'World Peace Kant be acheived'

According to Immanuel Kant’s democratic peace theory, world peace is an achievable ideal provided that states follow a democratic structure. Kant puts forward a host of arguments to support his stance including some that are very difficult to imagine in today’s world.

The author considers negotiations as the preferred form of handling conflicts for democracies since a democratic state recognizes the futility of armed confrontation. He is also of the view that democracies would operate in their purest forms, with divisions of power to mitigate the likelihood of a few individuals controlling decision making. In fact in this ideal world the citizens of the state have the power to influence decisions regarding war and will seek to prevent it since they are opposed to the needless bloodshed that the phenomenon brings about.

 Before writing off Kant’s work as far too idealistic to be applicable in the modern world, it might be wise to remember that all theories are based on assumptions. The reason Kant’s assumptions seem unrealistic is not due to the current structuring of the world order, rather it is because his suppositions fail even in the conditions of an ideal world. Perpetual peace would equal an everlasting sense of contentment within human beings and while no realist analysis of human nature as inherently selfish should be taken as binding, it still makes for a far fetched assumption. The reality is that even if states recognize that war is not in their best interests, there are elements within these states that will invariably be keen on upsetting the status quo. Unfortunately democracy cannot be used interchangeably with equality, especially considering that the  system works best in smaller polities. How does a state with more than a billion citizens such as India achieve equality?

Perhaps most importantly would states and their citizens be willing to suffer if they lacked scarce resources such as water for example? How could balance of power be achieved among democracies when the simple geographical truth is that resources are not equally distributed and apportioned among states? The answers to such questions regrettably cannot be found in the Democratic Peace theory.