Blog Post #2- Karla P.
The Debate between the Liberal Peace and Democratic Peace
Although
both the hypotheses of Liberal Peace and Democratic Peace rely on Liberal
principles they differ significantly in their explanations of what prevents war
and propagates peace throughout the world. The Liberal Peace theory can be summarized in
that mutual trade and economic development in a country are the most powerful
inhibitors of war and indicators of peace. The Democratic Peace theory is even
simpler and states that wars do not occur between democracies. In order to
contribute to this ongoing debate on which theory best accounts for peace in
the Western world, I argue that the Democratic Peace theory is more empirically
reliable and stronger when compared to the overall Liberal Peace explanations.
The
Democratic Peace theory has a lot of strong empirical evidence supporting it,
meaning that it has been statistically proven that democratic states are less likely
to go war with each other. Research conducted has proven statistically
significant, like 0.01% of wars occurring between democratic states according to
Bremer in his 2001 research (Ray, J., 1998). More importantly, the rebuttals or
counterarguments to the Democratic Peace Theory are relatively weak, being “esoteric”
in nature and using complicated methodologies that render unclear results (Schrodt,
P., 2004) Although Democracies do often go to war, this does not occur with
other Democratic states, that fact cannot really be contested. Explanations for
that observation like Regime affinity can easily and sensibly account for it,
because using logical reasoning it makes sense to deduce that regimes of
similar values and ideology stick together (Lecture 10).
The main
issue with the Liberal Peace explanation is that it is presented with World War
I and World War II. If economic development and trade are the main tenets of
this theory, there is no way it can account for why World War I and II occurred.
Also, the modern “McDonald’s theory of war” only held for about 3 years, when The
United States began bombing the Serbian capital which had seven McDonald’s
restaurants (Schrodt, P., 2004). The
burden in proving how this theory holds is showing that it is true, which has
proven to be just as difficult as it is to show that the Democratic Peace
theory is false.
Overall I
think a lot of factors besides Democracy and Liberal values (like trade and
economic development) account for the waning of war in history until our modern
times. However, when choosing between these two theories and analyzing the data
available in support of each, Democratic Peace seems like the obvious choice
for me. It more readily explains why Democratic states go to war with
non-democratic states as well as why they do not go to war with similarly
Democratic states. The fact that these are two facts/ observed patterns in the
world make it difficult to oppose this theory, which is why it has received much
attention throughout the years.
Sources:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3699600?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104915033787
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ray.htm
Lecture 10
An interesting argument, which I think applies especially to WW1. In particular, British-German trade was huge. By contrast, I think this argument is weaker in terms of WW2 - largely because of the Great Depression. After WW2 the creation of the IMF, World Bank etc was largely because it was considered by US and British policymakers that the war had in part been born out of the protectionist and autarkic economic polices of the interwar years. How relevant do you think economic interdependence is to peace therefore?
ReplyDeleteEconomic interdependence can be seen as either a promoter of peace or an incentive to go to war depending on which perspective you decide to take. I understand the Realist point that depending on other states raises a security dilemma between those states and that going to war may be seen as a way of ensuring the goods and services we obtain from another state, however during lecture a model about how war was ultimately the last alternative came up and that seems more rational to me. I think economic interdependence provides grounds for constant communication and flow of information therefore security dilemmas can be somewhat avoided, and the benefits of trade far surpass the cost of war.
ReplyDelete-Karla P.