Jody appropriately commented on the reading, and I will respond to question/comments on the reading as they are posted. Jody says:
1) The Chart frontside claims that democracies have the least domestic violence. I believe this should be revised to the least domestic political violence.
RJR: No, domestic violence includes all violence, even that between ethnic groups.
Jody: See Columbia (listed on the chart as an electoral democracy, though not a liberal democracy) with massive amounts of domestic drug-related violence and the US with massive amounts of domestic crime related violence.
RJR: Correct, and India should be mentioned. The proposition is that democracy minimizes domestic violence. This means that in general, on the average, democratic countries will have the least violence. See Figure 4 on the chart's backside..
Jody: Also, see Israel which has experienced a lot of foreign violence.
RJR: Overall, democracies have the least severe foreign violence. All one needs to do is compare the casualties for democracies in any war with those for the nondemocracies to see the vast difference. See Figure 2 on the chart's backside..
Jody: Weart's work appears to rely heavily on the theory of in-groups and out-groups and the assumption that countries (or more accurately the people in those countries) with common forms of government exhibit a spirit of collegiality making the set of democracies one large in-group.
RJR: No, this only works for democracies (and oligarchic republics). It does not work for dictatorships of whatever variety. This is because democratic institutions create a common culture of negotiation, tolerance, and compromise that is shared with other democracies. Indeed, democratic people see other democracies as part of their in group.
Jody: I agree with the belief that governments can form in and out-groups, and agree that people strongly tend to not fight with members of their in-group, I disagree with it as an absolute.
RJR: There is a natural resistance to believing that there are absolutes about human behavior. But there are. Here is an absolute prediction. Drop a hundred dollar bill in Times Square at midnight and it will someone will pick it up by morning. Absolutely. Ah, but that is trivial, you say. Okay, how about any bill proposed in Congress to end the minimum wage will be defeated by a huge majority. Absolutely. And then how about democracies will not make war on each other? Since in all of history no such war has been fought, I'm tempted to say that here also, "absolutely." But, I recognize that on common sensical grounds I should limit my enthusiasm to, "It's highly unlikely."
Jody: First, suppose all countries are democracies, then democratization will cease to serve as a differentiator and countries will separate themselves in other manners (I believe that the tendency to assign in-groups and out-groups is deeply ingrained in humanity and will persist and always be exhibited).
RJR: A good point If the basis of peace was as you say, but it is (now in my terms) a shared culture across democracies, and the cross-pressures among diverse cross-border interests that isolates conflict, breaks it up in space, time and by issue, and thus prevents it from escalating into violence.
Jody: Second, I seriously doubt that the Arab nations will ever feel that Israel is part of their in-group, highlighting the fact that sharing democracy is not sufficient for in-groupness.
RJR: then what about Turkey (an electoral democracy) and Israel, or Jordan (a monarchy) and Israel, both of which have cooperative relations. Nothing in democratic peace theory says two democracies have to like each other or agree on issues. There can be and often is considerable conflict between them (e.g., the U.S. and France). It is thus that they don't resort to the gun to settle their conflicts.
1 comments:
Thanks for inserting the links - makes it easier for others to follow my comments.
On domestic violence versus domestic political violence: The only chart given for domestic violence is Fig 4 on the backside of the chart which is labeled as domestic political violence.
Is there a chart that supports the assertion that democracies have the least domestic violence?
Specifically it seems to me that there's a typo in that assertion as all of the other democratic peace assertions are backed up with graphics.
Going through the list,
1. "Democracies do not make war on each other" is supported by the international wars table on the front,
2. Democracies have the least severe foreign violence is supported by Figures 2 and 3.
3. Democracies have the least domestic violence is not directly supported.
4. Democracies kill the fewest via democide is supported by Figure 5.
5. Democracy is a method of nonviolence is not directly supported but seems to be a restatement of assertions 2-4.
6. Democracies have no famines is supported by line 1 of Table 2 on the back.
So the only well established democratic peace proposition which is not supported by a graphic is claim 3 - "Democracies have the least ... domestic violence". The closest support for this claim is Figure 4 which is the correlation between democracy and "internal political violence"
So it appears to me that at least based on what is presented on the chart, the claim on the chart that "Democracies have the least ... domestic violence" is a typo.
That being said, I buy the theory that democracies minimize political violence as democracy provides the least costly avenue for redressing political grievances.
I would expect that nonpolitical forms of domestic violence (e.g., murder, rape, gang wars) should be uncorrelated with the form of government. However, my expectations are currently off as the top four countries in terms of murder per capita and the top 2 in terms of rapes per capita are listed as electoral democracies.
So is there some chart that I'm missing? Do the murder/rape trends get swamped by democide? Or should domestic violence have been written as domestic political violence?
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