Ido Oren writes critically about democratic peace thesis. Although Oren does not completely disagrees with it but Oren tries to say that there is something more to this perspective which needs to be considered.This is because we can never be definite about this theory that peace is maintained in the world due to some core values highlighted by democratic peace thesis. His contention is that peaceful character of the states depends on their foreign policy rather than the political system.
The author goes on saying that it is the foreign policy of the country that defines good or bad relations with the country and not its democratic nature. Where the interests of the states match, they can have good relations and vice versa if we consider the opposite case.
He says that if we match American values with that of the Germany, we can see that both of the states have many values in common while have few differences irrespective of the imperialism in Germany.As per the research by modern age scientists, America was the highest in ranking according to democratic scale and Germany was way behind them. While on the other hand according to scientist of 20th century, "Prussia"(Germany was regarded as one of the successful countries that score high in the scale which measures administration, cohesiveness, responsiveness, constitutional character of the state. What we can conclude from this is that although America and Germany possesses more or less the same values apart from few different values, In America, values that were similar to Germany were eliminated from foreign policies and values that differentiated America from Germany were privileged and highlighted.
Considering the fact that values are subject to change once the interest of countries change, we have sufficient information to believe that democratic peace thesis cannot be applied everywhere in the world. So, It is the theory that developed to justify the causes of war according the perspective of ideology and since ideology is not always the cause of war, this theory cannot be applied universally accepted.
~UZAIR MUJEEB
Okay post. You highlight some of the significant points Oren raises - such as the fact that Germany pre-WWI had many of the features of "democratic" state - but you miss his central point, i.e. that democracy is a subjective concept. The democratic peace is based on a definition utilized by American academics and may not be as objective as proponents of the democratic peace claim that it is.
ReplyDeleteYes. This is what i am claiming here sir. What i have tried to explain is that values associated with democracy are subjective. When values can change. we can say that democratic peace thesis is not objective theory.
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