Democratic peace theory, in its wider interpretation, is the empirical observation that democracies rarely, if ever, fight one another and it is this empirical dyadic observation that that has been described as the “closest thing we have to empirical law” in international relations. [1]

Although what is meant by democratic peace is contested, and indeed as its validity as this essay will explore, the theory has been previously under Woodrow Wilson and more currently the Presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, a significant conceptual factor in the formation of American foreign policy.[2]

Our aim is a democratic peace, a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. America acts in this course with friends and allies at our sides, yet we understand our special calling: this great republic will lead the cause of freedom.

In light of this statement, ongoing U.S. policy and its likely persistence an examination and understanding of the democracy peace proposition is clearly with merit. This essay will look at the democratic peace proposition at a several levels of analysis: at the monadic level of interstate war on whether democracies generally are more peaceful and whether transitional democracies are more inclined to war; and at the intrastate level as to whether democracies experience more or less civil war. It will examine the validity of the proposition(s), reasons for is occurrence and postulate on what implication there may be for foreign policy?

For consideration of the dyadic democratic peace proposition, it is fairly standard practice to accept the Correlates of War Project definition of an interstate war as one involving independent states and at least 1000 battle (combatant) deaths.[3] Russett (1993) uses this definition of 1000 battle deaths as a threshold for considering a conflict a war and it is this definition that seems to be most frequently adopted in the literature. Though generally accepted, this of course is arbitrary and renders from consideration many militarised conflicts under the 1000 combatant deaths (although they may be considerable civilian mortality), as well as equating all conflicts larger than 1000 combatant fatalities.

The definition of democracy is problematic and is a source for challenge and rebuttal as well as on the part proponents the justification for the elimination of troubling cases. Ray (1995) makes the valid point that the assertion that democracies very infrequently fight each other is highly dependent on what definition of democracy and international war are used as well as what constitutes and independent state.[4]

The determination of what constitutes a democracy has differed and evolved but has become somewhat more settled (though it still remains are source for rebuttal of the democratic peace hypothesis usually by criticism of the scope of the franchise). A democracy has been defined by Small and Singer (1976)[5] as where there are periodic elections in which the opposition parties are as free to run as government parties, whose elected legislature controls or at least has at least parity with the executive branch, and allows 10% of the adult population to vote.

Rummel (1983) defines a liberal democracy as one where there exists freedom of speech, religion and association: a government which is subordinate to a constitutional framework and where there is a representative government with power vested via contested elections under conditions of secret ballot and wide franchise (often considered to be at least two-thirds of the adult male population).[6] Doyle (1983) places an emphasis on liberal equating with freedom of the individual seen as: freedom from arbitrary authority and freedom of speech, conscience, and the right to own and to exchange private property; social and economic rights which include judicial equality, equal opportunity in education, health and employment; and the right to democratic participation and representation. Consequently liberalism in domestic political arrangements requires the four institutions of judicial equality with freedom of religion and the press; rule by representative legislatures; private property; the existence of a market economy.

According to Ray (1995) a state is democratic if the leadership of both the legislature and the executive are determined in competitive and fair and competitive elections, if there exists at least two formally independent political parties, suffrage is extended to at least half the adult population and there has been at least one peaceful constitutional transfer of power. A free press is included in the concept of fair as it is maintained that if not free then the electoral system is inherently not fair.[7]

There have also been efforts to move away from the simple binary construction where regimes are simply identified as democratic or not democratic, such as in the Polity Data developed by Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR)[8], by the Economist Intelligence Unit and its “Democratic Index”[9] and Freedom House’s assessment of the degree of democratic freedoms in nations and significant disputed territories around the world. by examining the state of civil and political rights.[10]
From Hence forward, when referring to democracy it is by implication to be regarded as referring to a liberal democracy.

Babst (1964 and 1972) [11] as reported in Ray (1995) is credited with the first statistical research to look at the proposition [12] and refers to Babst’s examination of democratic dyads between 1789 and 1941 and the finding that no wars have been fought between independent nations with elective governments.[13]

The finding of Rummel’s research (1983) is for both the monadic and dyadic democratic peace proposition. While Doyle (1983) dissents from that monadic proposition that liberal democracies are any less interstate war prone that non-democratic states, the dyadic proposition is supported, also finding them as aggressive and war prone as any other from of polity in their relations with non-liberal states. Additionally, while Doyle saw being non-liberal domestically as more likely to be aggressors, and liberal polices leading to a liberal peace they could also give cause liberal aggression towards non-liberal states taking on crusade like quality to spread liberal values. Muller (2004) has also noted that democracies fight wars that other regimes will not, that involve the preservation of international law, prevention of human disasters and large scale violations of human rights. He proposes that there are militant democracies whose interaction with non-democracies is antagonistic, and pacifist democracies who attempt to facilitate transition to democracy of autocracies.[14]

Russett (1993) also finds that since 1945, democratic dyads not only enjoyed a democratic peace but had less disputes than non-demo or mixed ones dyads, and were less likely to use or to threaten to use force. According to Ray (1998), other studies have also found that the rates of warfare between pairs of democracies compared to other pairs of states are significantly different. such as Maoz and Abdolali (1992) where the period of 1946 to 1986 is analysed and which included pairs of states that were politically relevant i.e geographically related or one a major power.[15]

In “Insignificance of the Liberal Peace”, Spiro (1994) finds the absence of war between democracies to be statistically insignificant since prior to 1945 there were so few democracies, so chance of war between was very small so not surprising that the chance democratic dyad at war was very low. Spiro finds that the data does show that democracies frequently go to war against non-democracies, and so argues for the normative causes of apparent absence of democratic war. It also argued that most studies look at states with democratic processes and not those with liberal norms and that it be the latter that is greater importance in explaining the observation of democratic peace. Criticism is directed at the definition of democracy taken, the lack of precision in its definition and the subsequent wide variation between scholars.

In a study which ran regressions of involvement in militarised conflict against a measure joint democracy, and other predictor variables such as the lower of the states economic growth, whether or not the states are allies, contiguous or not, capability ratio, and a trade dependence measures by Oneal and Russett (1997)[16] was one of the primary studies supporting the dyadic democratic peace proposition[17]. They find that “not only was there a separate peace amongst democracies but democracies were more peaceful than autocracies in general.”[18]

The policy implications that would arise from the existence of a monadic democratic peace are significant, as a reasonable hypothesis that would thus arise is that the spread of democracy would enhance the prospects for peace. A number of other works by Maoz and Abdolali (1989)[19] and studies by Rummel (1979, 1983,1995)[20] also support the existence of a monadic democratic peace proposition.

In a major rebuttal of both the dyadic and monadic proposition, Henderson (2002)[21] replicated the work of Oneal and Russett with a more straightforward method of dyadic joint democracy and even when political dissimilarity measures and dispute duration were factored in, no statistical link between joint democracy and international conflict was established. Henderson (2002) found that [22]:

“The results demonstrate that Oneal and Russett (1997) findings in support of the democratic peace proposition are not robust and that joint democracy does not reduce the probability of international conflict for pairs of stats in the postwar period”

Furthermore:[23] “Joint democracy simply is not a significant factor in reducing the likelihood of international conflict once one controls for political (dis)similarity and trade interdependence and excludes subsequent years of ongoing disputes

Henderson examines such factors as major power status, economic downturn, development, cultural factors using a constructed variable of “civilisation membership” and does not find for the monadic peace proposition. :

“…the results indicate that democracies are more war-prone than non-democracies and that democracies are more likely to initiate interstate war”.[24]

Layne (1994) proposes that a superior test would be to look at cases where war was possible as a test of the proposition. The 1861 U.S.-U.K. “Trent Affair”, the 1895-96 U.S.-U.K. Venezuelan Crisis, 1898 Fashoda Crisis involving the U.K and France, and the 1923 Ruhr Crisis with France and Germany were examined as “near cases” of conflict between democracies. It was concluded that there was no evidence that the avoidance of war was due to shared democratic norms. Rather realism was the cause de rationale. Threats were issued when vital interest threatened and decisions were based on national self interest, with consideration to strategic concerns such as force projection and military capability being paramount.

If democratic norms/culture are deterministic of the democratic peace then it would be expected that democratic states in a crisis with each other resolve the dispute peacefully and there would be observed an absence of military threats, proclamation of ultimatum, the adoption of inflexible positions and coercive diplomacy and forms of accommodating behaviour like the absence of ultimatum and the adoption of inflexible positions and coercive diplomacy, as well as the presence of pacific public opinion.

Henderson goes further to explore the issue of democratic peace and extra-state (between sovereign states and non-state political entities) and civil wars and finds that in extra-state wars, primarily colonial and imperial in nature, democracies are less likely to be involved, while western democracies were more likely to be. With the passage of time the involvement of democracies in extra-state wars will naturally diminish. However it as found that states with developing democracy are more prone to civil wars with obvious implications from further democratisation internationally.

Several studies find that the presence or absent of democracy and the quality of, impacts the onset and occurrence of civil war. Hegre and Sambanis (2006) report a robust finding that the onset of civil war is linked the presence of inconsistent democratic institutions[25]. A finding from Bruckner and Ciccone (2007) indicated that democracy had a attenuating impact on the probability of civil war. It was found that while low economic growth increased the likelihood of civil wars in non-democracies, there was no link established between low economic growth and civil war in countries that possessed democratic institutions.

Savbun and Phillips (2009) report that the literature the empirical findings are that democracies are more prone to transnational terrorism than other types of regime, and that it has been postulate that this is due to their liberal character of free media, constrained executive and political participation providing fertile conditions for operations. It was found that democracies do not experience any more domestic terrorism than other regime type. The determinant for transnational terrorism was found to be whether the state had an active foreign policy stance, especially involvement in international crisis, or was in an alliance with the U.S. Intervention in civil wars was found to greatly increased the likelihood of transnational terrorism . Democracies with more active foreign polices and hence are a greater focus for resentment and grievance tend to have greater likelihood of transnational terrorism while democracies with low key foreign policies were found to experience little to no transnational terrorism.

A study by Mansfield and Synder (1995) found that states that are democratising are more likely to be involved in war, while democratic peace exists between mature democracies. According to their data, they are more likely to go to war just after democratisation, and also have greater chance of doing so one, five ten years after the process commences, while generally in the decade after are twice as likely to be at war. Four reasons were proposed for this: the old regime elites use appeals to nationalism so as to compete in the evolving democratic environment; this gives rise to the new elites finding that they have to resort to similar appeals; the newly mobilised and energised publics often prove difficult to contain; and finally if the nascent democracy collapses then the return to autocracy increases the probability of war. Young developing democracies lack the stabilising institutions, arrangements and norms of a mature democracy, leading to the formation of political impasses and often see the formulation of polices lacking in coherence dominated by short-run objectives and at times reckless in nature.

Democide[26] has far and away accounted for more deaths than interstate conflict according to research conducted by Rummel (1983a). A negative correlation between the level of liberal democracy in a state and the violence the state directs towards its citizens was found. The explanation rooted in the absence of the liberal structures of liberal democracy.

A theoretical two track basis for the democratic peace is provide by Russett.[27]. A cultural - normalisation model whose basis is that decision makers operating in a domestic environment with democratic norms of peaceful conflict resolution creates a bias against violent dispute resolution that feeds into international arena disputes. Such expectations do not exist with respect to non-democracies not held. Consequently this leads to the creation of a democratic peace zone but does not prevent war between democracies and non-democracies. In the structural institution model, democracies possess domestic institutions that have separation of powers, checks and balances, and conditions conducive to public debate. This all contributes to slowing down and constraining any move to war, granting more time to resolve disputes and greatly mitigating the fear of surprise strike.

Following the work by Russet, Owen (1995) goes on to explore the character of liberal democracy with an emphasis on “liberal” and how that is a driver for the observed peace zone. It is contended that liberalism holds that the individual should have freedom and peace is a necessary condition for that freedom. Hence wars should only be for peace and freedom. Additionally states with such liberal notions believe that other liberal states also act to preserve freedoms and are thus pacific and trustworthy. Liberal states share institutions that have similar norms that allow for public control in international relations, and so even illiberal leaders are unable to lead liberal state into war against other liberal states.

According to Owen (1995) reasons for the observed democratic peace are founded on perceptions of the nature of the contesting state. Liberal states trust states considered liberal and not those they do not perceive as non-liberal: a perception of a state liberalising generates an expectation it will tend to pacification in its orientation to other liberal states; proclamations from liberal states that other liberal states share their aims and while illiberal states do not; liberal states assessments of other states do not alter during crisis without and an alteration in the perception of the opposing states institutions; liberal elites advocate for their polices during war-threatening crisis; and during crisis, states leaders are constrained to follow liberal policies.

Faber and Gowa (1995) and Henderson (1997)[28] find that there was no significant difference in probability of war between pairs of democracies and those with pairs of other regime type except in 1945and also found was that democracies were no less likely to be engaged in war than other regime type. As only after 1945 were pairs of democratic states significantly less dispute prone reflecting the alignment against the Soviet Union it was thus concluded that the connection to domestic politics was spurious and that the democratic peace was attributable number of factors : “bipolarity” in the international system with dual hegemons in the respective blocs, nuclear deterrence, alliance membership with associated decrease in conflict within, trade links which frequently followed the alliances, and the emergence of an international security regime that reduced conflict amongst democratic states.

Rasler and Thompson (2005)[29] identify ten complexes of intertwined variables and go on to develop a trading state model which evaluates the explanatory factors of costs of warfare, benefits of trade, systemic leadership, democracy, liberal values, territorial disputes, status quo satisfaction, international organisations. Comparisons with a number of other approaches are made and it is observed that the democratic peace is in fact over-determined:[30]

If the democratic peace proposition holds for mature democracies where democratic norms and institutions are well embedded and readily perceived as so and there is considerable evidence for this, then the growth of democracy would seem to be advantageous for the growth of interstate peace. The obvious foreign policy implication of the democratic peace is that if democracies do not go to war with each other, then the spread of democracy is a clear prescription for international peace. As this would seem to be the basis for much of current and near current U.S. policy, if it is in fact incorrect, then the U.S. promotion of democracy is both very costly and indeed counterproductive to U.S. national interests as it may engender greater conflict involving transitory states.

However there seems to be little support for a monadic democratic peace that democracies are generally more peaceful and if anything the contrary may hold, with democracies having the capacity to demonstrate considerable aggression towards states perceived as being illiberal and/or non-democratic. So liberal polices that lead to liberal peace also cause liberal aggression to states perceived as non-liberal and that such aggression can assume a crusade like quality to spread liberal values, which may even engender a backlash thus being counter-productive in the achievement of its said goal.

Transitioning to democracy would seem to pose a real concern with regard to the propensity to violent conflict. Provision of support in establishing institutions is vital to formation of a young democracy and for it to evolve to maturity and develop norms of democratic behaviour. In assisting the democratic transition, policies to lower the incentive for the autocratic elite to resist, retain or re-obtain control would be highly conducive to facilitating the transition. Incentivise the autocratic leadership to cooperate, facilitate and if and when appropriate stand aside. Give the former military and economic elites a stake in newly liberalised economy. Assisting the creation and preservation of a free press and encouraging in such an environment a pluralistic security debate can prevent or truncate nationalistic myth making, so often the broth to violence, both intra and extra state.

With the growth in independent nations virtually complete due to de-colonisation, the incidence of democracies involvement in extrastate wars for this reason will be virtually eliminated. However, extrastate conflict will be likely to persists due to the imperialist tendencies of autocracies will persist, and rise in combination with transitioning and failing democracies, and in the post 9/11 world what seems to be an indeterminate “War on Terror”.

If democracy is going to be promoted in a democratic states foreign policy some attention los needs to be

There still remains plenty of scope for the realist in this world also with the rise of powerful irredentist and illiberal states such as Russia and China with a tradition of realpolitik.

The democratic zone of peace may well contribute to a more settled security situation for some, but conflict will persist despite the Kantian dream of the “Perpetual Peace”.
Appendix

Significant conflicts cited as exceptions to Democratic Peace Theory, with justification for exception.

1812-1815 The War of 1812 USA v UK U.S. did not see Britain as a democracy - small extent of suffrage - escalated to war (Owen 1995) perceptions Reform Act 1867 effectively gave the vote to the working classes, Representation of the People Act 1884 did not establish universal suffrage: although the size of the electorate was widened considerably, all women and 40% of adult males were still without the vote at the time, although 60% of male householders over the age of 21 had the vote, still only a min.ority (10%) of men could actually vote due to property legislation. Representation of the People Act 1918 - this act was the first to practically include the majority of men in the political system and began the inclusion of women

1860-63 American Civil War Confederacy not fully developed as a democracy though in possession of democratic elements ie the franchise was limited to free males (which constituted about 35 to 40 percent of all males in the Confederacy), no transfer of power undertaken,. President Jefferson Davis was not elected, but appointed by representatives themselves selected by the confederate states. There was an election in 1861, but it was not competitive. Questions also over independence as for one, it was not recognized by any major power, which means that it was not recognized as an independent state.

1898 Spanish American War Transfer of power non-constitutional rather “turno pacifico” – arrangement giving alternative control of government with an agreed alternation of power by the two political parties rather than electorally determined

1918. WWI Germany undemocratic due to constitutional power and control of the military vested in the emperor, who was not selected in fair and contestable election. Germany certainly not perceived as democratic by other states but arguably no less so than France or the UK. At the time of hostilities perceived to be democratic by the U.S., perceptions altered with entry into the war.

1941 Soviet–Finnish War, 1941-1944 - v UK and Allies Finland allied with Nazi Germany in response to the invasion by the Soviet Union. Although Britain bombed German factories and installations in Finland and a number of Finnish merchant marine were sunk, no significant direct hostilities took place between the protagonists. Was Finland perceived as an enemy. Rare case of democracies declaring war on other democracies.

1974 Turkey v Cyprus Greek military junta replaced the previous one in autumn of 1973. Cypriot President Makirios overthrown by Greek members of the national Guard. Turkey invaded Cyprus on Saturday, 20 July 1974. On 23 July 1974 the Greek military junta collapsed mainly because of the events in Cyprus, Greek political leaders in exile started returning in the country. On 24 July 1974 Constantine Karamanlis returned from Paris and was sworn in as Prime Minister

1981 Pasquisha War - Peru v Ecuador Liberal regimes established but had been no peaceful constitutional handover of power demonstrated prior to hostilities, Maximum of 200 combatant deaths, Peruvian democracy less than a year old, Ecuador less than three years old.

1999 May - July Kargil War India vs Pakistan Arose due to Pakistani insurgents backed by Pakistan regulars infiltrating the Line of Control – de facto border with Inda in Kahmir. The infiltration was code named "Operation Badr", based on previously developed operational plans its - aim was to sever the link between Kashmir and Ladakh, and cause Indian forces to withdraw from the Siachen Glacier, thus forcing India to negotiate a settlement of the broader Kashmir dispute. October 12, 1999, General Musharraf staged a bloodless coup d'état, ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, possibly to prevent action being taken against him, some evidence military acting independently in supporting participating in insurgency – not under democratic government control.

1999 March 22 to June 11 NATO vs Serbia NATO not a state. Milošević government did not permit a free media, continued to be authoritarian and restricted freedom of speech through reforms to the Serbian Penal Code.

Milošević' had previously been elected president of Serbia in two terms, from 1990 to 1997. On 6 July 2000, the rules of the election of the president were changed. Whilst the president of Yugoslavia had previously been chosen for one term only by the legislature, in the Yugoslav parliament, it was now to be directly elected via the two-round voting system of presidential elections with a maximum of two terms. Many onlookers believed that s intentions for supporting such reforms had more to do with keeping his own power than with improved democracy. On 27 July 2000, the authorities announced that the early elections were to be held 24 September 2000, although Milošević's term wouldn't expire until June 2001. Election took place on 24 September 2000. Systematic election fraud saw massive protests reached its height on 5 October 2000, Milošević resigned on 7 October 2000.
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[1] Levy, Jack (1989) “Domestic Politics and War”. In the Origin and Prevention of Wars, Rotenberg, Robert and Rabb, Theodore, (Editors) p. 88 as cited by Gelphi, Christopher F. and Griesdorf, Michael (2001). “Winners and Losers? Democracies in International Crisis”, American Political Science Review, 95 .(3), p. 633-647.
[2] President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2004.
[3] James Lee Ray (1998) “Does Democracy Cause Peace”, Annual Review of Political Science,1:27-46 p.4.
[4] James Lee Ray (1995) “Democracy and International Conflict” University of South Carolina, p.89
[5] Small, M. and J. D. Singer (1976) "The War Proneness of Democratic Regimes, 1816-1965", Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 1 (Summer): 50-69
[6] Rummel, R.J. (n.d). Power Kills, Q and A on Democracy and War. Retrieved February 2nd, 2010 from http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/PK.APPEN1.1.HTM
[7] Ibid 4 p.98
[8] Here a polity score is obtained by subtracting the AUTOC[9] score from the DEMOC score which are derived from the weighted assessments of democratic and autocratic features: the resulting unified polity scale ranges from +10 (strongly democratic) to -10 (strongly autocratic).
See the Polity IV Project Users Manual (2009).
[10] An attempt to quantifiably measure the level of democracy in a nation, focusing on five general categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture and then categorises as a full democracy, a flawed democracy, a hybrid or an authoritarian regime. Democracy Index for 2008 available from the Economist Intelligence unit at http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf
[11] Freedom House assesses on a scale from fully free to unfree by compiling a score from 1 to 7 as a measure of civil and political rights. The scores themselves are determined by values assigned to a number of different questions by researchers such as the presence or otherwise of fair elections, an independent judiciary and so forth. Freedom House states that the rights and liberties of the survey are derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. See Freedom House, http://www.freedomhouse.org/
[12] Babst. D. V. (1964) “Elective Governments – A force for Peace”, The Wisconsin Sociologist, 3 (1) : 9-14 and Babst, D. V. (1972) “A Force for Peace”, Industrial Research (April) :55-58 referred to by Lee (1998) as reported in Ray (1995).
[13] Historically the progenitor to the democratic peace thesis is attributed to the philosophical musings of Immanuel Kant in his essay “Perpetual Peace” 1795, where he explored the idea that constitutional republics where one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace.
[14] Although at the time this finding was virtually invisible to most scholars in international politics due to the work being published in the Wisconsin Sociologist and the Industrial Research respectively.

[15] Muller, Harald (2004) “The Antimony of Democratic Peace”, International Politics 2003, 41, p494 - 520
[16] Maoz, Ze’ev and Russett, Bruce (1992) “Alliance, Contiquity,Wealth and Political Stability”, International Interactions 17, 3 p.245-267
[17] Oneal, John R. and Russett, Bruce, (1997) “the Classical Liberals Were Right :Democracy, Interdependence and Conflict”, International Studies Quarterly, 41 (June):267-293
[18] This work examined the post-WWII period where most of the cases of joint democracy are found.
[19] Ibid 13, p
[20] Ibid 10
[21] Rummel, R. J. (1979) “Understanding Conflict and War”, Vol 4, Beverly Hills CA :Sage
(1983) “Libertarianism and international Violence”, Journal of Conflict Resolution 27 (March): 27-71
(1995) “Democracies are Less Warlike than other Regimes” European journal of International Relations 1, 4 (December) : 457-479.

[22] Henderson, Errol A. (2002) “Democracy and War :End of Illusion”, Lynne Rienner Publishers
[23] Ibid 13, p. 47
[24] Ibid 13, p.46
[25] Ibid 13, p.72
[26] See Œÿ - K L

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[27] Rummel is the created with creating the term democide : "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder". Research by him shows that the death toll from democide is far greater than the death toll from war., estimating 262 million victims of democide in the last century, six times as many as have died in battle.

[28] Ibid 14.
[29] Ibid 13, Chapter Seven
[30] Rasler, Karen and Thompson, William R. (2005). Puzzles of the Democratic Peace, New York :Palgrave McMillian, p. 6-9.
[31] Ibid 24 ,p.234