Session 23: Democratic Peace Illusion?

The Democratic Peace Theory and the concept of perpetual peace proposed by Doyle and Kant respectively, are an idealistic notion in a non-idealistic world. The view of liberalism that they share and place the foundation stone of peace upon, does not exist. Kant and Doyle argue that representative regimes are less likely to go to war than regimes which follow a more authoritative track. This seems to make sense as regimes in hope of a reelection are far less likely to go against the will of their voters. But does this idea hold?

Sebastian Rosato argues that the definition of democracy maybe be analyzed and interpreted in different ways when it comes to conflict between two states. Hence when protecting its own interest a state may refuse to accept the degree of liberalism practiced by another state, or reject its “representativeness” altogether. The case of Germany before the First World War, for example. Germany was recognized as a democratic state in the 19^th century but at the onset of the war its relations with the United States and the United Kingdom deteriorated. Subsequently it was labelled as an autocratic state right before and during the war. Moreover, there have been multiple occasions upon which democratic states have gone on and fought wars with other democratic states. However, to their convenience, advocates of the democratic peace theory have either labelled the involved regimes as “not really democratic” or “not real wars”.

Although the idea of a ‘perpetual peace’ is one that the world would love to see implemented, it will never happen. Being a realist, I think that it is impossible to prevent a conflict of interest between the many states that inhabit the realm of international politics. Though these conflicts maybe solved through negotiations and diplomacy, the probable use of violence cannot be neglected.