Is Democratization Making International Relations More Peaceful

When Bill Clinton declared in 1997 that "Democracies rarely wage war on one another", he was referring to a theory that had been prominent in International Relations for centuries.

In 'Perpetual Peace', Immanuel Kant envisioned a republican form of government to secure peaceful relations among states, which is commonly seen as the basis of the modern Democratic Peace Proposition. In 1972, this theory of democratic peace encountered its most recent surge of interest through Dean Babst, who claimed on the basis of an empirical study that "no wars have been fought between nations with elective governments between 1789 and 1941". Babst was soon followed by a number of other studies examining the Democratic Peace Proposition, most of them based on empirical findings: Small and Singer (1976) found that democracies participated in fewer wars than non-democracies from 1815 to 1965, Rummel argued that, generally, Liberalism reduced international violence.Although all analyses differed slightly, there seemed to be an apparent consensus across all studies conducted that although democracies are generally not less warlike than non-democracies (monadic hypothesis), they rarely (if ever) fight with each other (dyadic hypothesis). In today's international relations, the Democratic Peace Proposition seems more important than ever: for the first time in history, in the wake of the 'third wave' of democratization as described by Samuel P. Huntington, democracies constitute for the majority of states in the international system.

This means that norms governing their relations have a better chance than ever to become the dominant mode of interaction in world politics. Will world politics and international relations thus be more peaceful in future? Is the Democratic Peace Proposition really an accurate account of relations among democratic states and are its predictions for the future of international relations justified?The debate of the Democratic Peace Proposition revolves around three competing interpretations:1. democracies are, in general more peaceful than non-democracies2. democracies are only more peaceful toward each other3.

democracies are no more peacefulUntil recently, the view that although democracies are in general not more peaceful than other states, they almost never fight each other. This dyadic hypothesis of the Democratic Peace Theory holds especially since World War II. However, this pact of non-aggression does not seem to work for democracies' relations with non-democracies. Doyle attempts to explain these empirical findings by stating that "the very constitutional restraint, shared commercial interests, and international respect for individual rights that promote peace among liberal societies can exacerbate conflicts between liberal and non-liberal societies".

Owen found that there are four historical cases of interstate conflicts that threatened to escalate in war, but did not simply on the basis that both states recognized each other as democratic states. The Franco-American crisis of 1796-1798 is believed to have been avoided due to the fact that most Americans believed that France in the late 1790s was a democracy, and so the naval quasi-war did not transform into a real war. The Anglo-American crisis of 1803-12 only broke out into a real war in 1812 when US leaders ultimately failed to perceive Great Britain as a democracy. The crises of 1861-5 and 1895-6 were averted due to the fact that both states saw each other as liberal democracies, and the avoidance of war in the Venezuelan Crisis finally laid out the foundations for the Anglo-American friendship. These cases show that democracies only refrain from going to war with each other if they recognize each other as democracies. This seems to support the hypothesis that democracies are not less warlike than other political systems, but they almost never go to war against one another.

However, other scholars have suggested that the monadic hypothesis is also true, namely that democracies are more peaceful in general. Rummel believes that there exists a negative relationship between democracy and violence in general, and recent studies by Benoit and Hewitt and Wilkenfeld seem to support the view that the presence of a democracy can by itself reduce the odds of conflict occurrence or escalation. The evidence supporting the monadic hypothesis appears to be strongest in the period since the 1960, as the early democracies of the 19th century waged extra-systemic, that is colonial or imperialist, wars.There are a number of explanations for these empirical findings. The reasons why democracies are in general more peaceful and almost never go to war against one another, can be classified into three theoretical explanations of the Democratic Peace Proposition:The Kantian Rationale considers three factors to be essential for the promotion of peace among republics.

For Kant, public opinion is an extremely powerful force against belligerence. Democratic leader have to justify the use of force to the public, and they are likely to face strong opposition, especially in the case of casualties or military defeat, or even if they are just anticipated. For example, the importance of opinion polls in the United States concerning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown how significant public opinion is. However, public opinion seems to exercise effective restraints on belligerence only against fellow democracies.

Again using the example of the US opinion polls, it has been shown that democracies can be quite belligerent toward non-democracies.Kant's second argument for the Democratic Peace Proposition concerns the spirit of commerce of democracies. Countries with extensive trade ties and economic interdependence are indeed less likely to go to war. What remains unclear though, is the exact cause-effect relationship: do these countries not go to war because they are economically interdependent, or does this economic interdependence only exist because these states have a long record of peaceful relations with each other? Even then it seems that Kant's second proposition in favor of the Democratic Peace Proposition is not flawless: wars have occurred among nations with close economic ties and international trade does not in itself secure peace.

As Kahler observed, for example, in 1914 an international system "characterized by high economic interdependence, unparalleled prosperity, and relative openness still went to war".The third factor is the creation of a pacific union among democracies. Kant believed that democracy's shared values and common institutions would provide a political foundation for a league of peace. Historical evidences seems to support strongly this last one of Kant's arguments.

Woodrow Wilson firmly believed that after the disaster of World War I, only a League of Nations could prevent history from repeating itself. Many more treaties and institutions have followed since then: the Treaty of Rome, the United Nations, the European Union are only a few examples. Many of these alliances, such as the United Nations, clearly forbid the use of force, thus contributing to Democratic Peace.The second theoretical explanation of the Democratic Peace Proposition is based on democracies' shared structures, norms, and interests. The structural explanation states that institutional arrangements of democracy limit the autonomy and the discretion of leaders to initiate war. A democracy's separation of power and the system of checks and balances make it necessary for a majority of the government and the legislature to agree on going into war, thus making it impossible for the leader alone to decide to launch war; a restraint that usually does not exist in authoritarian regimes.

The shared cultures explanations argues that democracies externalize domestic political norms of tolerance and compromise in their foreign relations, thus making war with other like them unlikely. Another characteristic of democracies is that they tend to be satisfied powers without expansionist ambitions, and hence less likely to challenge the status quo, and more likely to favor liberal international order.Another alternative theoretical explanation is offered by the rationalist approach, which emphasizes deliberate calculation and expected-utility formulation and treats Democratic Peace as part of the more general problem of conducting purposeful policy under conditions of uncertainty. The rationalist approach believes that public opinion, even though it may reward democratic leaders for successful bellicosity against non-democracies, generally considers a resort to the use of force against fellow democracies as a sign of policy failure.

This argument follows Kant's assumption that public opinion poses a great obstacle to going into war, as it is usually unpopular, especially against another democracy. Assuming that the democratic leaders are rational agents, it is clear to see why they usually back away from suggesting the use of force: setbacks in foreign wars tend to jeopardize the political survival of democratic leaders much more than that of non-democratic ones. Another characeristic of democracies also prevents them from going to war with each other, as James Fearon noted in 1994: Transparency ensures that a high level of reciprocal confidence is maintained, and rational decision-makers do not have to deal with the risks of secret diplomacy that helped the conflict that led to World War I in 1914.Having analysed all the arguments explaining why democracies are in general more peaceful than non-democracies and why democracies almost never go to war with one another, it is important to recognize the flaws of the Democratic Peace Proposition.First of all, it is not at all obvious what is meant by the term 'democracy', the theoretical referent is unclear.

The meaning of democracy is strongly contested: is it enough for a state to hold general elections, or does it need to adhere to certain other standards, as for example human rights? This problem shall be discussed later on in this essay in more depth. Also the definition of 'peace' remains unclear. Is peace simply the absence of war? Or is Democratic Peace referring to a more stable kind of peace? These two uncertainties lead to another flaw in the argument; statistical accuracy. If we do not know exactly what classifies as a democracy and what classifies as peace, how can we ascertain that the two are linked? Also, some scholars have suggested that considering the relatively small number of interstate conflicts and the (until recently) relatively small number of democratic states in the world, it could be pure chance that no wars have been fought among democracies until today.

In fact, there have been some rare cases in which democracies fought against each other: In World War II, Finland went into war against the allies, Israel against Lebanon in 1982, and Peru against Equador in 1994, which clearly contradict the dyadic hypothesis, unless these anomalies can be explained otherwise.But even if we accept the dyadic hypothesis despite these contradictions, the monadic hypothesis also encounters severe problems: empirical evidence has shown that democracies are just as likely to be involved in a military crisis, and while they might not initiate war against a fellow democracy, but they have undertaken foreign intervention against fellow democracies. And once democracies engage in a war, their conduct of war is at least as violent as the one of non-democracies. Hence, it seems difficult to say that there exists a negative relationship between democracies and violence.In 1997, Fareed Zakaria identified a phenomenon that seems to pose an even greater problem to Democratic Peace: the rise of the so-called 'illiberal democracies'. Zakaria states that "democratically elected regimes, often ones that have been reelected or reaffirmed through referenda, are routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving their citizens of basic rights and freedoms", listing state such as Peru, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Pakistan or the Philippines as examples.

Today, our usual understanding of democracy and most Western democracies incorporate the values and norms of constitutional liberalism, which is according to Phillipe Schmitter virtually by chance: "Liberalism, either as a conception of political liberty, or as a doctrine about economic policy, may have coincided with the rise of democracy.But it has never been immutably or unambiguously linked to it practice." And in today's world, it seems that democracy is spreading out, but constitutional liberalism is not following. Especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, democratization is far from creating liberty and freedoms. Micheal Chege criticized that Africa "overemphasized multiparty elections.

..and correspondingly neglected the basic tenets of liberal governace". In central Asia, democratic elections often resulted in a strong executive, a weak legislature and judiciary, and consequently, often few liberties for the people. In the Islamic World, democratization has led to an increasing role for theocratic politics, eroding long-standing traditions of secularism and tolerance.Can we legitimately say that democratization is making international relations more peaceful, even if it does not involve the spread of constitutional liberalism?Especially in divided societies, the lack of constitutional liberalism in democracies has led to nationalism, ethnic conflict, and even war.

The elections held in the Soviet Union and in Yugoslavia right after the collapse of communism were won by national separatists and ultimately resulted in the breakup of those countries. When the political system is opened up, diverse groups with incompatible interests gain access to power, and often it is easier for political leaders to rally the masses behind a national cause, which often ends in conflict. Is democratization thus only allowing another kind of conflict? Is this why, after the end of the Cold War and the wave of democratization in its wake, interstate conflicts declined, but the conflicts within states rose drastically? It has also been shown that over the last 200 years democratizing states are much more warlike than either stable authoritarian regimes or stable democracies. Zakaria therefore claims that "the democratic peace turns out has little to do with democracy" but is rather based on constitutional liberalism.There are other problems or questions that remain unsolved.

Do democracies simply not go to war with one another because they tend to be more tolerant towards fellow democracies, granting them more liberties than they would grant to a non-democratic state? Can the Democratic Peace Proposition be used against peace by waging crusades for democracy against other regimes? How realistic is the Democratic Peace in describing today's world politics? The dominating theory of international relations, realism, does not believe that there is guarantee that states will remain or become democracies. Therefore, according to relaists, even if the Democratic Peace Proposition is true, it may have little real-world significance in international politics.Despite all these problems, policymakers in the United States have embraced the Democratic Peace Proposition and the spread of democracy through foreign intervention is viewed as the antidote that will prevent future wars., one of the most recent examples being the Iraq War. And while the Democratic Peace Proposition remains flawed, a democratization based on constitutional liberalism would certainly reduce interstate wars in the future.

Whether it would also reduce wars within states remains highly questionable.