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The democratic peace theory or simply democratic peace (often DPT and sometimes democratic pacifism) is a theory in political science and philosophy which holds that democracies—specifically, liberal democracies—almost never go to war with one another. Scholars have proposed a number of explanations for this phenomenon. Many believe that democracies tend to find alternatives to violent conflict (such as negotiation or arbitration); whereas others believe that the accountability of democratic governments makes leaders less likely to engage in armed conflict.

Despite criticisms, the democratic peace theory has grown in prominence among political scientists in the last two decades and has become influential in the policy world in Western countries. Jack Levy remarked that the democratic peace is "the closest thing we have to a law in international politics."

Early theories

The idea that democracy is a source of world peace came relatively late in political theory. No ancient author seems to have thought so. Early authors referred to republics rather than democracies, since the word democracy had acquired a bad name until early modern times. Niccolò Machiavelli believed that republics were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders, citing Rome as the prime example. It was Immanuel Kant who first foreshadowed the theory of a peace between liberal democracies in his essay "Perpetual Peace" written in 1795. At that time, however, there were very few republics in the Western world (the United States, France, some Italian city states and Swiss cantons) and none of them was truly democratic by today's standards. Early in the 20th century, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism made modern states inherently peaceful and opposed to conquest and imperialism, which economically favored the old aristocratic elites. Since World War I, there has been widespread popular rhetoric that democratic states are peace-loving, but the idea was not systematically studied by social science. The gradual spread of liberal democracy in the world in the second half of the 20th century drew greater attention to the relationship between democracy and peace.

Modern origins

Kant's theory was revived in the 1960s by Dean Babst, then a research scientist at the New York Narcotic Addiction Control Commission, and expanded in the 1970s by R.J. Rummel, professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii. Rummel wrote that democracy is a "method of nonviolence." The term also refers to an ever-increasing state of world peace, which Rummel credits to democracy. The following propositions formed the basis of Rummel's original theory:

• Democracies do not make war on each other.
• The more democratic two nations are, the less the violence between them.
• Democracies engage in the least amounts of foreign violence.
• Democracies display, by far, the least amounts of internal violence.
• Modern democracies have virtually no "democide" (i.e. genocide and mass murder)

A related but slightly different concept is Rummel's Law, which states that the less freedom a people have, the more likely their rulers are to murder them.

Rummel's ideas combined propositions about the external and internal behavior of democratic regimes with regards to violence. As the theory took shape in the 1980s, particularly through the work of Michael Doyle and Bruce Russett, it increasingly focused on the "weak" proposition that democracies (or liberal regimes, as Doyle preferred it) behave peacefully towards each other. The "strong" proposition that democracies are in general more peaceful in world affairs drew less wide acceptance. The "strongest" form is that there have been no wars between democracies whatsoever.

Empirical evidence

From an early point on, statistical studies were employed to examine the validity of the theory. Using some 2,000 cases of war or other armed conflicts after 1816, the Correlates of War Project did not find a single case where the theory did not hold. The most widely used data set in democratic peace theory research is the Polity Data Set put together by a number of scholars, most prominent among whom is Ted Gurr. The Polity Data Set does not codify states in a binary fashion (democracy/non-democracy) but rather gives each state a democracy and an autocracy score for any given period, based on a number of criteria. Studies using the Polity Data Set have concluded that the theory is also validated when a continuous measure of democracy is used (i.e. the higher two countries' joint scores, the lower their chance of being involved in a war against each other).

Rummel studied all the wars from 1816 to 1991. He defined:

• war as any military action with more than 1000 killed in battle,
• democracy as a stabilized liberal democracy with voting rights for at least 2/3 of all adult males,
• and stability as being older than 3 years at the start of the war.

He also implicitly imposed some other related criteria; for example, the chief officer of the democracy must have had a contested election. (See the analysis of the American civil war below.)

Under these definitions, his study found 198 wars between non-democracies, 155 wars between democracies and non-democracies, and 0 wars between democracies .

Most democratic peace theorists today do not hold that democracies rarely initiate wars. Statistical studies have shown that democracies are about as likely to initiate wars as authoritarian states. However, some claim that democracies usually enter these wars because they are provoked by authoritarian states.

The historical definition of democracy has shifted over time, as civil and political rights have been expanded to greater segments of the population. Continuous measures of democracy used in statistical studies attempt to create a consistent scale of comparison for all states.

Most statistical work on the democratic peace has focused on the 19th and 20th centuries, but there is a significant body of literature on the applicability of the theory outside the modern western world. Whether the pre-modern states that once identified themselves as democracies fulfill modern criteria remains controversial. In Ancient Greece, such city-states did fight wars between each other (most noted is the Athenian expedition against Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War). Many do not deem Ancient Greek city-states as sufficiently democratic because of the large numbers of slaves and other non-voting inhabitants. It is estimated that only 16% of the population in Athens had the right to vote. There were also three great wars between Rome and Carthage; and the Roman republic sacked Athens.

Similar questions arise about the persistent wars among Venice, Florence, Genoa, and other Renaissance city-states. These states were also not as democratic as modern democracies, but at least as much as Athens and more so than Syracuse.

An interesting case is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had some qualities of today's democracies and in which szlachta (the nobles), using Sejm (a parliament), blocked many monarchs' attempts to declare a war on other countries. Some scholars have put forward the Swiss Confederation (or parts of it) and the Six Iroquois Nations as early examples of communities of democratic states upholding the theory.

Causes

The democratic peace is primarily a statistical association, and association does not establish causality. There is currently no definitive theory as to why the democratic peace theory is true.

Many theoretical arguments have been put forward as explanations for the democratic peace. Dating back to Immanuel Kant, many have argued that democracies are characterized by the rule of law, and are therefore inclined to resolve disputes between them through arbitration.

Following Schumpeter, some hypothesize that the phenomenon is explained by the fact that democratic countries tend to be capitalist states, whose trade relations with one another create interdependence among them. This interdependence constrains the ability and willingness of democratic nations to go to war with each other due to the incurred costs in lost trade. However, this interpretation fails to take into account the existence of non-democratic capitalist states, who often have made war with each other or with democratic states.

Other scholars suggest a theory of common culture: the citizens of democratic societies are less likely to view the citizens of other democracies as enemies, and since their support for the war is necessary (due to the democratic system), war is less likely.

Following Rummel, some support the idea that democracies are inherently peaceful because wide citizen participation ensures that decision making power lies in the hands of those most likely to be killed or wounded in wars, and their relatives and friends. This last argument cannot explain why democracies are very bellicose towards non-democratic states while remaining peaceful towards each other, unless we also suppose that citizens of democratic states feel constantly threatened by the existence of non-democracies or otherwise are provoked by them. The argument that democratic peace arises from citizens avoiding casualties is strengthened by democracies seeming less reluctant to start low-conflict conflicts. This idea also suggests that the relationship in the DPT became stronger when graphic movies and television made wars less romantic.

Criticisms

Many, but not all, critics of DPT accept the weak form, or even the strong form which merely alleges that democracies tend to avoid war with one another, and attempt to accept settlements, and otherwise avoid the infliction of grievous harm. The following objections, therefore, are to the strongest form of the theory, which asserts an absolute absence of full-scale war.

There are two common objections to thid strongest form of democratic peace theory. The first notes that states approach the democratic ideal to different degrees, and therefore the set of democracies depends strongly on the exact definition applied.

The second objection is that, even if the first concern were resolved, the existing data would still be insufficient to establish a causal link between the democratic political institutions of a state and the frequency with which that state will engage in conflicts with other democracies. The relative peace between democracies may just as well be the consequence of the international power structure of recent decades, these detractors claim. And if so, the very core of the democratic peace theory collapses.

Wars between democracies?

The first class of objectors argue that the methodology employed in collecting the data for testing the theory has been unscientific, and that democracies have indeed have initiated conflict with one another at a rate much higher than what proponents have determined. These critics point out that "democracy" and "peace" are essentially contested concepts, difficult to operationalize for measurement, and so subjective that they run the risk of manipulation to arrive at a predetermined conclusion. For example, several opponents of the theory claim that World War I was a war between liberal democracies by that period's criteria and that later classifications of the German Empire as insufficiently democratic are spurious. This draws attention to the general problem of mixed regimes—polities featuring both democratic and autocratic institutions, whose classification may be problematic.

The critics of the theory have thus cited many exceptions to the theory. These can all be defined away by employing a sufficiently stringent meaning of democracy, or of war, and Rummel and the defenders of the strong form of DPT have done so which is discussed in more detail below.

Liberal democracies?

Critics have noted the First world war (at least on the Western Front), the First Balkan War, the Boer Wars, the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in recent years, the American civil war, the War of 1812, the 1999 Kargil border war between Pakistan and India and several conflicts between the U.S. and Mexico (the Mexican-American War, U.S. occupation of Veracruz, 1914, and the Mexican Expedition of 1916).

Proponents aruge that during the War of 1812, only a small minority 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 defenders of DPT exclude the American civil war since, in the Confederate States of America, only 30-40% of male population could vote and that there was never a competitve presidential election. Similarly, only a minority had the right to vote in the Boer states. At the time of World War I the German Kaiser still had much power, he had control over the army, appointed and could dismiss the chancellor, and played a key role in foreign affairs. In effect, therefore, in foreign and military affairs, there was little democratic control. The Reichstag, however, did vote overwhelmingly to fund and support the war. Nawaz Sharif, the president of Pakistan, used terror tactics to silence critical press and the previously independent judiciary, for example storming the Supreme Court in order to force the Chief Justice out of office. Yassir Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority, can be criticized on similar grounds. All the Mexican presidents at the time of the conflicts with the U.S., like Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, took their power in coup d'etats.

The criteria for liberal democracies leave very few democracies before the late nineteenth century. Rummel state that for certain years of the 18th century liberal democracies would include the Swiss Cantons, French Republic, and United States; for certain years during 1800-1850 it would include the Swiss Confederation, United States, France, Belgium, Great Britain, Netherlands, Piedmont, and Denmark.

Critics argue that he here uses a looser definition of democracy than his official criteria. This looser definition is probably insufficient to defend the strongest form of DPT. For example, if early-nineteenth century Piedmont, with its censorship and its appointed Senate, was a democracy, it becomes difficult to deny democracy to the Spanish constitutional monarchy of 1898.) Critics instead argue that that much of the period of Rummel's study, the United States barely met Rummel's criteria, if at all. Great Britain did not qualify until after the Third Reform Bill - or rather 1888, three years after its implementation; France did not qualify until after the Presidency of General MacMahon. This leaves even fewer democracies than stated by Rommel before the late nineteenth century which makes the theory weaker since very few democracies means very few possible wars between democracies.

Time limit?

The 3 year time limit excludes the war between the French Second Republic and the Roman Republic (19th century). The War of the Pacific is excluded since Peru fail the time limit test and Bolivia was ruled by Caudillos. The rule omits the Philippine-American war. The First Balkan War is excluded if one consider the Ottoman empire to have become democratic after the first election in November 1908 or when the constitution was amended so that the parliament could control the cabinet in April 1909. The War started in October 1912, which would be before four year have passed. Critics might instead argue that democracy occurred in July 1908 when a constitution was introduced. It is also doubtful if the opposing Christian states fulfill the democratic criteria since the Kings continued to have extensive powers in all of them.

Rummel's criteria, like the time limit and democratic institutions and elections on both sides, also exclude civil wars within democracies over legitimacy or secession, such as the American civil war, the Sonderbund war, the Anglo-Irish War and the Irish civil war which followed, and the 20th century civil wars in Colombia, Spain, Uruguay and Sri Lanka.

Deaths in battle?

Rummel's Law does not cover attacks by one democracy on another in such overwhelming force that there is no effective resistance, and thus few deaths in battle (some Indian Wars and small scale foreign interventions by the United States may be examples.)

Other opponents observe that democracies have engaged in covert conflict resulting in a change of regime on the losing side. They point to the British and American-supported 1953 coup d'etat in Iran against Mohammed Mossadegh and the 1954 U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala, led by Carlos Castillo Armas as examples of such events. The 1000-death rule also excludes these events from Rummel's law.

Rummel concedes that at least one democracy formally declared war on another when the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Finland on December 6, 1941 in reaction to the Continuation War, when Finland allied with Germany in attacking the Soviet Union. However, the United Kingdom's only significant act of war happened prior to the declaration (a Royal Air Force raid on the port of Petsamo on July 31, 1941). Democratic peace theory proponents point out that Finland spent World War II fighting a totalitarian opponent who had attacked the nation, that the United Kingdom and Finland for almost the whole of WWII carefully avoided attacking each other, and that the causalities in the conflict with the United Kingdom were to few to be classified as a war statistically. The lavish material support United Kingdom and United States provided to Soviet Union although raises the question if democraties can make war against other democracies through proxies.

Statistical analysis

Rummel counts 192 nations in the world in 2004, 119 were democratic — 62 percent of the worlds countries, using his own criteria. This number of democracies is a sharp increase from the sixty-nine that existed in 1985, and supporters argue well shows that the world is becoming increasingly democratic without resulting in wars between democracies. Critics argue that any count of present democracies is open to debate; does Putin's Russia one of them, for example?

Proponents point out that even if there are one or a few examples of democracies making war against each other, this would not change that this is much less than the hundreds or thousands of war or armed conflicts fought between and against non-democracies during the same time period. Criticism of this, and other apects of the theory, can be found here . Note that this is not a peer-reviewed study, something of which there are in support of the democratic peace theory. Arguments for and bibliography of studies on the DPT can be found here .

Note that many other researchers have used different approaches to investigate the validity of theory. For example, recent research supporting the theory use a continuous scale to measure the degree of democracy in a state rather than a simple binary classification of states as democracies or not democracies.

The bloc peace theory

The second common criticism, argued effectively by Joanne Gowa in Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace, is that the structure of the international political system during the Cold War was responsible for creating the illusion of a democratic peace. At about the same time many of today's democracies came into existence, the Cold War effectively split the world into two or three discrete camps (the democratic, capitalist and developed Western world, or "free" world, and the communist "second" world, which divided in the middle of the period). The non-aligned developing third world was largely neutral in the Cold War, although there were many clear large scale wars between dictatorships and between democracies and dictatorships in the third world

Critics argue that first world nations cooperated with each other and abstained from attacking one another in a collective effort to help contain the bigger threat posed by communism; they conclude that democratic peace theory relies on samples drawn disproportionately from a time when gravitation toward the Eastern and Western poles overrode domestic political arrangements.

Before the Cold War, the limited period during which there was more than one non-allied democratic Great Power includes several crises between them, including the Fashoda crisis, between Great Britain and France, and the Venezuela crisis between Great Britain and the United States. These were conducted as fiercely as many diplomatic conflicts involving a non-democratic state; and war was popular on both sides. Thus, the second class of critics argue, although democracies have co-existed peacefully in modern times, they have done so due to external factors, not because of the reasons propounded by the democratic peace theory.

Supporters of the democratic peace theory disagree with this analysis of wars before the start of the Cold War and claim that external causes cannot explain the continued peace between democracies after the end of the Cold War. Critics argue that this peace is to some extent explained in Europe by the existence of the European Union to which many European states belong. Supporters note that even those European states still have separate militaries and to a large degree separate foreign policy.

Furthermore, the "bloc peace theory" would imply that there should have been no wars between the non-democratic second world Communist states. The Sino-Vietnamese War may be a counterexample to this even using criteria similar to Rummel's of at least 1000 deaths in battle and that both communist states should be older than 3 years at the start of the war. However, some argue that these nations belonged to two different communist blocs. Another possible counter example is the Hungarian revolution, although some argue that the regime of Imre Nagy should not be considered communist even considering that he was a communist, had been an agent for the Soviet security apparatus earlier, and was installed by the Hungarian communist party. As with democracies, there were wars in which one or both sides had been communist states for less than 3 years: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Ogaden War, and the Cambodian-Vietnamese War.There were also minor conflicts, not meeting Rummel's threshold of deaths, particularly the Sino-Soviet border conflicts and the Prague spring.

Sources

• Beck, Nathaniel, and Richard Tucker. Democracy and Peace: General Law or Limited Phenomenon? Midwest Political Science Association: April 1998.
• Correlates of War Project
• Brown, Michael E., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. Debating the Democratic Peace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
• Do Democracies Fight Each Other? BBC. November 17, 2004.
• Doyle, Michael W. Ways of War and Peace. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
• Gowa, Joanne. Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
• Huth, Paul K., et al. The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press: 2003. ISBN 0521805082.
• Levy, Jack S. “Domestic Politics and War.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 653-673.
• Lipson, Charles. Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace. Princeton University Press: 2003. ISBN 0691113904.
• Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2002
• Plourde, Shawn Democide, Democracy and the Man from Hawaii May, 2004
• Ray, James Lee. Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition. University of South Carolina Press: 1998. ISBN 1570032416.
• Ray, James Lee. Does Democracy Cause Peace? Annual Review of Political Science 1998:1, 27-46
• Rummel, R.J. Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence. Transaction Publishers: 2003. ISBN 0765805235.
• Rummel, R.J. The Democratic Peace
• Russett, Bruce. Grasping the Democratic Peace. Princeton University Press: 1994. ISBN 0691001642.
• Schwartz, Thomas, and Kiron Skinner. The Myth of Democratic Pacifism. The Wall Street Journal. January 7, 1999.

• Political theories
• Peace