Handout // Feb

Handout // Feb. 24, 2000

The Democratic Peace and Belligerent Nationalism

I. DEMOCRACY: Are democracies more peaceful? Do democracies refrain from fighting each other?

The proposition that democracies seldom, if ever go to war against one another was called "the closest thing we have to an empirical law in the study of international relations" in 1989. The goal of "spreading democracy" has been adopted by the Clinton administration as a cornerstone of US foreign policy — a way to enhance national security by PREVENTING WAR.

Since the first quantitative studies demonstrating the "democratic peace," many questions have been raised about its validity.

A. The Dyadic Proposition: Democracies create a separate and joint peacethey do not fight wars against each other, but they are no less conflict prone than non-democracies. 1.) "Normative" or "cultural" explanation: democracies have a shared culture and shared democratic norms which foster peace. Democratic political culture encourages peaceful means of internal conflict resolution, which "come to apply across national boundaries toward other democratic states." [Non-liberal states have domestic structures of violence and repression and are viewed with suspicion.]

2.) "Institutional" or "structural" explanation: Domestic constraints within democracies prevent leaders from choosing war: citizens are reticent to employ their blood and taxes for fighting wars, and leaders are accountable to the people. Other leaders know about these constraints and know a democracy will have a cautious foreign policy, and this further reduces the likelihood that conflicts escalate to war, because leaders on both sides then expect an opportunity to reach a negotiated settlement. [Without this second partthis would only be the monadic thesis.]

*Normative and institutional arguments are NOT mutually exclusive.

*J. Owen (among others) argues they are both NECESSARY for explaining peace between democracies.

B. The Monadic Proposition: Democracies are more peaceful in general to both other democracies and authoritarian states (for both normative and institutional reasons).

Interesting findings to support monadic proposition:

1. Disputes end in negotiations if either the target or initiator is democratic.
2. Democracies use reciprocating bargaining in crises, rather than bullying or stonewalling.
3. Democracies are less likely to escalate disputes to war.
4. Only authoritarian regimes initiate preventive wars.
Counter Finding:

1. No difference between democratic and non-democratic war initiation!

C. Explaining discrepancies and other Critiques of the Democratic Peace:

1. "Coding of cases"how you define democracy, war and war initiation determines outcomes of studies.

2. Many argue that this finding of democratic states being more peaceful is because the scholars have conveniently defined "democracy" and "war" so restrictively.

a.) "democracy": a) free elections with opposition parties, b) a minimum suffrage (10%), c) a parliament either in control of the executive or in parity with it. Some add that suffrage needs to be 30%, state must be internally sovereign over military and foreign affairs, stable (in existence for at least 3 years), with individual civil rights, and even with private property and a free-enterprise economy.

b.) "War": 1,000 or more battle deaths.

3. These are narrow definitionsbut there have been more than 50 democracies since 1945! However, others retort that since most of the data comes from post-1945, you cannot be sure that the peace we have experienced is not caused by nuclear weapons (high cost of war) and US hegemony enforcing peace within its alliance. "The Long Peace is over-determined."

4. Others argue the Democratic Peace is just a statistical accidentnot significant enough to be meaningful because there are so few democracies for such a short periodand big wars are few and far between. Others have noted that in WWI, 10 of 33 independent participating nations, and in WW II, 14 of 52 nations, had elective governments and were allies, and it was extremely unlikely all should be on the same side each time purely by chance.

5. Big problem: some argue that democracies simply quit being democracies shortly before warHitler was democratically elected!!!! If this is true, democracy is not much of a reliable restraint!

D. Testing these theories?
1.) Normatively: should see little to no preparations to fight or bullyno arms racing, etc.

2.) Institutionally: can see threats, and near-conflict, just restraint from actual war.

3.) Scholars suggest, the normative variant is the stronger argument, and better explains the dyadic relationship, but there are many cases short of war, so does not look truemany exceptions.

4.) Others suggest, institutional variant makes lots of sense, and seems to work, and doesn’t have to work 100% to be a strong relationshipbut does a bad job explaining the dyadic finding. It really works better as a monadic explanation. So why aren’t democracies more peaceful absolutely?

5.) The quantitative analyses can just go so farthen you need to turn to CASE STUDIES, to see why decision makers did or did not go to war. Not a lot of case studies have been donebut more and more are being done--Owen does this, did you buy his arguments? (If the liberal state perceived the other liberal state to actually be LIBERAL, then this perception was a strong restraint and the states did not go to war.)

E. Manipulable? How manipulable is democracy? 1.) Not extremelymuch less than choosing safe military doctrineswhich we have lots of control over domestically at least. And even less than working to improve misperceptions, which is a difficult task, but "auditing for truth" is something we can work on domestically in many ways. But, we can do some relatively cheap things to promote democracyour actions won’t determine the types of regimes in other countries, but they can helpso leaders should be aware of that. Perhaps expanding NATO will help???? We have a lot to learn about promoting democracy, but it does seem a worthy goal thus farfor both human rights and national security reasons.
F. WATCH OUT Non-Democracies! 1. Democracies are significantly MORE likely to win the wars they fight against autocracies.

II. Belligerent Nationalism Definition of Nationalism: the doctrine that holds the state and the nation should be congruent. Legitimate rule is based on the sovereignty of a culturally or historically distinctive people in a polity that expresses and protects those distinctive characteristics.
A. Benign v. belligerent nationalisms. Only belligerent nationalisms are a cause of wara healthy nationalism can help make society functionesprit de corps!

B. Why/When do some nationalisms turn belligerent?

1.) Not "ancient hatreds"very unsatisfying, everyone has some somewhere. 2.) "Collective fears of the future"--when the state weakensthe security dilemma creeps in, a condition of "emerging anarchy" takes shape, and individuals (especially members of minority groups) begin to fear for their safety. "Fear of the future, lived through the past." C. Does Propaganda cause nationalism? 1.) Yes and No: Belligerent Nationalism is caused by propaganda; but conditions must be right. Needed: insecure/illegitimate elites in a weakened state. 2.) Can a free press cure belligerent nationalism? UnfortunatelyNO! Often a newly freed press allows belligerent nationalism to thrive and grow!!!!! D: Two IMPORTANT Realizations: 1) Belligerent nationalism is Not inevitable because of ancient hatreds. Lots of prevention is possible.

2) A free press does not cure the problemneed to manage the press!!!! Very tough, but absolutely necessary.

E. How is belligerent nationalism manipulable? 1.) International management "to keep minorities from losing"a tough job, with long term commitments, but the earlier it is arranged to protect minorities, the easier the job is. Insist on power-sharing, not just "fair elections" where minorities can be shut out, but arrangements for multiparty coalitions, regional autonomy or federalism may be necessary. For example: electoral rules that ensure a system of proportional representation rather than a system of a "simple majority."

2.) Manage the "marketplace of ideas": do not blindly fund the "opposition press" regardless of journalistic quality, but give aid to forums that present varied ideas, not a single line, in a setting that fosters effective interchange of factual accuracy. Support media that strive to attract a politically and ethnically diverse audience, invite the expression of various viewpoints and hold news stories to rigorous standards of objectivity. Do not count on the "invisible hand" of competition to regulate a newly freed pressslowly free presses in new democracies while institutionalizing and professionalizing fora for responsible, accurate debate. Tolerate limits on free speech until open discourse is institutionalized (but work to decentralize regulation of free speech).