Why Democracies Don’t Fight Each Other
Credit: Aditya Joshi
International relations is, in dozens of ways, not as empirical of a study as the natural sciences. There are constant exceptions to trends, outliers in correlations, and participants defying the odds. Singapore has shown that state-controlled economic growth without natural resources or huge manpower is possible, and the United States has shown us that wealth alone does not lead to higher life expectancy. Scholars debate if democracy makes countries wealthier, but that has no explanation for why Ghana or Suriname remain relatively poor, despite having domestically stable elections. Their opponents state that wealth makes countries democratise, but that has no explanation for why Saudi Arabia or China remain authoritarian regimes, despite access to the world’s leading economies.
However, there is one theory that has yet to experience even a single major violation to the norm. That theory - known as the Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) - states that consolidated, identified, and robust democracies do not engage in, and have never engaged in, armed conflict with one another.
Immanuel Kant. Credit: Lapham’s Quarterly
The theory’s origin comes from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose essay Towards Perpetual Peace identified three conditions for peace among democracies: the use of institutions in consolidated republics, identifiable unions of inter-state peace, and a philosophy of universal hospitality (though this has largely been replaced by an emphasis on trade and commerce).
Supporters of the DPT identify a number of reasons for why this is, and has been, the case. Stronger civil input over legislation to declare war, elected leaders being held responsible for human and financial loss, a strong and preferential reliance on institutional channels rather than conflict, the belief that other democracies are not hostile by default, and the desire for the preservation of resources are all pointed to as reasons for the upholding of the DPT.
The results of testing the DPT are overwhelmingly similar to its argument. In fact, no major war had taken place in the 20th century - or has yet taken place in the 21st century - between two consolidated, universally identified democracies. Both World Wars were fought against monarchical partial democracies, or authoritarian regimes. The Cold War can be briefly and easily described as a grand struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, and the more recent wars in the Middle East are overtly agreed upon as being against authoritarian rule (such as that of the Taliban, or Saddam Hussein).
Nevertheless, the DPT itself can still be debated, depending on one’s definitions of “democracy” and “war”. The First Balkan War is often seen as a violation of the theory, though its status of Serbia as a democracy at the time is not agreed upon. Others may point to the Six Day War’s clashes between Israel and Lebanon - though the conflict also included authoritarian regimes such as Syria, and therefore most likely cannot be considered an outright exception to the DPT. There are plenty of other examples which can be used to either defy or defend the DPT, but what history shows us is undeniable: the expansion of democracy around the world has a direct correlation with the expansion of peace shortly thereafter.
TAI Score: Degree 0. The phenomenon of the DPT contributes to international peace and security. It does not hold a perceivable negative impact of any kind - on the contrary, its presence provides an undeniable benefit to the international system.
