A Blog Seminar On The Democratic Peace

My assertions about the democratic peace have received appropriate skepticism and many good questions. To review, the democratic peace propositions are that:

• Democracies do not make war on each other;
• The more democratic two countries, the less likely there will be severe violence between them;
• And the more democratic a country:

• The less severe its overall foreign violence;
• The less its domestic violence;
• The less it will murder its people.

I can add that democracies do not have famines, they are the least corrupt, they are the most prosperous, and their people are the happiest. But, these are not democratic peace propositions, and for now, I want to stick with the propositions.

I have to tell you in all honesty that as one who has spent decades doing scientific research on war, I would have been very skeptical about these propositions had I not done the research myself and become familiar with the related research of others. I would have said:

Too simple (simple minded implied); ignores the many wars of Britain, France, and the U.S.; ignores negative examples, like the Spanish-American War; changes definitions of democracy and war; could be a random relationship; not enough cases from the Pre-WWII years; provides no theory; etc.

But I and other researchers have either investigated all these possibilities, or corrected for them. The upshot is that the democratic peace propositions are (and I say this as a specialist in, and professor emeritus of, international relations) the best-established propositions in the field of international relations and its subfield of war. To the best of our scientific knowledge, these propositions are true.

What this means is that they are the most revolutionary propositions in the social sciences, and perhaps in human knowledge. They are like finding a cure for cancer and heart disease combined. After ages of thought and hopes, and tons of books telling use how to end war, we finally have a real solution. But, not only a solution to war, but also a solution to internal violence, genocide, and mass murder (democide). Just think of what the implementation of these solutions would mean in terms of their potential to save lives. Wars have killed tens of millions (need I mention the Middle East today?), and victims of democide during the last century alone amounted to hundreds of millions. In fact, during the last century democide killed more than did most of the major diseases or other causes of death. See my chart on this here. A note on the chart:

This is based on my earlier estimate of a democide of 174 million 1900-1999. I've since raised that estimate to 265 million. This would mean that the probability of a person dying in democide was .001, or one out 964 people. Now, with that in mind look at the chart. In the last century, a person was more likely to be murdered by government than to die from all the diseases and causes listed with the exception of malnutrition and heart disease. Note especially that the democide killed more than did traffic accidents, war, homicide, or alcohol. Even more than tobacco. Isn't it strange then that you hear much less about democide than you do about any of these causes listed. And the probability of death from democide would be near zero had the world become democratic in 1900.

Yet, I can say all this and it will not answer your skepticism, since most readers will not have read the research involved. I have tried to help by producing a pdf downloadable democratic peace chart that simplifies and presents the major propositions, the findings, the answers to the exceptions, and a list of the democracies. An image of the front is in the upper right. The downloadable pdf 150 dpi version is here.. The backside with all its figures and tables is here. (The chart was the idea of Ed Udell and I think he offered about a hundred pages of suggestions and comments as I developed it. However, we have been unsuccessful in finding a publisher so that it might become available to students)

It is frustrating trying to answer the skepticism about the democratic peace here and in my Q&A, since even simple questions cannot be answered in a blog post without resorting to saying, in effect, "Trust me." A full article with data and analyses would be required to do justice to each such question. Otherwise, you skeptics have to take my word for it, which I hate, since like so many of you, I seriously question what experts and authorities tell me is true. I'm a Reaganite in this: "Trust, but verify."

What this amounts to is that if you are sincerely interested in this, you will have to do some study yourself. My role is to incite your interest, stimulate your curiosity, and lead you to the non-technical evidence and proofs (or the technical ones if you have the background for them) in the hope that most of your questions about the democratic peace will be answered. Since the democratic peace is so important for humanity's future, committed democratic peace activists are needed. I hope that some readers of this blog will join me in fostering the democratic peace.

Okay, the reading:

First, study the front and back of the above linked democratic peace charts for orientation.

Second, read what is among the best professional evaluations of the democratic peace, which is an article by Professor James Lee Ray, "DOES DEMOCRACY CAUSE PEACE?" It covers most of the early research, and was published in the peer reviewed, Annual Review of Political Science (1998). Research has continued since then, but none of it changes Ray's conclusions.

Third, read the summary chapter from the book by historian Spencer Weart, Never At War. Weart played the role of a historical detective. He tried to find instances in history when democracies made war on each other, and he presents the results in this book. I have his Chapter 1 summary, on my website.

As you do the reading, please raise your questions and voice your reflections in the blog here and not on the cross-posts so that everyone will have access to them. I will treat your questions and reflections as though we were in a seminar, and I will assume that you have done this reading after a week (in an actual seminar, these would have been the readings for the next meeting in two or three days, but most of you work and have busy careers), and then I will move on to some of the actual empirical tests of the propositions and associated theory.

The democratic peace is too important to our lives, and those of our children, to do anything less.