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The Democratic Peace:
- No two liberal democracies have ever fought each other in a war
- -But democracies do fight non-democracies
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Liberalism: Immanuel Kant:
(Perpetual Peace 1795)- the path to world peace was the spread of liberal democratic government
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Liberalism:
political philosophy placing the highest value on the rights of individuals
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Liberal democracies:
democracies meant to enforce the rules protecting these rights
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Perpetual Peace: The spread of democracy was inevitable in the long-run because...
democracy was a better form of government
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Perpetual Peace: Internal pressure:
monarchs would have to trade political power for tax revenue
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External pressure:
dictatorships are out-competed by democracies
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Democracy:
- -Democracy has spread
- -Democracies win more wars (81%)
- -Wars involving democracies are shorter in duration
- -Democracies suffer fewer casualties
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The Democratic Peace: Two explanations: Explanation 1:
- Normative Argument
- -Because of democratic norms (such as compromise), democracies are not war prone
- -Democracies externalize democratic norms and so compromise more in foreign policy
- -But not when dealing with non-democracies
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War is prevented by:
institutional constraints and political constraints: mobilization for war in democracies is difficult
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Institutional Constraints: Mobilization for war in democracies is difficult
- -Time required for a democracy to mobilize is longer than for a non-democracy
- -So, when there is a conflict between 2 democracies, by the time the 2 states are ready for war, a diplomatic solution to the conflict has been found
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Norms or Institutional Constraints? The two arguments both
- predict that democracies will not fight one another:
- 1)Democratic institutions prevent leaders from getting involved in wars with other democracies
- 2)Leaders constrained by democratic norms, which prevents them from fighting other democracies
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So, how do you distinguish between the two contraints?
Different predictions
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Different Predictions: Maoz and Russett:
- -Democratic norms take time to develop- the normative model would thus predict that older democracies should be less likely to clash with one another than newer ones
- -As long as the institutional constraints are in place, the age of the regime should not matter
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Different Predictions:The institutional constraints model implies:
- variations between different democracies because different democracies have different constraints
- -In the normative model, this should make no difference
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Predictions: When the level of democratic norms is low and the level of political constraints is high:
- the normative model predicts conflict, while the institutional model does not
- (newer democracy)
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Predictions: When the level of democratic norms is high and the level of political constraints is low:
- the institutional model predicts conflict, while the normative model does not
- (older democracy)
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The Data: Relevant dyad-years:
- (1946-1986)
- dyad=any two countries (France and Germany)
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The Data: Dependent variable:
militarizied disputes
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Democracy measured from “Polity” data:
- -competitiveness of political participation
- -regulation of participation
- -competitiveness and openness of executive recruitment
- - constraints on the chief executive
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The Data: Institutional constraints:
executive constraint, centralization, scope of government action
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The Data: Norms:
political stability & the level of political violence (number of political executions)
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The Results: Both models supported by the data:
- -Found that leaders who practice norms at home were more peaceful abroad
- -Constraints also important
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Other Democratic Peace Findings:
- -Democracies do not fight each other
- -Democracies fight wars with non-democracies
- -Democracies emerge victorious in war
- -Democracies reach peaceful settlements when disputes arise with other democracies
- -Democracies are more likely to initiate war against autocracies than autocracies are likely to initiate
- wars against democracies
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Other Democratic Peace Findings:
- -Democracies experience fewer battle deaths in the wars they initiate
- -Democracies are more likely to fight shorter wars than autocracies
- -Democracies are more likely to fight with one another when they are in transition to democracy
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