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			The '''democratic peace theory''' or simply '''democratic peace''' (often '''DPT''' and sometimes '''democratic pacifism''') is a ] in ] and ] which holds that ]—specifically, ]—never or almost never go to ] with one another. A more general version is that all kinds of systematic violence is rare in and by democracies. Despite criticism, it has grown in prominence among ] and has become influential in the policy world.
			]]]

			==History of the theory==
	] was an early peace theorist, from the late 18th century.]]
			]
	A '''democratic peace theory''' or simply '''democratic peace''' (often '''DPT''' and sometimes '''democratic pacifism''') is a ] in ] which holds that ] - specifically, ] - never or almost never go to ] with one another. ''Monadic'' theories tend to be more oriented to ], and to emphasise the internally peaceful nature of democracies. More general theories developed from the monadic version claim that all systematic violence is rare within, and between, democracies. ''Dyadic'' theories, usually ] of historical data sets, also take into consideration wars between democracies and non-democracies, and for comparison, wars between non-democracies.
			The idea came relatively late in political theory, one contributing factor being that democracies were very rare before the late nineteenth century. No ancient author seems to have thought so. Early authors referred to republics rather than democracies, since the word democracy had acquired a bad name until early modern times. ] believed that republics were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders, citing Rome as the prime example. It was ] who first foreshadowed the theory in his essay ''Perpetual Peace'' written in ] , although he thought that democracy was only one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace. US President ] advocated the idea in politics during and after ].

			In ], ] was the first to claim that statistical evidence supported the theory. Thereafter, an increasing amount of research has been done on the theory and related subjects. More than one hundred researchers have contributed to the literature according to an incomplete bibliography . Despite criticism, it has grown in prominence among political scientists and has become influential in the policy world. Scholar ] famously remarked that the democratic peace is "the closest thing we have to an empirical law in the study of international relations"
	Democratic peace theories are highly controversial, and the findings of individual studies are often vigorously disputed. Most of that controversy has arisen from the misuse of the theory, especially dyadic versions, to suggest that democracies are ''objectively better'' than non-democracies. This is a questionable claim: ] and ] never went to war with each other, but that is not an argument for a world of fascist dictatorships. Nevertheless, democratic peace theories are, in practice, used as an argument for western cultural superiority, and for ], even by force. Crude versions of democratic peace theory have been quoted by political leaders, as an argument for wars of democratisation. For these reasons, democratic peace theory was until recently seen as a pro-western and pro-democracy theory, reflecting ] ideas about the inevitable global triumph of western values. However, disappointment about the results of some post-Soviet democratisations, increasing scepticism about forced democratisation, and opposition to the ] have eroded support for the assumption of inherent superiority of democracy. More recent dyadic theories also seek theoretical explanations for wars by democracies against non-democracies, including the 'militant democracy' thesis, which reverses the original expectations that democracies are more peaceful than non-democracies.

			]s of both ] parties have expressed support for the theory. "Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other." ]'s ] Address, Jan 25, 1994 . "And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy." ] at the White House Press Conference, 12 November, 2004 .
	Such theories have also been referred to as the "liberal peace" or the "Kantian peace" in honor of Immanuel Kant, who proposed an early version of the theory.

	==~~History~~ of the ~~theories~~==		==Statistical studies supporting the DPT==
			''War'' and ''liberal democracy'' can be defined in different ways. The studies supporting the DPT have often defined war as any military action with more than 1000 killed in battle. This is the definition used in the ] which has also supplied the data regarding the wars and the militarized disputes for many of the studies. The early researcher ] required liberal democracies to have voting rights for at least 2/3 of all adult males and that the democracy should be older than 3 years at the start of the war. He also has some implicit criteria; for example, the chief officer of the democracy must have had a contested election. Another example is requiring that at least 50% of the adult population is allowed to vote, and that there has been at least one peaceful, constitutional transfer of executive power from one independent political party to another by means of an election. Many researchers have used the ] which score states for democracy on a continuous scale for every year from ] to ]. There are also many other data sets used in conflict research .
	{{main\|Perpetual peace}}

			Numerous studies using many different kinds of data, definitions, and statistical analyses have found support for the democratic peace theory. They have concluded that no wars have been fought between liberal democracies and that this is statistically significant when compared with the wars fought with and between nondemocracies during the last two centuries. There is also much research showing that all kinds of systematic violence is rare in and by democracies . Most statistical work has focused on the 19th and 20th centuries, but there is also some research on the applicability of the theory outside this period .
	The idea that democracy is a source of world peace came relatively late in political theory, one contributing factor being that democracies were very rare before the late nineteenth century. No ancient author seems to have thought so. Early authors referred to republics rather than democracies, since the word democracy had acquired a bad name until early modern times. ] believed that republics were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders, citing Rome as the prime example. It was ] who first foreshadowed the theory in his essay "]" written in 1795 , although he held that peace would, in addition to ], need a ], and "hospitality": freedom of movement and trade, like the ].

			''Militarized interstate disputes'' (MIDs) include the disputes that later will become wars but also the disputes causing less than 1000 or even no battle deaths but including for example a military display of force. There have been more than 2000 MIDs since 1816, allowing more detailed statistical analyses than when looking at wars. Research using a continuous measure of democracy shows that the most democratic nations have the least MIDs. There is an ongoing debate regarding whether it is the most authoritarian or the intermediate regimes that have the most MIDs. When examining these MIDs in more detail, the inter-liberal disputes have on the average more hostility, but are less likely to involve third parties, hostility is less likely to be reciprocated, when reciprocated the response is usually proportional to the provocation, and the disputes are less likely to cause any loss of life . Enduring militarized competition between democratic states is rare. After both states have become democratic, there is a decreasing probability for MIDs within a year and this decreases almost to zero within five years .
	] The peacefulness of ]s was the basis for the American policy of ] and the foreign policy of ]. It was also represented in the ] ] of ], ], and of ], who argued in August 1914 that popular governments would not go to war with each other, and therefore that the First World War could be the ''War that will End War''.

			Democracies do sometimes attack nondemocracies. Several papers show that democracies are overall slightly less involved in war, initiate wars and MIDs less frequently than nondemocracies, and tend more frequently to seek negotiated resolutions . A recent theory is that democracies can be divided into "pacifist" and "militant". While both avoid attacking other democracies, "militant" democracies have a tendency to distrust and use confrontational policies against dictatorships. Most MIDs by democracies since ] have involved only four nations: the ], the ], ], and ] .
	More recently, ]s of both ] parties have rhetorically based their policies on the democratic peace;

			In international crises that involved the threat or use of military force, if the parties were democracies, then relative military strength had no effect on who won. This is different from when nondemocracies were involved. This pattern was the same for both allied and nonallied parties .
	:''Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other.'' William Clinton's 1994 , Jan 25, 1994

			Research also shows that wars involving democracies are less violent and that democracies have much less ] . The most democratic and the most authoritarian states have few ]s, and intermediate regimes the most. The probability for a civil war is also increased by political change, regardless whether toward greater democracy or greater autocracy. Intermediate regimes continue to be the most prone to civil war, regardless of the time since the political change. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in turn are less stable than democracies, durable democracy is the most probable end-point of the process of ] . The fall of ] and the increase in the number of democratic states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in total warfare, interstate wars, ] wars, ] wars, and the number of ] and ]s .
	:''And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy.'' George W. Bush at the , 12 November 2004.

			==Causes==
	===Development of the modern theory===
			One idea is that democracies have a common ] and that this creates good relations. However, there have been many wars between non-democracies that share a common culture. Democracies are however characterized by ], and therefore the inhabitants may be used to resolve disputes through ] rather than by force. This may reduce the use of force between democracies.

			]]]
	In ], ], then a Wisconsin ], published a paper asserting that no two democracies had ever been at war with each other, and substantially republished it in an industrial trade journal in ]. This was also claimed at greater length in ] by ], professor of ] at the ], and much of this research is available on his web-site.
			Another idea is that democracy gives influence to those most likely to be killed or wounded in wars, and their relatives and friends. However, democracies sometimes attack non-democratic states. One explanation is that these democracies were threatened or otherwise were provoked by the non-democratic states. This idea also suggests that the relationship in the DPT became stronger when graphic movies and television made wars less romantic.

			Lake (1992) reports that democratic states are more likely than autocratic states to win the wars. He argues that this is because democracies, for internal political and economic reasons, have greater resources. This might mean that democratic leaders are unlikely to select other democratic states as targets because they perceive them to be particularly formidable opponents. Bueno de Mesquita & Siverson (1995) find that interstate wars do have important impacts on the fate of political regimes, and that the probability that a political leader will fall from power in the wake of a lost war is particularly high in democratic states.
	] was the first democratic peace theorist to observe the similarity to Kant, and published a largely accurate summary of Kant's essay. He, working with ], distinguished between the '''strong''' form of the theory (that democracies tend to be peaceful in general) and the '''weak''' form (that they tend to be peaceful with each other). He also studied the even weaker proposition that liberal regimes have less purely internal conflict.

			See also the "Causation is not correlation" section below for a discussion of the hypothesis that it is not democracy itself but some other factor(s) associated with democratic states that explain the peace.
	==Democratic peace theories==

			==Criticisms==
	A democratic peace theory has to define what it means by "democracy" and what it means by "peace" (or, more often, "war"), and what it claims as the link between the two.
			There are four logically distinguishable classes of criticism of any DPT:
			*That its creator was not '''accurate''' in applying his criteria to the historical record. See the section "Specific historic examples" below.
			*That the criteria are not '''appropriate''' in discussing the record. For example, critics may prefer that "democracy" should exclude or include both of Germany and England during WWI, rather than separate them into democratic and non-democratic.
			*That the peace theory does not actually '''mean''' very much. For example, that it applies to few states (very few before the twentieth century), and doesn't actually limit their behavior to each other very much. Any reasonable border which excludes WWI Germany may also excludes almost all states before the Cold War.
			*That such peace as there has been between democracies is at least in part due to '''external causes'''. See the section "Correlation is not causation" below.

			These tend to overlap, being in fact complementary criticisms, and many critics make more than one of them. It is particularly hard to tell the first two classes apart on 1914 Germany, since DPTs must reject it on qualitative, not numerical, grounds.
	===Democracy===
	Democratic peace theorists have used different terms for the class of states they consider peaceable; Babst called them ], Rummell ], Doyle ]s. In general, these require not only that the government and legislature be chosen by free and genuinely contested elections, but more besides

			==Specific historic examples==
	There are several lists of democracies. ] drew up a list of government types by country and year, the ]. This is a ranking on two ten-point scales, one for the degree of democracy, one for the degree of ]; but he calls the countries which score above 6 on the first scale simply '''the''' democracies; and those which score above 5 on the second, the autocracies. Gurr calls States which do neither ]; no state has yet done both. Many theorists simply use the binary version of Gurr's list: democracy/no democracy.
			{\| {{prettytable}} ALIGN="left"
			\|+ '''Number of wars 1816-1991'''
			\|-
			\| Democracies vs. Democracies \|\| 0
			\|-
			\| Democracies vs. Nondemocracies \|\| 155
			\|-
			\| Nondemocracies vs. Nondemocracies \|\| 198
			\|-
			\|Source: . Other studies show similar results.
			\|}

			Note that the following concerns the claim of no wars between liberal democracies and not other claims like fewer MIDs.
	Dean Babst made his own decisions on what was a democracy. He required also a ], asserting (wrongly) that this existed in the United States back to 1789 and in Britain back to the 1830's. More recent theorists have set a numerical limit on suffrage, say, that half or two-thirds of the male population be able to vote.
			===Liberal democracy?===
			For the ] critics have argued that the ] was a democracy, (the ] was elected by universal male suffrage and it did vote overwhelmingly to fund the war), or that Britain was not a democracy (only 2/3 of British males could vote , to say nothing of the Empire beyond the Seas, the majority of which had no say in the decision at all). Supporters respond that the German ] had the executive power and could appoint and dismiss the ], the Imperial officials, and the officers. He could declare an offensive war together with the not democratically elected ], 30% of which was appointed by the Emperor, and most of the rest by the German princes. The Reichstag had little control over the executive power and its legislative power was greatly limited by the Bundesrat which also could veto amendments to the constitution. In effect, therefore, especially in foreign and military affairs, there was little democratic control. The Emperor was also the King of ] which had 3/5 of the German population and the Prussian constitution gave him even greater power there. The landed ] of the ]s formed the officer corps of the army, dominated Prussia, and had strong influence on national politics as well . If Britain was not a liberal democracy, then this is another reason why WWI was not a war between democracies. The last argument may however weaken the statistical support for the DPT, because fewer democracies mean fewer possible wars.

			There can be similar responses to other objections. During the ], only a small minority had the right to vote in the ], many new urban areas had no representation, the ballot was not secret, many seats in ] were appointed or openly bought from the owners of ]s, and the ] could ] all laws. The defenders of DPT exclude the ] because, in addition to it being an internal conflict, in the ] only 30-40% of male population could vote and there was never a competitive presidential election. Similarly, only a minority had the right to vote in the ]s before the ]. ], the president of ] at the time of the ], used terror tactics to silence critical press and the previously independent judiciary, for example storming the ] in order to force the Chief Justice out of office. ], the president of the ] at the start of the latest conflicts with ], and ], the president of the ] during the ], can be criticized on similar grounds. There was never a democratic election in the ] before the ]. All the ] presidents at the time of the conflicts with the U.S., like ], took their power in ]s. At the time of the ], ] and ] had suffrage requirements like literacy or property that excluded almost all of the population. ] had the ] system during the ].
	===War===

			===Liberal democracies before the nineteenth century?===
	Many theorists have used the convenient list at the ] at the ], which compiled the wars from 1816 to 1991 with at least a thousand battlefield casualties. This data is particularly convenient for statistical analysis, and the large-scale statistical studies cited below have generally used this definition.

			Whether the pre-modern states that once identified themselves as democracies fulfill modern criteria remains controversial. In ], such ]s did fight wars between each other (most noted is the ] expedition against ] during the ]). Many do not deem Ancient Greek city-states as sufficiently democratic because of the large numbers of slaves and other non-voting inhabitants. It is estimated that only 16% of the population in Athens had the right to vote. There were also three great wars between ] and ]; and Rome sacked Athens. Similar questions arise about the persistent wars among ], ], ], and other ] city-states. These states were also not as democratic as modern democracies, but at least as much as Athens and more so than Syracuse.
	Babst excluded wars in which one democracy was not independent at the start of the war, on the grounds that the war was not their decision; it was on this basis, unfortunately, that he attempted to exclude the ]. Rummel extended this to exclude wars in which one state had not yet been a democracy for three years, on the ground that democracy and the associated customs had not stabilized.

			An interesting case is the ], which had some qualities of today's democracies and in which ] (the nobles), using ] (a parliament), blocked many ] attempts to declare a war on other countries. Some scholars have put forward the ] (or parts of it) and the Six ] Nations as early examples of communities of democratic states upholding the theory.
	===Claims===
	Democratic peace theorists make two possible connections between democracy and war:
	*Babst, Singer, Rummel and Doyle claimed that democracies, properly defined, have ''never'' made war on each other; such DPTs face the difficulty that Ted Gurr classes both ] and the ] as democracies in ], the year of the ].
	*Most more recent studies assert that two democracies are ''less likely'' to make war on each other than other pairs of states. Some studies make the somewhat stronger claim that the chance of war between two states is ] with their scores on Gurr's democracy index.

			===Deaths in battle===
	While the following claims are not strictly part of the theory, they have been made by various democratic peace theorists and form an important part of the analysis of causes.
			The rule of at least 1000 killed in battle excludes attacks by one democracy on another in such overwhelming force that there is no effective resistance, and thus few deaths in battle. Some ] and small scale foreign interventions by the United States may be examples.

			Democracies have engaged in covert conflict resulting in a change of regime on the losing side. The British- and American-supported ] coup d'etat in ] against ] and the ] U.S.-backed coup in ], led by ] are examples of such events, also excluded.
	*The more democratic two nations are, the less the violence between them. (This may include violence short of full-scale war, or may be a claim that such wars as do occur between democracies are waged with restraint.)
	*Democracies engage in the least amounts of foreign violence.
	*Democracies use less violence in their ''internal'' affairs. In particular, modern democracies do not murder their citizens.

			The United Kingdom issued a formal ] on ] in ] as a reaction to the ], when Finland allied with ] in attacking the ]. However, the United Kingdom's only significant act of war happened prior to the declaration (a ] raid on German-run mining operations in ]), Finland spent the ] fighting a totalitarian opponent who had previously attacked the nation, the United Kingdom and Finland for almost the whole of WWII carefully avoided attacking each other, and the casualties were too few to be classified as a war statistically. There have been very few formal declarations of war since WWII and using this as the definiton of war would mean that for example the US has fought no wars since WWII. The lavish material support the United Kingdom and the United States provided to Soviet Union raises the question if democracies can make war against other democracies through ].
	Democracies have done harm to each other in ways short of full-scale war. Depending on the theory involved, these may not be counterexamples:

			===Rummel's time limit===
	*civil wars within a democracy over legitimacy or sucession;
			Rummel's version of the DPT has a requirement that the democratic states must be older than three years. This excludes the war between the ] and the ]. The ] is excluded if one considers the ] to have become democratic after the first election in November ] or when the constitution was amended so that the parliament could control the cabinet in April ]. The war started in October ], which would be before four years had passed. Critics instead argue that democracy occurred in July 1908 when a constitution was introduced. It is also doubtful if the opposing Christian states fulfill the democratic criteria since the Kings continued to have extensive powers in all of them. Studies using the Polity data set have required a score of least 7 out of 10, which excludes both the French Second Republic (6) and the Ottoman Empire (3) at the time of the wars.
	*attacks by one democracy on anotherin such overwhelming force that there is no effective resistance,and thus few deaths in battle;
	*covert conflict resulting in a change of regime on the losing side;
	*attacks by an established democracy upon a newly declared one;
	*proxy wars, in which a democracy helps non-democratic opponents of another democracy.

			The time limit and and other requirements like democratic institutions and elections on both sides, also exclude ]s within democracies over legitimacy or secession, such as the American Civil War, the ] war, the ] and the ] which followed, and the ] civil wars in ], ], ] and ].
	==Causes==
	"]," is a bedrock standard of ]. In order to bridge the gap from a statistical curiosity to a meaningful theory, the researcher must first identify a mechanism, and (ideally) make ] predictions based on that mechanism.

			==Colonial and imperialistic wars==
	There has been much research into possible mechanisms for a democratic peace. These do not, in general, depend on whether an absolute or statistical peace is being asserted. Many such explanations focus on the fact that the consent of the citizenry is necessary for a democracy to initiate and sustain a war. Even where ] allow the executive to act without legislative approval, public acceptance, at the least, is needed to avoid an electoral backlash.
			One criticism against a general peacefulness for democracies is that they were involved in more ] and ] wars than other states during the 1816-1945 period. On the other hand, this relation disappears if controlling for factors like power and number of colonies. Democracies had less of these wars than other states after 1945. This might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples, as embodied in the ] .

			==Correlation is not causation==
	Kant made the straightforward point that, since an absolute prince can order war "without the least sacrifice of the pleasures of his table, the chase, his country houses, his court functions, and the like", he will be likely to do so for light or trivial causes that the citizenry would never find sufficient. This, however, would explain why democracies prefer peace with all states, not just with each other. The wars of democracies with non-democracies must therefore be explained by other motives, such as provocations from reckless non-democratic states, or a belief that the two systems cannot peacefully co-exist.
			A statistical ] does not establish ]. Critics have thus argued that the absence of wars and the few MIDs may be explained by other factors in democratic states that are not related to democracy. Supporters of the DPT argue that many studies have controlled for such factors and that the DPT is still validated. For example, Bremer (1992, 1993) controlled for contiguity, power status, alliance ties, militarization, economic development, and power ratios. Maoz & Russett (1992, 1993) and Russett (1993) controlled for contiguity, alliance ties, economic wealth and growth, political stability, and power ratios.

			===The Kantian peace theory===
	Other scholars suggest a theory of common ]: the citizens of democratic societies tend not to view the citizens of other democracies as enemies, and wars against other democracies are unlikely to get the necessary support. This resembles Kant's article of "hospitality", as do the economic arguments of Angell and Schumpeter.
			]
			], one intergovernmental organization]]
			Studies show that more ] causing greater economic ] and membership in more ] reduce the risk of war. Democracy, interdependence, and intergovernmental organizations are positively related to each other but each has an independent pacifying effect. This is often called the Kantian peace theory since it is similar to Kant's earlier theory about a perpetual peace .

			===Economic development===
	A recent paper by Mousseau, Hegre and Oneal presents statistical evidence that the democratic peace is real, but that it only applies when there is substantial economic development (at least $1400 US ''per capita''). Moreover, the paper found that trade is also a significant force for peace, irrespective of the level of democracy. The paper goes on to note that the three factors of trade, development and democracy, are interrelated. This triad recalls the original Kantian theory, and Oneal has specifically acknowledged this in other works.
			One study indicates that independently of trade, democracy is not a significant factor unless both of the democracies have a GDP/capita of at least 1400 USD. This level is quite low and 91% of all the democratic pairs passed this criteria during 1885–1992 and all in 1992. Still, higher economic development than this makes the effect of democracy stronger. Low economic development may hinder development of liberal institutions and values .

			===Geographic isolation===
	Rummel dismisses all of these as superficial. ] and ] propose that democracy involves a pervasive social mechanism (called a ''"social field"'') in which, "The primary mode of power is exchange, political system is democratic, and democratic government is but one of many groups and pyramids of power." In contrast, authoritarian systems involve a ''"social anti-field"'', " divides its members into those who command and those who must obey, thus creating a schism separating all members and dividing all issues, a latent conflict front along which violence can break out." Thus, the citizens of a democracy are habituated to compromise, conflict resolution, and to viewing unfavorable outcomes as temporary and/or tolerable.
			Critics have argued that few democracies mean that they are geographically isolated and thus unable to make war with each other. As described above, several of the studies finding evidence for the DPT have controlled for this. Glieditsch (1995) demonstrated that democratic pairs of nations have not been more geographically separated than non-democratic pairs . Supporters also note that today more than 50% of all nations are democratic .

			===The bloc peace theory===
	==Statistical studies of DPTs==
			] argues in ''Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace'', that the structure of the international political system during the ] was responsible for creating the illusion of a democratic peace. At about the same time many of today's democracies came into existence, the Cold War divided much of the world into two systems of institutionalized alliances. (Many states belonged to neither: examples are Communist ] after 1961 and democratic ].) These critics ascribe the inter-democratic peace of the period to this structure of blocs: almost all the democracies of the Cold War were members of the Western bloc, and the members of that bloc abstained from attacking one another in a collective effort to contain Communism: which was perceived to be a far bigger threat than any intra-alliance conflict. Not only was the system of alliances produced by this common interest; also, once it had come into existence, the relations between two members of the bloc were not permitted to decline into full-scale war; the alliance provided their common allies with the interest and the leverage to prevent it.
	Many different kinds of statistical analyses have been used on democratic peace theories. A ] was employed to evolve its own peace theory: it found the three Kantian variables of democracy, economic interdependence and ]s the most important, but that distance, common alliance, and power ratio were also significant.

			Considering the time before the Cold War, these critics point out that before the ] and the First World War, there was only a limited period during which ], Great Britain, and the United States were non-allied and democratic ]. Several disputes occurred between two of them. They were conducted as fiercely as many diplomatic conflicts involving a non-democratic state and war had some public support on both sides. Between the two World Wars, France and Britain were allies. The United States either acted as their ally, or did not act in international affairs at all. On the other hand, the external threat from Communist states did not exist or was weak and thus cannot or have difficulty explaining why democracies allied with each other in this period. There were also democratic nations beside these Great Powers. When there were conflicts between democracies, this did not cause wars.
	Democracies do sometimes initiate wars against authoritarian states. Some argue that democracies usually enter these wars because they are provoked by authoritarian states. Several papers show that democracies are slightly, but significantly less involved in wars in general than others states, and that they also initiate wars less frequently than non-democratic states .

			These critics admit that there have been wars between members of other alliances, although one study finds that 88% of the treaties made in the last two centuries have been kept. They argue that this line of criticism need not claim that alliances prevent ''all'' wars; just that the ] alliance, and the common interest it represented, caused enough peace that the rest may be the result of other causes or of chance.
	A recent theory is that democracies can be divided into "pacifist" and "militant". While both avoid attacking democracies, "militant" democracies have tendency to deep distrust and confrontational policies against dictatorships and may initiate wars against them. Most wars by democracies since 1950 have involved only four nations: the U.S., the U.K., Israel, and India .

			On the other hand, that 12% of all formal treaties failed can be seen as very high. While not statistical evidence, DPT supporters point out that external threat did not prevent several wars between Communist nations: the ], the ], and the ]. There were also minor conflicts, not meeting the threshold of deaths, particularly the ] and the ].
	==Criticisms==
	There are four logically distinguishable classes of criticism of any DPT:
	*That its creator was not '''accurate''' in applying his criteria to the historical record.
	*That the criteria are not '''appropriate''' in discussing the record.
	*That the peace theory does not actually '''mean''' very much. For example, that it applies to few states (very few before the twentieth century), or doesn't actually limit their behavior to each other very much.
	*That such peace as there has been between democracies is at least in part due to '''external causes'''.

			DPT supporters also point out that external threat did not prevent wars in the Western bloc between democracies and dictatorships. One example is the ] invasion of ] in ], at a time when Cyprus had British military bases and close ties to Turkey's NATO partner ]. Another is the ]. However, the US put pressure on the combatants to stop the Football War which fits the bloc peace theory. A third is the ] US invasion of the ]. The ] and the ] may also be wars within the Western bloc, because Iraq belonged to ], the US and the UK were also member, and the UK had nuclear weapons deployed on Cyprus for the defense of CENTO until 1975 . Israel received extensive aid during the Yom Kippur War from the US. Bloc peace theory supporters note that the Soviet-Iraqi Treaty of Friendship was signed in 1972. All of these wars had more than 1000 military casualties . The ] almost qualify (936 causalities).
	For example, almost all DPTs handle the ] by asserting that ] were not democracies because: the ] had the power to appoint his ministers, he and the General Staff made the decision for war, as did ] in ], and that many structural features of the ] made democratic institutions ineffective. ] raises very complex questions of how much power the ] had by 1914, and how much the ]s were answerable to the ] they had called.

			More importantly, many studies that show support for the DPT have controlled for alliances . Gowa and another study have argued that democracies had more MIDs than nondemocracies before WWI, but more recent studies show the opposite . There is no explanation for the low domestic violence in democracies or why relative military strength does not influence the outcome of crises between democracies .
	The first class of criticism argues either that Germany ''was'' a democracy (the ] was elected by universal suffrage, its votes of no confidence did cause governments to fall, and it did vote on whether to fund the war - which passed overwhelmingly), or at least that it was no less democratic than Britain (the 1911 elections enfranchised only 60% of the British male population, and most of the ] had no say in the decision at all). The second class prefers a border of 'democracy' that lies in the interval between both Germany and England, on the one end, and perfect democracy on the other; or between both of them and totalitarianism. (The DPT theorist Rummel has said that the word 'democracy' was not important to his argument; but his use of it has made his claim far more interesting.) The third class observes that any reasonable border which excludes Wilhelmine Germany also excludes almost all states before the Cold War. The fourth class explains the Cold War democratic peace as a special case.

			DPT supporters also argue that there has been continued peace between democracies after the end of the Cold War. Critics disagree and even if true they note that the ] and NATO still exist and that they contain some of the democracies capable of maintaining a war. However, there are many democracies outside Europe . The threat from the Communist states which Gowa thought explained both the peace and the alliances has largely disappeared. Contrary to what could be expected from Gowa's theory, the fall of Communism and the increase in the number of democratic states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in interstate warfare .
	These tend to overlap, being in fact complementary criticisms, and many critics make more than one of them. It is particularly hard to tell the first two classes apart on 1914 Germany, since DPTs must reject it on qualitative, not numerical, grounds.

	===The Cold War peace===
	The chief external cause, cited (with many other criticisms) in Joanne Gowa's ''Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace'', is that the structure of the international political system during the ] was responsible for creating the illusion of a democratic peace. At about the same time many of today's democracies came into existence, the ] divided much of the world into two systems of permanent institutionalized alliances. (Many states belonged to neither; chief among these was the ] after ].)

	These critics ascribe the inter-democratic peace of the period to this structure of blocs: almost all the democracies of the Cold War were members of the Western bloc, and the members of that bloc abstained from attacking one another in a collective effort to contain Communism: which was perceived to be a far bigger threat than any intra-alliance conflict.

	Not only was the system of alliances produced by this common interest; also, once it had come into existence, the relations between two members of the bloc were not permitted to decline into full-scale war; the alliance provided their common allies with the interest and the leverage to prevent it.

	There have been wars between members of other alliances, although one study finds that 88% of the treaties made in the last two centuries have been kept. This line of criticism need not claim that alliances prevent ''all'' wars; just that the ] alliance, and the common interest it represented, caused enough peace that the rest may be the result of other causes or of chance.

	===External causes===
	In addition to the external cause of the ], the democratic peace has been attributed to wealth, as above, and to geographic isolation. Some democratic peace theorists have controlled for these variables. Bremer (1992, 1993) controlled for contiguity, power status, alliance ties, militarization, economic development, and power ratios. Maoz & Russett (1992, 1993) and Russett (1993) controlled for contiguity, alliance ties, economic wealth and growth, political stability, and power ratios. They also studied the period from 1945 and 1986 and discounted all pairs that did not involve a major power or nations that were not geographically continuous. .

	===Before the Cold War===

	Before the ] and the First World War, there was a limited period during which France, Great Britain, and the United States were non-allied and democratic Great Powers. During this time, several disputes occurred between two of them. None led to war; but they were conducted as fiercely as many diplomatic conflicts involving a non-democratic state; and war was popular on both sides. Between the two World Wars, France and Britain were allies. The United States either acted as their ally, or did not act in international affairs at all.

	== References ==		== References ==
	Most of the following are from Rummel's extensive :

	*Beck, Nathaniel, and Richard Tucker. Midwest Political Science Association: April 1998.		*Beck, Nathaniel, and Richard Tucker. Midwest Political Science Association: April 1998.
	*		*
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	*Lipson, Charles. ''Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace''. Princeton University Press: 2003. ISBN 0691113904.		*Lipson, Charles. ''Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace''. Princeton University Press: 2003. ISBN 0691113904.
	*		*
	*Plourde, Shawn May, 2004
	*Ray, James Lee. ''Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition''. University of South Carolina Press: 1998. ISBN 1570032416.		*Ray, James Lee. ''Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition''. University of South Carolina Press: 1998. ISBN 1570032416.
	*Ray, James Lee. ''Annual Review of Political Science'' 1998:1, 27-46		*Ray, James Lee. ''Annual Review of Political Science'' 1998:1, 27-46
	*Rummel, R.J. ''Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence''. Transaction Publishers: 2003. ISBN 0765805235.		*Rummel, R.J. ''Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence''. Transaction Publishers: 2003. ISBN 0765805235.
	*Rummel, R.J.
	*Russett, Bruce. ''Grasping the Democratic Peace''. Princeton University Press: 1994. ISBN 0691001642.		*Russett, Bruce. ''Grasping the Democratic Peace''. Princeton University Press: 1994. ISBN 0691001642.
	*Russett, Bruce and John R. O'Neal: ''Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations'' . New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
	*Schwartz, Thomas, and Kiron Skinner. ''The Wall Street Journal''. January 7, 1999.

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The democratic peace theory or simply democratic peace (often DPT and sometimes democratic pacifism) is a theory in political science and philosophy which holds that democracies—specifically, liberal democracies—never or almost never go to war with one another. A more general version is that all kinds of systematic violence is rare in and by democracies. Despite criticism, it has grown in prominence among political scientists and has become influential in the policy world.

File:Fullchamber.jpg

The British House of Commons

History of the theory

The idea came relatively late in political theory, one contributing factor being that democracies were very rare before the late nineteenth century. No ancient author seems to have thought so. Early authors referred to republics rather than democracies, since the word democracy had acquired a bad name until early modern times. Nicolo Machiavelli believed that republics were by nature excellent war-makers and empire-builders, citing Rome as the prime example. It was Immanuel Kant who first foreshadowed the theory in his essay Perpetual Peace written in 1795 , although he thought that democracy was only one of several necessary conditions for a perpetual peace. US President Woodrow Wilson advocated the idea in politics during and after WWI.

In 1964, Dean Babst was the first to claim that statistical evidence supported the theory. Thereafter, an increasing amount of research has been done on the theory and related subjects. More than one hundred researchers have contributed to the literature according to an incomplete bibliography . Despite criticism, it has grown in prominence among political scientists and has become influential in the policy world. Scholar Jack Levy famously remarked that the democratic peace is "the closest thing we have to an empirical law in the study of international relations"

Presidents of both American parties have expressed support for the theory. "Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other." Bill Clinton's State of the Union Address, Jan 25, 1994 . "And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means.... I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy." George W. Bush at the White House Press Conference, 12 November, 2004 .

Statistical studies supporting the DPT

War and liberal democracy can be defined in different ways. The studies supporting the DPT have often defined war as any military action with more than 1000 killed in battle. This is the definition used in the Correlates of War Project which has also supplied the data regarding the wars and the militarized disputes for many of the studies. The early researcher R.J. Rummel required liberal democracies to have voting rights for at least 2/3 of all adult males and that the democracy should be older than 3 years at the start of the war. He also has some implicit criteria; for example, the chief officer of the democracy must have had a contested election. Another example is requiring that at least 50% of the adult population is allowed to vote, and that there has been at least one peaceful, constitutional transfer of executive power from one independent political party to another by means of an election. Many researchers have used the Polity Data Set which score states for democracy on a continuous scale for every year from 1800 to 2003. There are also many other data sets used in conflict research .

Numerous studies using many different kinds of data, definitions, and statistical analyses have found support for the democratic peace theory. They have concluded that no wars have been fought between liberal democracies and that this is statistically significant when compared with the wars fought with and between nondemocracies during the last two centuries. There is also much research showing that all kinds of systematic violence is rare in and by democracies . Most statistical work has focused on the 19th and 20th centuries, but there is also some research on the applicability of the theory outside this period .

Militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) include the disputes that later will become wars but also the disputes causing less than 1000 or even no battle deaths but including for example a military display of force. There have been more than 2000 MIDs since 1816, allowing more detailed statistical analyses than when looking at wars. Research using a continuous measure of democracy shows that the most democratic nations have the least MIDs. There is an ongoing debate regarding whether it is the most authoritarian or the intermediate regimes that have the most MIDs. When examining these MIDs in more detail, the inter-liberal disputes have on the average more hostility, but are less likely to involve third parties, hostility is less likely to be reciprocated, when reciprocated the response is usually proportional to the provocation, and the disputes are less likely to cause any loss of life . Enduring militarized competition between democratic states is rare. After both states have become democratic, there is a decreasing probability for MIDs within a year and this decreases almost to zero within five years .

Democracies do sometimes attack nondemocracies. Several papers show that democracies are overall slightly less involved in war, initiate wars and MIDs less frequently than nondemocracies, and tend more frequently to seek negotiated resolutions . A recent theory is that democracies can be divided into "pacifist" and "militant". While both avoid attacking other democracies, "militant" democracies have a tendency to distrust and use confrontational policies against dictatorships. Most MIDs by democracies since 1950 have involved only four nations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and India .

In international crises that involved the threat or use of military force, if the parties were democracies, then relative military strength had no effect on who won. This is different from when nondemocracies were involved. This pattern was the same for both allied and nonallied parties .

Research also shows that wars involving democracies are less violent and that democracies have much less democide . The most democratic and the most authoritarian states have few civil wars, and intermediate regimes the most. The probability for a civil war is also increased by political change, regardless whether toward greater democracy or greater autocracy. Intermediate regimes continue to be the most prone to civil war, regardless of the time since the political change. In the long run, since intermediate regimes are less stable than autocracies, which in turn are less stable than democracies, durable democracy is the most probable end-point of the process of democratization . The fall of Communism and the increase in the number of democratic states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in total warfare, interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, and the number of refugees and displaced persons .

Causes

One idea is that democracies have a common culture and that this creates good relations. However, there have been many wars between non-democracies that share a common culture. Democracies are however characterized by rule of law, and therefore the inhabitants may be used to resolve disputes through arbitration rather than by force. This may reduce the use of force between democracies.

File:German dead at Verdun.jpg

German dead from the battle of Verdun

Another idea is that democracy gives influence to those most likely to be killed or wounded in wars, and their relatives and friends. However, democracies sometimes attack non-democratic states. One explanation is that these democracies were threatened or otherwise were provoked by the non-democratic states. This idea also suggests that the relationship in the DPT became stronger when graphic movies and television made wars less romantic.

Lake (1992) reports that democratic states are more likely than autocratic states to win the wars. He argues that this is because democracies, for internal political and economic reasons, have greater resources. This might mean that democratic leaders are unlikely to select other democratic states as targets because they perceive them to be particularly formidable opponents. Bueno de Mesquita & Siverson (1995) find that interstate wars do have important impacts on the fate of political regimes, and that the probability that a political leader will fall from power in the wake of a lost war is particularly high in democratic states.

See also the "Causation is not correlation" section below for a discussion of the hypothesis that it is not democracy itself but some other factor(s) associated with democratic states that explain the peace.

Criticisms

There are four logically distinguishable classes of criticism of any DPT:

That its creator was not accurate in applying his criteria to the historical record. See the section "Specific historic examples" below.
That the criteria are not appropriate in discussing the record. For example, critics may prefer that "democracy" should exclude or include both of Germany and England during WWI, rather than separate them into democratic and non-democratic.
That the peace theory does not actually mean very much. For example, that it applies to few states (very few before the twentieth century), and doesn't actually limit their behavior to each other very much. Any reasonable border which excludes WWI Germany may also excludes almost all states before the Cold War.
That such peace as there has been between democracies is at least in part due to external causes. See the section "Correlation is not causation" below.

These tend to overlap, being in fact complementary criticisms, and many critics make more than one of them. It is particularly hard to tell the first two classes apart on 1914 Germany, since DPTs must reject it on qualitative, not numerical, grounds.

Specific historic examples

**Number of wars 1816-1991**
Democracies vs. Democracies	0
Democracies vs. Nondemocracies	155
Nondemocracies vs. Nondemocracies	198
Source: . Other studies show similar results.

Note that the following concerns the claim of no wars between liberal democracies and not other claims like fewer MIDs.

Liberal democracy?

For the First World War critics have argued that the German Empire was a democracy, (the Reichstag was elected by universal male suffrage and it did vote overwhelmingly to fund the war), or that Britain was not a democracy (only 2/3 of British males could vote , to say nothing of the Empire beyond the Seas, the majority of which had no say in the decision at all). Supporters respond that the German Kaiser had the executive power and could appoint and dismiss the Chancellor, the Imperial officials, and the officers. He could declare an offensive war together with the not democratically elected Bundesrat, 30% of which was appointed by the Emperor, and most of the rest by the German princes. The Reichstag had little control over the executive power and its legislative power was greatly limited by the Bundesrat which also could veto amendments to the constitution. In effect, therefore, especially in foreign and military affairs, there was little democratic control. The Emperor was also the King of Prussia which had 3/5 of the German population and the Prussian constitution gave him even greater power there. The landed aristocracy of the Junkers formed the officer corps of the army, dominated Prussia, and had strong influence on national politics as well . If Britain was not a liberal democracy, then this is another reason why WWI was not a war between democracies. The last argument may however weaken the statistical support for the DPT, because fewer democracies mean fewer possible wars.

There can be similar responses to other objections. During the War of 1812, only a small minority had the right to vote in the United Kingdom, many new urban areas had no representation, the ballot was not secret, many seats in Parliament were appointed or openly bought from the owners of rotten boroughs, and the House of Lords could veto all laws. The defenders of DPT exclude the American Civil War because, in addition to it being an internal conflict, in the Confederate States of America only 30-40% of male population could vote and there was never a competitive presidential election. Similarly, only a minority had the right to vote in the Boer republics before the Boer Wars. Nawaz Sharif, the president of Pakistan at the time of the Kargil War, used terror tactics to silence critical press and the previously independent judiciary, for example storming the Supreme Court in order to force the Chief Justice out of office. Yassir Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority at the start of the latest conflicts with Israel, and Slobodan Milosevic, the president of the Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, can be criticized on similar grounds. There was never a democratic election in the Philippines before the Philippine-American war. All the Mexican presidents at the time of the conflicts with the U.S., like Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, took their power in coup d'etats. At the time of the War of the Pacific, Chile and Peru had suffrage requirements like literacy or property that excluded almost all of the population. Spain had the Turno system during the Spanish-American War.

Liberal democracies before the nineteenth century?

Whether the pre-modern states that once identified themselves as democracies fulfill modern criteria remains controversial. In Ancient Greece, such city-states did fight wars between each other (most noted is the Athenian expedition against Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War). Many do not deem Ancient Greek city-states as sufficiently democratic because of the large numbers of slaves and other non-voting inhabitants. It is estimated that only 16% of the population in Athens had the right to vote. There were also three great wars between Roman republic and Carthage; and Rome sacked Athens. Similar questions arise about the persistent wars among Venice, Florence, Genoa, and other Renaissance city-states. These states were also not as democratic as modern democracies, but at least as much as Athens and more so than Syracuse.

An interesting case is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had some qualities of today's democracies and in which szlachta (the nobles), using Sejm (a parliament), blocked many monarchs' attempts to declare a war on other countries. Some scholars have put forward the Swiss Confederation (or parts of it) and the Six Iroquois Nations as early examples of communities of democratic states upholding the theory.

Deaths in battle

The rule of at least 1000 killed in battle excludes attacks by one democracy on another in such overwhelming force that there is no effective resistance, and thus few deaths in battle. Some Indian Wars and small scale foreign interventions by the United States may be examples.

Democracies have engaged in covert conflict resulting in a change of regime on the losing side. The British- and American-supported 1953 coup d'etat in Iran against Mohammed Mossadegh and the 1954 U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala, led by Carlos Castillo Armas are examples of such events, also excluded.

The United Kingdom issued a formal declaration of war on Finland in 1941 as a reaction to the Continuation War, when Finland allied with Germany in attacking the Soviet Union. However, the United Kingdom's only significant act of war happened prior to the declaration (a Royal Air Force raid on German-run mining operations in Petsamo), Finland spent the Second World War fighting a totalitarian opponent who had previously attacked the nation, the United Kingdom and Finland for almost the whole of WWII carefully avoided attacking each other, and the casualties were too few to be classified as a war statistically. There have been very few formal declarations of war since WWII and using this as the definiton of war would mean that for example the US has fought no wars since WWII. The lavish material support the United Kingdom and the United States provided to Soviet Union raises the question if democracies can make war against other democracies through proxies.

Rummel's time limit

Rummel's version of the DPT has a requirement that the democratic states must be older than three years. This excludes the war between the French Second Republic and the Roman Republic (19th century). The First Balkan War is excluded if one considers the Ottoman Empire to have become democratic after the first election in November 1908 or when the constitution was amended so that the parliament could control the cabinet in April 1909. The war started in October 1912, which would be before four years had passed. Critics instead argue that democracy occurred in July 1908 when a constitution was introduced. It is also doubtful if the opposing Christian states fulfill the democratic criteria since the Kings continued to have extensive powers in all of them. Studies using the Polity data set have required a score of least 7 out of 10, which excludes both the French Second Republic (6) and the Ottoman Empire (3) at the time of the wars.

The time limit and and other requirements like democratic institutions and elections on both sides, also exclude civil wars within democracies over legitimacy or secession, such as the American Civil War, the Sonderbund war, the Anglo-Irish War and the Irish civil war which followed, and the 20th century civil wars in Colombia, Spain, Uruguay and Sri Lanka.

Colonial and imperialistic wars

One criticism against a general peacefulness for democracies is that they were involved in more colonial and imperialistic wars than other states during the 1816-1945 period. On the other hand, this relation disappears if controlling for factors like power and number of colonies. Democracies had less of these wars than other states after 1945. This might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples, as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights .

Correlation is not causation

A statistical association does not establish causality. Critics have thus argued that the absence of wars and the few MIDs may be explained by other factors in democratic states that are not related to democracy. Supporters of the DPT argue that many studies have controlled for such factors and that the DPT is still validated. For example, Bremer (1992, 1993) controlled for contiguity, power status, alliance ties, militarization, economic development, and power ratios. Maoz & Russett (1992, 1993) and Russett (1993) controlled for contiguity, alliance ties, economic wealth and growth, political stability, and power ratios.

The Kantian peace theory

Studies show that more trade causing greater economic interdependence and membership in more intergovernmental organizations reduce the risk of war. Democracy, interdependence, and intergovernmental organizations are positively related to each other but each has an independent pacifying effect. This is often called the Kantian peace theory since it is similar to Kant's earlier theory about a perpetual peace .

Economic development

One study indicates that independently of trade, democracy is not a significant factor unless both of the democracies have a GDP/capita of at least 1400 USD. This level is quite low and 91% of all the democratic pairs passed this criteria during 1885–1992 and all in 1992. Still, higher economic development than this makes the effect of democracy stronger. Low economic development may hinder development of liberal institutions and values .

Geographic isolation

Critics have argued that few democracies mean that they are geographically isolated and thus unable to make war with each other. As described above, several of the studies finding evidence for the DPT have controlled for this. Glieditsch (1995) demonstrated that democratic pairs of nations have not been more geographically separated than non-democratic pairs . Supporters also note that today more than 50% of all nations are democratic .

The bloc peace theory

Joanne Gowa argues in Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace, that the structure of the international political system during the Cold War was responsible for creating the illusion of a democratic peace. At about the same time many of today's democracies came into existence, the Cold War divided much of the world into two systems of institutionalized alliances. (Many states belonged to neither: examples are Communist China after 1961 and democratic Sweden.) These critics ascribe the inter-democratic peace of the period to this structure of blocs: almost all the democracies of the Cold War were members of the Western bloc, and the members of that bloc abstained from attacking one another in a collective effort to contain Communism: which was perceived to be a far bigger threat than any intra-alliance conflict. Not only was the system of alliances produced by this common interest; also, once it had come into existence, the relations between two members of the bloc were not permitted to decline into full-scale war; the alliance provided their common allies with the interest and the leverage to prevent it.

Considering the time before the Cold War, these critics point out that before the Entente Cordiale and the First World War, there was only a limited period during which France, Great Britain, and the United States were non-allied and democratic Great Powers. Several disputes occurred between two of them. They were conducted as fiercely as many diplomatic conflicts involving a non-democratic state and war had some public support on both sides. Between the two World Wars, France and Britain were allies. The United States either acted as their ally, or did not act in international affairs at all. On the other hand, the external threat from Communist states did not exist or was weak and thus cannot or have difficulty explaining why democracies allied with each other in this period. There were also democratic nations beside these Great Powers. When there were conflicts between democracies, this did not cause wars.

These critics admit that there have been wars between members of other alliances, although one study finds that 88% of the treaties made in the last two centuries have been kept. They argue that this line of criticism need not claim that alliances prevent all wars; just that the NATO alliance, and the common interest it represented, caused enough peace that the rest may be the result of other causes or of chance.

On the other hand, that 12% of all formal treaties failed can be seen as very high. While not statistical evidence, DPT supporters point out that external threat did not prevent several wars between Communist nations: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, and the Sino-Vietnamese War. There were also minor conflicts, not meeting the threshold of deaths, particularly the Sino-Soviet border conflict and the Prague spring.

DPT supporters also point out that external threat did not prevent wars in the Western bloc between democracies and dictatorships. One example is the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, at a time when Cyprus had British military bases and close ties to Turkey's NATO partner Greece. Another is the Football War. However, the US put pressure on the combatants to stop the Football War which fits the bloc peace theory. A third is the 1965 US invasion of the Dominican Republic. The 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War may also be wars within the Western bloc, because Iraq belonged to CENTO, the US and the UK were also member, and the UK had nuclear weapons deployed on Cyprus for the defense of CENTO until 1975 . Israel received extensive aid during the Yom Kippur War from the US. Bloc peace theory supporters note that the Soviet-Iraqi Treaty of Friendship was signed in 1972. All of these wars had more than 1000 military casualties . The Falklands War almost qualify (936 causalities).

More importantly, many studies that show support for the DPT have controlled for alliances . Gowa and another study have argued that democracies had more MIDs than nondemocracies before WWI, but more recent studies show the opposite . There is no explanation for the low domestic violence in democracies or why relative military strength does not influence the outcome of crises between democracies .

DPT supporters also argue that there has been continued peace between democracies after the end of the Cold War. Critics disagree and even if true they note that the European Union and NATO still exist and that they contain some of the democracies capable of maintaining a war. However, there are many democracies outside Europe . The threat from the Communist states which Gowa thought explained both the peace and the alliances has largely disappeared. Contrary to what could be expected from Gowa's theory, the fall of Communism and the increase in the number of democratic states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in interstate warfare .

References

Beck, Nathaniel, and Richard Tucker. Democracy and Peace: General Law or Limited Phenomenon? Midwest Political Science Association: April 1998.
Correlates of War Project
Brown, Michael E., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. Debating the Democratic Peace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
Doyle, Michael W. Ways of War and Peace. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
Gowa, Joanne. Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Huth, Paul K., et al. The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press: 2003. ISBN 0521805082.
Levy, Jack S. “Domestic Politics and War.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 653-673.
Lipson, Charles. Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace. Princeton University Press: 2003. ISBN 0691113904.
Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2002
Ray, James Lee. Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition. University of South Carolina Press: 1998. ISBN 1570032416.
Ray, James Lee. Does Democracy Cause Peace? Annual Review of Political Science 1998:1, 27-46
Rummel, R.J. Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence. Transaction Publishers: 2003. ISBN 0765805235.
Russett, Bruce. Grasping the Democratic Peace. Princeton University Press: 1994. ISBN 0691001642.