Cain
April 15th, 2009, 12:32 PM
Dipping once more into IR in theory and practice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory
The democratic peace theory (or liberal peace theory or simply the democratic peace) holds that democracies — usually, liberal democracies — never go to war with one another.
The original theory and research on wars has been followed by many similar theories and related research on the relationship between democracy and peace, including that lesser conflicts than wars are also rare between democracies, and that systematic violence is in general less common within democracies.
George W. Bush and Tony Blair have argued that the democratic peace is a historical fact.
The final line always makes me lol, and is probably the most concise argument against the theory.
Anyway, one of the current justifications of our little bien-pensant imperialist jaunt around the Middle East has been that we are democratizing the region. Assuming that is even true (its not), does it even hold up as a valid theory to guide foreign policy actions?
I'm not so sure.
There are a number of good arguments on the linked page, but I think the most convincing points are this:
Correlation does not equal causation. OK, if we accept the (questionable) data, what other things do democracies have in common?
Economic interdependence. Almost all democracies are liberal democracies, that is to say, market societies. If we were to do a null hypothesis which included market dictatorships (such as Chile under Pinochet, Singapore, South Korea and, arguably, post-war Japan) would we find similar results?
Covert operations. The myth of democracy as being of great importance is a central one to Anglo-American nations. Therefore, when someone who is democratically elected but disliked comes to power, open war against them is a bad move, for PR if nothing else, whereas covert war and black ops, often carried out hand in hand with tyrannic elements within such societies, is an acceptable option. See: Chile, Iran, DR Congo and Venezuela (failed) for more.
Economic infrastructure: wars against market democracies are not especially good sense for economic reasons other than interdependence. Relying in part on an information based economy and highly developed goods and systems, it is very hard to "capture" these resources or use them efficiently. Far better to invade countries shielded from the international economic system (such as Iraq, or Venezuela) in order to sell off their protected assets to international figures and integrate them into the world economy.
Bandwagoning: the US is a democracy (more or less) and the most powerful state in the world. For those who wish to ally with the US, and do not have strategic importance, emulation of its preferred ideological system is one way to capture its interest. The US has also had Western Europe locked into an alliance it is the principle power of since 1949. That they happen to be democracies is happy coincidence, at best.
The test samples are not very convincing: what exactly counts for a democracy? Every person over a certain age having the vote, regardless of class, race or gender? By those standards, our samples of democracy are very small. Equally, where do we place countries like Russia or the more corrupt Eastern European countries? Given Japan has been under almost de facto one party rule since the post-war period, can we really use them whatsoever as an example? How about Iran, with its wierd mix of theocratic control and elected councils?
But maybe I'm being overly harsh here, and my disgust with the current "democratic" crusaders is colouring my judgement somewhat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory
The democratic peace theory (or liberal peace theory or simply the democratic peace) holds that democracies — usually, liberal democracies — never go to war with one another.
The original theory and research on wars has been followed by many similar theories and related research on the relationship between democracy and peace, including that lesser conflicts than wars are also rare between democracies, and that systematic violence is in general less common within democracies.
George W. Bush and Tony Blair have argued that the democratic peace is a historical fact.
The final line always makes me lol, and is probably the most concise argument against the theory.
Anyway, one of the current justifications of our little bien-pensant imperialist jaunt around the Middle East has been that we are democratizing the region. Assuming that is even true (its not), does it even hold up as a valid theory to guide foreign policy actions?
I'm not so sure.
There are a number of good arguments on the linked page, but I think the most convincing points are this:
Correlation does not equal causation. OK, if we accept the (questionable) data, what other things do democracies have in common?
Economic interdependence. Almost all democracies are liberal democracies, that is to say, market societies. If we were to do a null hypothesis which included market dictatorships (such as Chile under Pinochet, Singapore, South Korea and, arguably, post-war Japan) would we find similar results?
Covert operations. The myth of democracy as being of great importance is a central one to Anglo-American nations. Therefore, when someone who is democratically elected but disliked comes to power, open war against them is a bad move, for PR if nothing else, whereas covert war and black ops, often carried out hand in hand with tyrannic elements within such societies, is an acceptable option. See: Chile, Iran, DR Congo and Venezuela (failed) for more.
Economic infrastructure: wars against market democracies are not especially good sense for economic reasons other than interdependence. Relying in part on an information based economy and highly developed goods and systems, it is very hard to "capture" these resources or use them efficiently. Far better to invade countries shielded from the international economic system (such as Iraq, or Venezuela) in order to sell off their protected assets to international figures and integrate them into the world economy.
Bandwagoning: the US is a democracy (more or less) and the most powerful state in the world. For those who wish to ally with the US, and do not have strategic importance, emulation of its preferred ideological system is one way to capture its interest. The US has also had Western Europe locked into an alliance it is the principle power of since 1949. That they happen to be democracies is happy coincidence, at best.
The test samples are not very convincing: what exactly counts for a democracy? Every person over a certain age having the vote, regardless of class, race or gender? By those standards, our samples of democracy are very small. Equally, where do we place countries like Russia or the more corrupt Eastern European countries? Given Japan has been under almost de facto one party rule since the post-war period, can we really use them whatsoever as an example? How about Iran, with its wierd mix of theocratic control and elected councils?
But maybe I'm being overly harsh here, and my disgust with the current "democratic" crusaders is colouring my judgement somewhat.