Democratic Peace Theory

In this article, we shall discuss the Democratic Peace Theory in international relations. We shall examine what is the democratic peace, what are the arguments regarding this theory, the criticisms of democratic peace, as well as recent findings in the field regarding the democratic peace theory. We will also list a variety of references with regards to the democratic peace theory.

What is the Democratic Peace Theory?

One of the most consistent findings in international relations is that democracies don’t fight one another. This is what has been referred to as the “Democratic Peace Theory.”

One of the main reasons as to why many scholars believe that democracies behave differently than other states is due to the statistical finding that democracies rarely fight one another. This is referred to as the ‘democratic peace theory.’ Various works explain that the theoretical underpinnings that democracies don’t fight with one another extend back to Kant as part of the “Kantian Peace” (that includes economic interdependence and the role of institutions) (1795). The evidence in support of the democratic peace theory is rather extensive, and is among the strongest findings in international relations, leaving scholars to suggest the findings are “not a statistical artifact” (in Chan, 1997: 61). Beginning with the early work of Babst (1964) (in Gleditsch, 1992), to some of the first work related to the democratic peace theory finding by Rummel (1979, 1982), as well as one of the earliest direct empirical examinations of the democratic peace by Maoz & Abdolahi (1989), scholars have found that joint democracy has had a pacifying effect in that “[d]emocracies rarely clash with one another, and never fight one another in war” (3). This relationship has further been supported by later larger-n studies (Maoz & Russett, 1993; Oneal & Russett, 1999), even when controlling for religious and culturally similar states (Henderson, 1998).

Criticisms of the Democratic Peace Theory

Nevertheless, we have seen a number of works attempting to discredit the democratic peace theory findings by suggesting instead that this finding does not hold up when examining ancient democracies (Robinson, 2001: 593) (for rebuttal, see Weart, 2001), that democracies do not fight one another because there are not many democracies (Spiro, 1994, in Maoz, 1997: 165), that not enough democracies exist for acceptable statistical support (Layne, 1994; Spiro, 1994, in Russett, 1995), that “near-misses” between democracies were evident (Layne, 1994, in Russett, 1995), that different definitions of democracy actually produce evidence of conflict between democracies, (Layne, 1994; Spiro, 1994, in Russett, 1995), , that the finding is more about “common interests” that arose from the Cold War period than joint democracy (Farber & Gowa, 1997), or that the relationship holds only under certain time periods (Chan, 1984; Weede, 1984). However, many works that expand the data and time period, while using robustness checks related to the operationalization of democracy (Maoz, 1997) still find a strong relationship that democracies do not fight one another (Cederman & Rao, 2001; Thomson & Tucker, 1997).

Why Don’t Democracies Fight One Another?

With a large amount of evidence exists suggesting democracies act differently with each other than towards autocracies, two main theoretical arguments are set forth in an attempt to explain this particular behavior as it relates to the democratic peace theory: a normative explanation, and an institutional explanation. Beginning with the normative explanation, it argues that democracies behave differently than non-democracies because of a democratic culture of peaceful norms, where democracies place expectations on their leaders to implement “democratic” norms in their foreign policy actions (in Rosato, 2003). Along with the “externalization” of norms, this argument further suggests that democracies act differently (with other democracies) because they have a special “trust” between each other, that since each state upholds democratic principles, democracies will be “proscribed normatively from using force” (586). Looking at the evidence of this claim, Rosato (2003) argues that this logic is flawed, that many cases exist during Western imperialism where democracies fought war for material possessions, and not for upholding the norms associated with a democracy. Chan (1997) also explains that other findings have indicated that democracies—during colonialism were more likely to be violent. Rosato (2003) also points to other cases where imperial states fought wars in order for other states to not gain additional territory, as well as suggesting evidence where imperial democratic states specifically targeted non-Western states for unjust purposes, actions contrary to democratic principles. Along with showing that democracies have not solely fought wars for human rights or self defense, Rosato (2003) argues that the second part of the normative explanation—namely that democracies trust one another to uphold democratic norms, is also unfounded. Looking at the Cold War, evidence suggests that the United States “destabilized” democratic regimes for their own interest. Furthermore, “close-calls” between democracies have not always been resolved due to “trust,” but rather because of other factors (Rosato, 2003: 590, citing Layne, 1994: 38).

In terms of other empirical evidence examining the normative explanation for why democracies act differently, one of the strongest studies in favor of the normative explanation for the democratic peace theory is Maoz and Russett’s (1993) work where they find that not only do democracies not fight one another under both normative and institutional factors, but that the normative explanation may be theoretical better due to being more robust than the findings for the institutional explanation (636). But while Maoz and Russett (1993) have found some evidence for the normative explanation, a number of other studies have either rejected normative explanations for the democratic peace (Gelpi, 1997; Chan, 1984; Maoz & Abdolahi, 1989, Weede, 1984, 1992; Ray, 1993, in Gartzke, 1999; Rosato, 2003) by arguing that democracies do not fight less wars overall than autocracies at the monadic level (Singer & Small, 1976), Gleditsch, 1992; Gleditsch & Hegre, 1997; Rousseu, Gelpi, Reiter, & Huth, 1996), or that the results are mixed (Kilgour, 1991). For example, Kilgour (1991) finds some support suggesting democratic institutions are better for peace than war, although many other features within democracies are opposite this. Senese (1997) found that while democracies are less likely to fight one another, once they initiate a MID, they are just as likely to escalate the conflict as are a pair of autocracies. However, recent work by Danilovic and Clare (2007) has re-examined the operationalization of democracy of previous approaches, and has effectively illustrated the importance of distinguishing between “liberal” and “illiberal” democracies by including all elements of the Kantian peace—such as “civil liberties,” the “separation of powers,” and the “rule of law.” In doing so, Danilovic and Clare (2007) found normative and institutional support for peace in democracies, showing that once one distinguishes between “liberal” and “hybrid” democracies, liberal states do enter into conflicts less, are much less likely to begin conflicting with other liberal democracies, are overall more peaceful than non-liberal democracies, and even civil wars are less likely in liberal than non-liberal democracies (Danilovic and Clare, 2007).

The second explanation as to why democracies behave differently than non-democracies has to do with an institutional argument that suggests that democratic leaders are held more accountable by their public (through voting) than autocratic leaders. Bueno de Mesquita, Morrow, Siverson, and Smith (1999) find that the objective of democratic leaders is not only wanting to stay in power (like any other leader), but that democratic institutions cause leaders in democracies to be more accountable, thus causing them to be much more careful when choosing whether to conflict with another state, thus suggesting that democracies will be more successful in conflicts because the worry of losing is greater.[1] Related work by Goemans (2000) finds that democracies lose power when they lose a war, even “moderately, but lose much more power when they lose “disastrously” (577). Schultz (1999) examines the institutional argument for democracies comparing whether democratic leaders are constrained by domestic accountability, or whether democratic institutions are more likely to reveal clearer information (signals) during conflict, an argument made by Fearon (1994) (in Schultz, 1999). While Schultz (1999) admits his results are not the final verdict on the matter, his findings support his previous work (Schultz, 1998) that democracies in which both political parties are in support of the conflict show a credible signal to the outside state that the democracy is committed to fighting, which leads the opposing state to be less likely to enter into the initiated conflict (259).

In one of the latest empirical tests examining the institutional, normative and preferences argument (whether joint autocracies are also less likely to fight one another) of the democratic peace theory at both MID onset and escalation, Lektzian and Souva (2009) find evidence for the institutional argument that not only are joint “[d]emocracies…less likely to experience the onset of a MID…” (35), but that once a MID does develop between democracies, they are not any less likely to escalate the conflict, a finding only accounted for by the institutional explanation. However, findings by Arena (WP) call into question the idea that democratic leaders are always more accountable than non-democracies. Arena (WP) examines democratic accountability, and argues that accountability for a democratic leader depends on the position of the opposition party, and that conflict is most likely to escalate when a moderate opposition that first was in favor of the conflict changes their position as time goes on. The role of the opposition party (and ideological position) is thus crucial in determining whether the governing party will negotiate a settlement or continue fighting. When the opposition is supportive of the conflict, citizens do not have an alternative to hold the governing party accountable. This process impacts diversionary war, since we should now expect that democratic leaders will be more likely to gain from a conflict only if their position differs from the main opposition party (Arena, 2008). Also, if we set this in the context of the institutional argument for the democratic peace, it calls into question the idea that democratic leaders are always held accountable.

Since the field is still unclear as to whether the normative or institutional arguments for the democratic peace theory are valid, regardless if we accept the arguments that democracies act differently, another strand of research worth noting that highlights the importance of leaders and domestic politics is diversionary war theory. Diversionary theory argues that leaders will initiate an international dispute in order to divert attention from a domestic crisis or situation by gaining domestic support towards the international conflict. This has spanned a growing debate whether leaders take into consideration domestic politics when making foreign policy decisions. Beginning with one of the earliest pieces supporting diversionary behavior (Ostrom & Job, 1986), we have seen a number of works suggesting that domestic factors have a large role in shaping a leader’s foreign policy decisions (James & Oneal, 1991; Smith, 1996; Gelpi, 1997; Davies, 2002; Gartner, Segura, & Barratt, 2004). For example, DeRouen Jr. (2000) finds support from previous studies (Ostrom & Job, 1986; Levy, 1989; Russett, 1990; Fordham, 1998a; James and Rioux, 1998, in DeRousen, Jr, 2000: 326; Meernik, 2001) that domestic unemployment rates impact a leader’s willingness to create a foreign policy diversion, although when the domestic economy is bad, leaders cannot divert attention because citizens are so focused on the economic situation (Fordham, 1998, in DeRouen Jr., 2000: 326). But even this finding is mixed, as later studies find that leaders are more likely to create diversionary disputes when the economy is bad (Meernik, 2001). Hess and Orphanides (2001) also find from a theoretical model that when the domestic economy is bad, democratic leaders do have an incentive to fight a foreign conflict to divert the public from the bad economic situation. Other findings suggest that while diversionary war can be effective, the benefit is only a short term gain (Baum, 2004), while other factors that influence the use of diversionary tactics are whether other resources to fix the domestic situation exist (Morgan & Bickers, 1992; Meernik, 1994; Miller, 1995; Meernik & Waterman, 1996; Leeds & Davis, 1997; Miller, 1999, in Meernik, 2001), whether domestic problems are violent or non-violent (Davies, 2002), or if the target state is a rival (Mitchell & Prins, 2004).

Having said this, others are critical of the effectiveness of diversionary war (Rummel, 1963, in Morgan & Bickers, 1991; Moore & Lanoue, 2003; Chiozza & Goemans, 2004). For example, Lian and Oneal (2001) find in 102 cases of US diversionary action from 1950-1984 little impact on the increase of approval ratings, whereas earlier works by Meernik and Waterman (1996) find little support for U.S. Presidents using force to shape domestic politics between 1953-1988. Other critiques suggest citizens are smart enough to know when diversion is occurring (Clark, 2003), as well as target states knowing when to refrain from entering into a conflict with a state looking to divert attention through an international dispute (Fordham, 2005). Thus, while we have seen mixed support for diversionary war, recent research by Arena (WP) takes into account Clark (2003) and Fordham’s (2005) criticisms, and constructs a formal model that still finds conditions where a leader may in fact have incentive to give excessive private demands where the ‘target’ will resist and show to escalate the conflict publicly, therefore causing a ‘response’ by the initiator state leader who will thus be seen as responding to a conflict, increasing her/his support domestically. Arena (WP) therefore explains that diversionary tactics are possible under certain conditions to benefit re-election aspirations.

Conclusion: The Democratic Peace Theory

To conclude, by examining the democratic peace theory and diversionary war, we see two strands of research that take into account individual leaders and domestic politics (Miller,1995), showing the usefulness of opening the “black box” to explain how domestic politics shape leaders’ foreign policy decisions. Regardless if one is convinced of the theoretical arguments for why democracies act differently, examining domestic politics can help explain how leaders can use diversionary tactics as a tool for re-election (Chiozza & Goemans, 2003), as well as helping us better explain other international relations questions such as the duration of a war based upon domestic (opposition party) politics in democracies, where new research has shown that by looking at domestic politics we are better able to predict the duration of long wars (Arena, WP), which overall can help us in our understanding of the democratic peace theory.

Footnotes

[1] (Lake (2002) suggests that democracies win more due to less rent seeking behavior, as well as less expansionist behavior than autocratic regimes).