While there are many variations of the Democratic Peace Theory, one aspect
remains core – that democracy is a cause of peace. Its hypothesis states that democracies
don’t go to war and are more prone to peace, though usually this is meant in dyadic peace,
rather than monadic; democracies don’t go to war with each other. In this post, I would like to examine the extent to which this theory is accurate in modern society, and offer a few critiques as well.
The major issue with this theory seems to be the question of defining democracy and
liberalism. Without a universally agreed definition of these core terms, the theory weakens
significantly. On the one hand, it becomes tangible and loses the clarity and
straightforwardness which are so appealing. On the other hand, it loses merit in terms of
credibility, as it is impossible to decisively prove or disprove the hypothesis without a defined set of data. Additionally, what democratic peace theory fails to take into
account is human perception. The idea that democracies do not go to war with each other is
based around two core explanations. The first one is that going to war is difficult in
democracies because of institutional constraints, as it requires approval of the whole society.
The second one states that democracies see fighting other democracies as
unjust in view of liberal ideals. Both of them, however, revolve around the recognition of one
state as democratic by the other one, and vice versa. Yet without a universally, or at least
mutually agreed definition of a democracy it becomes difficult to establish a benchmark for
such a state. As a result, a clear theory becomes weakened and prone to interpretation.
While the theory seemingly provides the subjectively “right” direction for foreign
and international policy, it can be dangerous in its interpretation. As the idea of
global security in a community of democracies is strong, it can be easily used as a
justification of war. This has already been the case in the past. Woodrow Wilson, a firm
believer in the theory, told the Congress that “the world must be made safe for democracy”
when asking it to declare war on Germany in 1917. Similarly, the justification for the war in
Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003 provided by George W. Bush and Tony Blair during
the later stages of the conflicts included arguments of “bringing democracy to Afghanistan”
and Bush stated that he had “great faith in democracies to promote peace.” This, in
combination with the subjective interpretation of what is a democracy, can be used to validate
aggression.
I am not arguing that the theory has no merit at all, simply that it cannot be taken at face value and requires further research to fully understand its accuracy.
Is this a critique of the theory itself or a particular use of its in foreign policy? Is it possible for the theory to be correct but we still do not try to start way in its name?
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting question, especially given that the Democratic Peace theory is a theory of peace which outlines motives that dissuade state-sponsored violence as opposed to a theory of war engagement. I think you have a point, however. I think the theory works as an empirical one, stating that a state of peace is not singular to democracies, but rather that it is more easily sustained between democratic nations. I think one would be hard-pressed to argue against this. The trouble arises, like you pointed out, with the theory's application to Foreign Policy. In my opinion, it is unjust for a democratic nation to engage in military conflict with another nation with the sole intention of establishing a democratic government. When the idea of democracy is used a justification for war, I think the theory is exploited and as a result, weakened.
DeleteKiefer,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting point that I had not even taken into consideration before. I think that the core of what you are talking about, within your argument of needing a common ground for defining what exactly a democracy means, is the idea of miscommunication. Miscommunication in itself is often a reason for war, as was the case in the the Iraq war. Furthermore, it should be noted that defining democracy is very difficult. For this very reason, there are scales that can be made to determine which countries are more democratic than others, which I find very interesting because they take into consideration a lot of different factors, such as politics, gender, economics, knowledge, health, environment, etc. For example, according to democracyranking.org, the US is considered to be more democratic than Turkey. This would definitely be an intriguing topic to research further.
I think a definition of democracy can be made based on the theory itself. As you said, there are two main explanations of the theory, the first being the institutional barriers to war. We can define democracy here by asking the question "is the population of a country directly or indirectly responsible for the decision to go to war?". As far as I know, there is no modern example of the people directly deciding to go to war. Many nations have a government where the people elect the officials who decide to go to war. This is an indirect effect. The accountability of those elected to the public, and thus the theory's integrity can be questionable, however. The second explanation of the theory, that democracies do not go to war because they mutually view war as unacceptable, can also yield a definition of democracy. We must simply ask the question "do these nations mutually view each other as democracies". With this explanation the theory, the reality of a nation having a democratic government is immaterial. The perception is the only thing that matters.
ReplyDelete