Session 23: Let’s end it with Kant, peace out!

Kant’s notion of perpetual peace is considered to be the initiation of liberal thought. It places forth the idea of maintaining peace around the world. He advocates the correlation between republics and peace. Kant’s theory is the basis of modern day democratic peace theory. He posits the idea that republics (or democracies in contemporary times) are pacifist in nature and are hesitant towards the idea of war. Kant’s republic is different from a democratic state. The former has a representative government where legislature is separate from the executive. He theorized that if the people had to make a decision to go to war, they will never vote in favor unless it was for self-defense purposes therefore, if all nations were republics, there would be no war.

Democracies are less inclined to engage in a war because they are principally opposed to armed conflicts, rather prefer negotiations to resolve disputes. Since the power is in the hands of the people, they have a significant role to play in maintaining peace.

Although the theory seems fluffy and beautiful, its practical implications aren't so consistent with the theory. There have been incidents where democracies have engaged in wars with each other. For example, the Spanish-American war and the Sicilian expedition. Although The Democratic Peace Theory hasn't generated peace around the world, it still forms a landmark in liberal thought. The liberal thought is supposed to be fluffy and beautiful because they are all peace lovers and want to achieve the unattainable one way or the other.