A popular theory, which states that democratic nations do not wage war with one another, has recently come under attack – just like that Georgian separatist province of South Ossetia. These are not unrelated events.
The so-called “Democratic Peace Theory” stipulates that one democratic nation will not wage war against another one basically because they have much easier, cheaper and more effective ways of influencing each other. Also, democracies tend to be mostly capitalist and dependent on world markets, and the modern, interconnected world economy strongly discourages bad blood between trading partners. This economic point has even led to the "Capitalist Peace Theory," which, like most spin-offs, is less popular than the original.Russia and Georgia are currently at war.The theory has been popular among academics ever since Immanuel Kant first theorized about it in his essay "Perpetual Peace." Mainstream news outlets such as the BBC also have covered this sexy yet wrongheaded approach (after all, how rarely is something is both sexy and smart?). And perhaps most famously it is a tenet of the Bush Doctrine: “...[D]emocracies don't go to war with each other,” the President has said. After all, it is a good idea to have a reason why one must spread democracy in the first place.
However, Democratic Peace Theory requires a very complicated and specific definition of a democratic nation. Periodic, free elections are not simply required – they must have been around for at least three years. Thus all wars for independence, such as the American Revolution, conveniently don’t count as wars between democracies. And proper democratic nations need to provide basic civil rights, which rules out those that allow slavery, or in other words pretty much every nation (and therefore every war) before the 1800s. And many conflicts don’t count because a "war" requires a minimum of 1,000 battle deaths.
In my mind, that puts the Democratic Peace Theory to bed.Russia and Georgia are currently at war. Both nations are technically liberal, capitalist democracies, and each has followed even the most stringent requirements for at least five years (since Russia’s 2000 election and Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution). It is too early to know exactly how many deaths have occurred in their ongoing conflict, but the Boston Globe reports that there may be as many as 2,000 dead so far.
In my mind, that puts the Democratic Peace Theory to bed. It also does not bode well for the Bush Doctrine. But I don’t think it is that big of a problem for the increasingly democratic world to deal with. Instead of relying on handy shorthands to keep them out of war and hoping their mere form of government will be sufficient safeguard, nations might just have to start affirmatively trying to avoid offensive war.
I don’t think that’s a terrible burden, though nations seem to keep treating it as such.
[Kant’s "Perpetual Peace", BBC News, The White House, NY Times, Boston Globe]
Jeff Dubbin is a contributing editor for TheSequitur.com.
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