Democratic Peace Theory (DPT)

-Overview

  • Mearsheimer (1990), Chan (1984), Russett (1993)

-Strand one: institutional constraints

  • Audience costs/public opinion: Doyle (1986), Fearon (1994), Schultz (1999)
  • Institutions (checks and balances – executive selection, political competition, and pluralism of the foreign policy decision-making process): Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman (1992), Bueno de Mesquita, et al. (1999)

-Strand two: democratic norms/culture

  • Schweller (1992)

-Critiques

  • Layne (1994), Mansfield and Snyder (1995), Zakaria (1997), Rosato (2003)

War

-Causes of war

  • Overview: Huntington (1993), Stepan (2000), Levy (1998), Levy (1988), Sagan (1990), Fearon (1995), Powell (1996, 2006), Kirshner (2000), Hassner (2003)
  • Security dilemma/offense-defense balance: Schelling (1960, 1963), Schelling and Halerpin (1961), Jervis (1978), Van Evera (1984), Van Evera (1999)
  • Critiques: Betts (1999), Levy (1984), Glaser and Kaufman (1998)

-Lessons from 9/11

  • Kaufmann (2004), Hemmer (2007)

Civil War

-Civil war – causes

  • Collier (2000), Fearon and Laitin (2003), Fearon (2005), Miguel, et al. (2004)

-Nationalism/ethnic conflict

  • Classics: Anderson (1983), Gellner (1983), Hobsbawm (1992)
  • Nationalism and war: Van Evera (1994)
  • Rationalist: Fearon (1994), Lake and Rothchild (1996), de Figueiredo and Weingast (1994), Gagnon (1994/5), Mueller (2000),
  • Symbolic politics : Horowitz (1985), Kaufmann (2006)

-Genocide

  • Valentino (2000), Fujii (2008)

-What to do?

  • Wittman (1979), Finnemore (1996), Kuperman (2008), Betts (1994), Kaufmann (1996),Luttwak (1999), Toft (2010)

Democratic Peace Theory (DPT)

-Overview

  • Mearsheimer (1990)
  • Democratic peace – domestic political factors are the principal determinant of peace; the presence of liberal democracies in the international system will help produce a stable order; democracies do not go to war against other democracies – why?
  • (1) authoritarian leaders are more likely to go to war because they are not accountable to their publics, which carry the main burdens of war, while democratic leaders are
  • (2) citizens of liberal democracies respect popular democratic rights, even of those in other states, so they won’t wage war against other democracies (democracy seen as most legitimate)
  • Chan (1984)
  • Whether freedom promotes peace depends on how the researcher operationalizes the dependent variable – whether war, violence, conflict, all wars, inter-state wars only, etc.
  • If the analysis focuses on dyadic relationships and excludes extra-systemic wars (like colonial or imperialist ones), democratic states appear more pacific than non-democratic ones, though the finding is not statistically significant
  • Russett (1993)
  • Democracies rarely fight each other because they have other means of resolving conflicts between them and they perceive that democracies should not fight each other; by this reasoning, the more democracies there are, the fewer potential adversaries we and other democracies will have and the wider the zone of peace
  • Prior to WWI, feeling of common liberal and democratic values played a part in moderating power conflicts between the US and Britain (over Venezuela) and Britain and France (Fashoda Crisis); but did not with US and Germany
  • Up until WWII, empirical fact of little war between democracies could be obscured by the predominance of authoritarian states
  • After WWII, democracy seen more as a binding principle of Cold War coalition against communism than as a force actively promoting peace among democracies themselves
  • By 1970s, increasing number of democracies with little war or even serious threats of war
  • Problems with overreaching claims: democracies are not more peaceful in general and democracies do sometimes fight (depends on definition/threshold of “fight”)
  • Democratically organized political systems in general operate under restraints that make them more peaceful in their relations with other democracies; democracies less likely to use lethal violence toward other democracies than toward autocratically governed states or than autocratically governed states are toward each other
  • Looks at interstate war with more than 1000 battle deaths
  • Cultural/normative model
  • In relations with other states, decision-makers try to follow the same norms of conflict resolution as have been developed within their domestic political processes; they will expect decision-makers in other states likewise to follow the same norms of conflict resolution as have been developed within their domestic political processes
  • Violent conflict between democracies are rare because the decision-makers resolve conflicts by compromise, so will follow norms of peaceful conflict resolution; more stable democracies  more democratic norms govern behavior
  • Violent conflict between non-democracies and between democracies and non-democracies more frequent because in non-democracies decision-makers use violence and threat of violence to resolve conflict as part of domestic political processes (so other states expect this); democratic norms can be more easily exploited to force concessions, so to avoid this, democracies may adopt non-democratic norms in dealing with non-democracies
  • Structural/institutional model
  • Violent conflict between democracies rare because democracies constrained by checks and balances, division of power, and need for public debate to enlist widespread support (slows decisions to use violence); leaders of other states perceive democratic leaders as constrained, so they expect slow-action and thus do not fear surprise attacks
  • Violent conflict between non-democracies and between democracies and non-democracies more frequent because leaders of non-democracies are not constrained like democratic leaders, which means they can move to use force more quickly; thus, leaders of other states may initiate violence rather than risking surprise attacks
  • Moreover, non-democracies (knowing democracies constrained) may press for greater concessions, but this may cause democracies to initiate conflict rather than give in to these concessions

-Strand one: institutional constraints

  • Audience costs/public opinion
  • Doyle (1986)
  • Schumpeter (1942): liberal pacifism; capitalism and democracy are forces for peace (antithetical to imperialism); capitalism produces an unwarlike disposition because its populace is “democratized, individualized, rationalized”; when free trade prevails, no class gains from forcible expansion (only war profiteers will gain)
  • Kant (1795): liberal internationalism; once aggressive interests of absolutist monarchies are tamed and the habit of respect for individual rights engrained by republican government, people will hesitate to embark on war because it will bring the miseries of war down upon themselves (this doesn’t hold where people are not citizens – the head of state owns the state, so he can go to war without sacrificing anything himself); liberal states are morally integrated – as culture grows and men gradually move toward greater agreement on principles, leads to mutual understanding and peace (liberal states assume non-liberal states, which do not rest on free consent, are not just)
  • Constitutional, international, and cosmopolitan (meaning ties of international commerce and free trade) sources connect the characteristics of liberal polities and economies with sustained liberal peace  “a separate peace exists among liberal states” (which doesn’t extend to non-liberal states – here, there is still insecurity caused by anarchy)
  • Fearon (1994)
  • Audience costs are an important factor enabling states to learn about an opponent’s willingness to use force in a dispute; at a price, audience costs make escalation in a crisis an informative although noisy signal of a state’s true intentions by creating the possibility that leaders on one or both sides will become locked into their position and so will be unable to back down due to unfavorable domestic political consequences; a crisis always has a unique horizon – a level of escalation after which neither side will back down because both are certainly locked in, making war inevitable; before the horizon is reached, the fear of facing an opponent who may become committed to war puts pressure on states to settle
  • Regardless of the initial conditions, the state more sensitive to audience costs is always less likely to back down in disputes that become public contests (greater domestic cost for escalating  more informative signal of escalation, so less escalation required to convey intentions)
  • Stronger domestic audiences may make democracies better able to signal intentions and credibly to commit to courses of action in foreign policy than non-democracies, features that might help ameliorate the security dilemma between democratic states
  • If relative capabilities or interests can be assessed by leaders prior to a crisis and if they also determine the outcome, then we should not observe crises between rational opponents: If rational, the weaker or observably less interested state should simply concede the issues without offering public, costly resistance. Crises would occur only when the disadvantaged side irrationally forgets its inferiority before challenging or choosing to resist a challenge.
  • Possessing military strength or a manifestly strong foreign policy interest does deter challenges in the model, but if a challenge occurs nonetheless, neither the balance of forces nor the balance of interests has any direct effect on the probability that one side rather than the other will back down once both have escalated; which side backs down in a crisis should be determined by relative audience costs and by unobservable, privately known elements of states’ capabilities and resolves
  • Schultz (1999)
  • Two arguments in the literature:
  • Institutional constraints (below)– suggests democratic leaders generally face higher political costs for waging war; as a result, when a state is challenged by a democracy, the target has reason to doubt that the challenge will actually be carried out and targeted states should be more likely to resist when threatened by a democracy than when threatened by a state that is not similarly constrained
  • Informational perspective(above) – suggests democratic governments are better able to reveal their true preferences in a crisis; relative to non-democracies, they are less likely to engage in bluffing behavior, meaning that the threats they do make are more likely to be genuine; as a result, the target of a threat made by a democracy should be less inclined to resist or further escalate the crisis
  • Crisis bargaining literature: without complete information (asymmetrical distribution), it is difficult to identify/agree on mutually beneficial bargain
  • Democracy promotes emergence of multiple information sources by permitting opposition parties to compete openly for the support of the electorate, so it faces constraints on its ability to conceal or misrepresent its preferences for war and peace (institutionalized competition constrains a government to be more selective about resorting to threats while at the same time improving the effectiveness of the threats it does make)
  • Finds that the likelihood of reciprocation is lower when the initiating state is a democracy than when it is not (consistent with informational perspective)
  • Suggests democratic institutions help reveal information about a state’s preferences in a credible manner (threats more likely to be genuine)
  • Institutions (checks and balances – executive selection, political competition, and pluralism of the foreign policy decision-making process)
  • Lake (1992)
  • Democracies not only fight wars against each other less often, but also tend to win the wars that they do fight
  • This is because autocratic states typically earn rents at the expense of their societies (“state rent-seeking”) and thus possess an imperialist bias and tend to be more expansionist (hence, more war-prone)
  • Democracies are constrained by their societies from earning rents, so they devote greater absolute resources to security, enjoy greater societal support for their policies, and tend to form overwhelming counter-coalitions against expansionist autocracies ( propensity for victory in war)
  • Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman (1992)
  • Democratic institutions facilitate the mobilization of opposition, making it easier for challengers to unseat a government that undertakes costly or failed policies; war is thus an especially risky prospect for democratic leaders, who may find themselves in early retirement if things go badly; non-democratic leaders, in contrast, are better insulated from such risks
  • Bueno de Mesquita, et al. (1999)
  • In addition to common claims, there are additional regularities as part of DPT – as two examples, democracies win a disproportionate share of their wars and their costs are lower
  • Assume leaders motivated by a desire to keep their job
  • Model based on political institutions: because the winning coalition size increases in democracies as compared to non-democracies, holding budget constant, each member’s share of private goods decreases; this makes public policy benefits loom larger in utility assessment of members of winning coalition in democracies; democratic leaders thus must be especially concerned about policy failure and will make a larger effort to succeed in disputes (with small winning coalitions, giving benefits to a few protects leaders from being deposed); this implies democratic leaders pick and choose their conflicts carefully
  • Democrats are thus more likely to win wars than autocrats because they try hard and spend resources on the war and, because they fear failure, they avoid contests that they do not think they can win
  • Democrats thus inclined to negotiate with each other rather than fight because they anticipate that war will result in spending a lot of resources in a risky situation where neither side is disproportionately advantaged by greater effort
  • Democratic leaders generally attack only if they anticipate victory (or at least have a substantial probability of victory)
  • Autocrats, since they reserve resources for domestic uses to satisfy key constituents, do not try as hard in war (defeat will not greatly affect their prospects of political survival at home)
  • Because democrats use their resources for the war effort rather than reserve them to reward backers, they are generally able, given their selection criteria for fighting, to overwhelm adversaries, which results in short and relatively less costly wars (against non-democratic opponents)

-Strand two: democratic norms/culture

  • The culture, perceptions, and practices that permit compromise and the peaceful resolution of conflicts without the threat of violence within countries come to apply across national boundaries toward other democratic countries (democratic states develop positive perceptions of other democracies – instead of war, use peaceful competition, persuasion, and compromise)
  • Schweller (1992)
  • Preventive war – wars that are motivated by the fear that one’s military power and potential are declining relative to that of a rising adversary; can be for offensive (take advantage of closing window of opportunity) or defensive reasons (prevent opening of window of vulnerability); “wars of anticipation,” so their justification rests only upon the inherently un-provable assumptions of human foresight
  • Gilpin (1981), Levy (1987): power shifts seen as key, so preventive action is often most attractive response for a declining dominant power
  • Power shift is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for war, so why do some power shifts result in preventive war while others do not? When looking at power shifts between states of roughly equal strength:
  • Only non-democratic regimes wage preventive wars against rising opponents; declining democratic states do not exercise this option
  • When the challenger is an authoritarian state, declining democratic leaders attempt to form counterbalancing alliances
  • When the challenger is another democratic state, declining democratic leaders seek accommodation
  • A model of liberal democratic domestic structures as determinants of decisions about war and peace must include as model-based features the relative power resources of the states involved (Kant: public opinion inhibits democratic state actors from initiating wars expected to be of great risk and cost)
  • That is, must go beyond the “billiard-ball model of state behavior” – the structural-realist assumption that all states react similarly to external pressures is incorrect
  • Citizens of governments founded on the enlightenment principles of individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness are naturally repulsed by the unethical and immoral aspects of preventive war, as it implies the unprovoked slaughter of countless soldiers/civilians on the mere assumption that future safety requires it
  • That is, the strength of public opinion in democratic states generates a complex of factors that lessens the motivation to enter into preventive war; pacific effect of public opinion, though, is somewhat contingent on the expectation that the war will be costly

-Critiques

  • Democracies have gone to war very often against non-democratic regimes, democratic citizens can become very nationalistic
  • International and domestic norms often induced from observed patterns of behavior in international conflicts; empirically, there are many cases where democratic states followed policies at variance with the norms argument (imperialism – wars were about subjugation, not self-preservation)
  • Layne (1994)
  • Where DPT and realism depart: DPT holds that changes within states can transform nature of international politics, while realism takes the view that even if states change internally, the structure of the international political system remains the same (systemic structural constraints means that similarly placed states will act similarly, regardless of domestic political systems)
  • Why institutional constraints do not explain DPT: (1) if democratic public opinion had this effect, democracies would be peaceful in their relations with all states (lives lost and money spent will be the same), (2) checks and balances are not exclusive to democracies
  • Do norms explain it? Uses process tracing on case studies of “near-misses” where democratic states had opportunity and reason to fight, but did not
  • One example that realism is better than DPT in explaining why war avoided: Ruhr Crisis of 1923 (France and Germany) – disconfirms DPT; after WWI, both public and elites in France perceived Germany as dangerous threat to France’s security and great power status, even though Weimar Germany was a democracy; what mattered was Germany’s latent power, not its domestic political structure; driven by strategic concerns, not mutual respect based on democratic norms/culture, French used military power coercively to defend Versailles system, but Germany didn’t have military capabilities so pulled back from the brink by passively resisting (rather than entrust security to hope that Germany’s democratic institutions would mitigate geopolitical consequences