Democratic peace thesis

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By Cornelia Navari
Source: Williams, P. D. (Ed.). (2008). Security studies: an introduction. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.
“The ‘democratic peace’ thesis is the argument that liberal states do not fight wars against other liberal states. It was first enunciated in a keynote article by Michael Doyle in the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs (Doyle 1983). Doyle argued that there was difference in liberal practice towards other liberal societies and liberal practice towards non-liberal societies. Among liberal societies, liberalism had produced a cooperative foundation such that ‘constitutionally liberal states have yet to engage in war with one another’. Doyle based his findings on David Singer’s Correlates of War Project (COW) at Michigan University and the COW’s list of wars since 1816. Using the list, Doyle observed that almost no liberal states had fought wars against other liberal states, and that in the two instances in which it seemed that liberal states had fought against other arguably liberal states, liberalism had only recently been established. Doyle sourced the tendency in Kant’s three preconditions’: namely republican constitutions, collective security arrangements and civic hospitality, in which Doyle included free trade.
The specific causes of the ‘liberal peace’ have become the subject of robust research and discussion. The two major contending theories focus on liberal institutions and liberal ideology respectively. Liberal institutions include the broad franchise of liberal states and the need to ensure broad popular support; the division of powers in democratic states which produces checks and balances; and the electoral cycle, which makes liberal leadership cautious and prone to avoid risk (Russet 1996). But liberal institutions would tend to inhibit all wars, whereas liberal states have fought robust wars against non-liberal states. The contender, which can explain the difference, is liberal ideology or ‘culture’. According to the liberal culture argument, liberal states tend to trust other liberal states and to expect to resolve conflict through discussion and compromise. But, equally, they distrust non-liberal states. The major argument for liberal ideology has been put forward by John M. Owen who suggest that, ‘Ideologically, liberals trust those states they consider fellow liberal democracies and see no reason to fight them. They view those states they consider illiberal with suspicion, and sometimes believe that the national interest requires war with them’. (1996: 153).
Since Doyle first produced his findings, the theory had developed two variants; one maintains that democracies are more peaceful than non-democracies: that is that they are more pacific generally (Russett 1993). This is sometimes referred to as the monadic variant. The other maintains that liberal states are not necessarily more peaceful than non-liberal states, but that they avoid the use of force in relation to other democracies; that is the use of force depends on the recipient’s form of government. In the later variant, sometimes called the dyadic variant, a few have argued that democracies may be even more robust in the use of force than non-democracies, due partially to the ideological nature of democratic wars and partially to the fact that liberal democracies are generally strong states with a large wealth base (Barkawi and Laffey, 2001).
From the security point of view, the recommendations of democratic peace theory are clear – in the final analysis, security depends on encouraging liberal institutions; and a security policy must have as its long term aims the spread of liberalism. In the short term, it must protect liberalism, including liberal tendencies in non-liberal states. Doyle himself argues that where liberalism has been deficient ‘is in preserving its [liberalism’s] basic preconditions under changing international circumstances’ (1983:229). The route to peace is to encourage democratic systems, the universal respect for human rights and the development of civil society.”    
Republican liberalism
Source: Griffiths, M., O’Callaghan, T., & Roach, S. C. (2008). International relations the key concepts (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
“Republican liberalism endorses the spread of democracy among states so that governments will be accountable to their citizens and find it difficult to pursue policies that promote the sectional interests of economic and military elites. Over the past ten years there has been an extensive debate on the extent to which democracies are more peaceful than non-democratic states and the reasons behind the alleged link between the domestic character of states and their foreign policies.”

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