(s) which happened to be associated with democratic states that explain the peace. Mousseau (2000; 2002; 2003; 2005) has shown that it is far more likely that contract-oriented development causes both democracy and peace than that democracy alone causes peace.

Realist explanations

Supporters of realism in international relations argue that it is not democracy that causes the peace. Spiro (1994) points out at some length that much of the democratic peace is in fact peace between allied democratic states, which have (unlike other alliances), not broken down into war between the allies. He regards this effect as the reality of the democratic peace; ascribing the rest of it to chance. However, this does not explain why democratic alliances are different.

Another realist, Layne (1994) analysed the crises and brinkmanship that took place between non-allied democratic great powers, during the relatively brief period when such existed. He found no evidence either of institutional or cultural constraints against war; indeed, there was popular sentiment in favor of war on both sides. Instead, in all cases, one side concluded that it could not afford to risk that war at that time, and made the necessary concessions. However, other researches have examined some of these crises and reached different conclusions, arguing that perceptions of democracy prevented escalation. Also, there are new explanations different from those that Layne criticized, like the game-theoretic one discussed below.^[41] In addition, if the realist explanation were true of all democracies, the results of crises between them would largely depend on their relative strength. A more recent study (Gelpi & Griesdorf 2001) denies this.

Probably the most well-known realist critic, Gowa (1999) finds that there were so few democracies before 1939 that the claims of the theory are not statistically significant. The peace between democracies during the 1945-1980 period she finds statistically significant. However, this is explained not be democracy, but by the external threat from the Communist states during the Cold War, which forced the democratic states to ally with one another. (Mearsheimer (1990) offers a similar analysis of the Anglo-American peace before 1945, caused by the German threat.)

Gowa's use of statistics has been criticized, with several other studies and reviews finding opposing results(Gelpi & Griesdorf 2001), (Ray 2003). Ray (1998) objects that the same arguments should show that the Communist bloc would be at peace within itself. Exceptions include the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the Prague spring, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, and the Sino-Vietnamese War. The external threat did not prevent conflicts in the Western bloc when at least one of the involved states was a nondemocracy, such as the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus, the Falklands War, and the Football War. Note that some of these conflicts did not have more than a thousand battle deaths. One study (Ravlo & Gleditsch 2000) also notes that the explanation "goes increasingly stale as the post-Cold War world accumulates an increasing number of peaceful dyad-years between democracies."

Rosato (2003) criticizes many of the explanations for how democracy can cause peace and instead argues that American dominance, principally through NATO, explain the peace. This has been criticized for claimed logical errors, for not giving supporting statistical evidence, and for that actual statistical research contradict the explanation (Slantchev, Alexandrova & Gartzke 2005), (Kinsella 2005).

Supporters of the democratic peace do not deny that realist factors are also important. Research supporting the theory has also shown that factors such as geographic contiguity, alliance ties, and major power status impact interstate conflict behavior (Ray 2003).

Correlation is not causation

Correlation is not causation. However, many studies, as those discussed in (Ray 1998), (Ray 2005), (Oneal & Russett 2004), supporting the theory have controlled for many possible alternative causes of the peace. Examples of factors controlled for are geographic distance, geographic contiguity, power status, alliance ties, militarization, economic wealth and economic growth, power ratio, and political stability. These studies have often found very different results depending on methodology and included variables, which has caused criticism. However, a common thread in virtually all results is an emphasis on the relationship between democracy and peace

Several studies have also controlled for the possibility of reverse causality from peace to democracy (Mousseau & Shi 1999),(Reiter 2001), (Reuveny & Li 2003).

Weart (1998) argues that the peacefulness appears and disappears rapidly when democracy appears and disappears. This makes it unlikely that variables that change more slowly are the explanation.

Wars tend very strongly to be between neighboring states. Gleditsch (1995) showed that the average distance between democracies is about 8000 miles, the same as the average distance between all states. He believes that the effect of distance in preventing war, modified by the democratic peace, explains the incidence of war as fully as it can be explained.

Also regarding economic development, Mousseau (2000; 2005) has shown that democracy is a significant factor only when both democracies have levels of economic development above the global median (see also Mousseau, Hegre & Oneal 2003; Souva 2004). Similarly, Hegre (2003) finds that democracy is correlated with civil peace only for developed countries, and for countries with high levels of literacy. Conversely, the risk of civil war decreases with development only for democratic countries.

There may be limited consequences of the peace

The peacefulness may have various limitations and qualifiers and may not actually mean very much in the real-world.

Many democratic peace researchers do not count as wars conflicts which do not kill a thousand on the battlefield; thus they exclude for example the bloodless Cod Wars. However, as noted earlier, research has also found a peacefulness between democracies when looking at lesser conflicts.

Mansfield and Snyder (2005), who support that well-established liberal democracies have not made war, state that emerging democracies with weak political institutions are especially likely to go to war, whether or not they win, as a means of handling internal tension. They find that all wars between democracies involve one less than five years old. ^[42] A review (Ray 2003) cites several other studies finding that this increase in the risk of war happens only if many or most of the surrounding nations are undemocratic. Ray also argues that since one of articles by Mansfield and Snyder were published in Foreign Affairs, they "obviously intended to discourage policies inspired by the democratic peace proposition that were designed to bring about such transitions."

Democracies were involved in more colonial and imperialistic wars than other states during the 1816-1945 period. On the other hand, this relation disappears if controlling for factors like power and number of colonies. Liberal democracies have less of these wars than other states after 1945. This might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples, as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Ravlo & Glieditsch 2000).

Related to this is the human rights violations committed against native people, sometimes by liberal democracies. One response is that many of the worst crimes were committed by nondemocracies, like in the European colonies before the nineteenth century, in King Leopold II of Belgium's privately owned Congo Free State, and in Stalin's Soviet Union. England abolished slavery in British territory in 1833, immediately after the Reform Act 1832 had significantly enlarged the franchise. (Of course, the abolition of the slave trade had been enacted in 1807; and many DPT supporters would deny that England was a liberal democracy in 1833 when examining interstate wars.)

Hermann and Kegley (1995) argue that interventions between democracies are more likely to happen than projected by an expected model.^[43] They further argue (1996) that democracies are more likely to intervene in other liberal states than against countries that are non-democracies.^[44] Finally, they argue that these interventions between democracies have been increasing over time and that the world can expect more of these interventions in the future.^[43]^[44]^[45] The methodology used has been criticzed and more recent studies have found opposing results (Gleditsch, Christiansen & Hegre 2004).

Rummel argues that the continuing increase in democracy worldwide will soon lead to an end to wars and democide, possibly around or even before the middle of this century.^[46] The fall of Communism and the increase in the number of democratic states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in total warfare, interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, and the number of refugees and displaced persons.^[47] One report claims that the two main causes of this decline in warfare are the end of the Cold War itself and decolonization; but also claims that the three Kantian factors have contributed materially.^[48]

General counter-criticisms

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Charts arguing in favour of DPT. showing research by R. J. Rummel and others. High resolution PDF

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High Resolution PDF

The theory is well-studied with more than a hundred researchers having published many more articles. ^[49] Several peer-reviewed studies mention in their introduction that most researchers accept the theory as an empirical fact.^[50]

Imre Lakatos suggested that what he called a "progressive research program" is better than a "degenerative" when it is can explain the same phenomena as the "degenerative" one, but is also marked by growth and the discovery of important novel facts. In contrast, the supporters of the "degenerative" program do not make important new empirical discoveries, but instead mostly adjustments to their theory in order to defend it from competitors. Several studies argue that the democratic peace theory is now the "progressive" program in international relations. The theory can explain the empirical phenomena previously explained by the earlier dominant research program, realism in international relations. In addition, the initial discovery, that democracies do not make war on one another, has created a rapidly growing literature and a constantly growing list of novel empirical regularities. (Ray 2003), (Chernoff 2004), (Harrison 2005). Many of these findings are mentioned above, for example the studies examining lesser conflicts than wars.

Another example is that a review (Ray 2003) lists several studies finding that democracies are more likely to ally with one another than with other states. Such alliances are likely to last longer than alliances involving nondemocracies. One study (Weart 1998) finds and mentions several other studies finding that democracies conduct diplomacy differently and more conciliatory compared do nondemocracies. One study finds that democracies with proportional representation are in general more peaceful regardless of the nature of the other party involved in a relationship (Leblang & Chan 2003). Another study finds that proportional representation system and decentralized territorial autonomy is positively associated with lasting peace in postconflict societies (Binningsbø 2005).