Democratic Peace Theory

[Dunenewt]

The Democratic Peace Theory essentially states that no two democracies will ever go to war.  Although this has been disproved three times (a cookie for everyone you get right), how true do you think this is?

[nemafakei]

The DPT completely correct, but totally trivial, as history has pretty much always been a succession of oligarchies.

Quite what you'd call a disproof would depend on what definition of the term you're using.

[Dunenewt]

Examples where democracies have gone to war with each other.

[Mahdi]

Sounds like the MacDonalds Peace Theory.

[Khan]

Is Norway(maybe`finland) Vs Britain one?

[Dunenewt]

The Allies of WW2 versus Finland is one.

[Khan]

Where's my cookie?

According to wikipedia Democratic athens was at war with democratic Sicily, but I doubt that was what you were thinking.

[Tatar Khan]

Peace through democracy focuses on the fact that people tend to not like wars so they will most likely not support the leaders that would want to go to war and so there will be less wars.

The problem is that people not always feel anti-war.

[nemafakei]

"Examples where democracies have gone to war with each other."

Yeah, but what's a democracy? And what's war?

[Caid Ivik]

Such theories are a propaganda for justifying aggressions towards hostile states. Even Germany, when trying to devour Czechoslovakia in 1938 was arguing for that we were oppressing the ethnic Germans. And really, the great democracies of the West agreed! Why not, Hitler was the man of people, while president Bene

[Anathema]

According to wikipedia Democratic athens was at war with democratic Sicily, but I doubt that was what you were thinking.

You're right, Athens launched an expedition against Syracuse (on Sicily) during the Peoloponesian war because they suspected that the latter had hidden sympathies for Sparta. Both were ruled democraticly.

Dunenewt, were you thinking about Armenia-Azerbaijan?

[Dunenewt]

Okay, the two other examples I was thinking of haven't been named yet.  Spanish American War, and the Kargil War.

[Edric O]

The Democratic Peace Theory essentially states that no two democracies will ever go to war. Although this has been disproved three times (a cookie for everyone you get right), how true do you think this is?

If you want to make the DPT as strong as to say that democracies never go to war with each other, then it is blatantly false, because there are examples of democratic countries that have gone to war with each other, as already mentioned in this thread.

On the other hand, a weaker version of the DPT, stating that democracies rarely go to war with each other, is true. However, as Nema said, it is also meaningless, because democracy is a very rare form of government (historically speaking). So of course that it is rare to see a war between two countries with a rare form of government. Democracies rarely go to war with each other because - so far - they've rarely had the opportunity to do so.

Prior to the 20th century, there were never more than a handful of democracies in the world at the same time (and even then no country before the 20th century had full adult suffrage, so if you define "democracy" as a country where all adults get to vote, no democracy existed before the 20th century). It is only in the 20th century that democracy became widespread enough to make war between democracies a reasonably likely event. But most of the 20th century was occupied by the two world wars and the Cold War, which put all existing democracies on the same side of a global conflict and therefore made wars between them impossible.

Therefore, in the entire history of the Earth there were really only 40 years when we could have expected wars between democracies to occur as often as wars between non-democracies (1918-1939 and 1989-present). The "democratic peace" covers 40 years out of the 5000 years of human civilization. Not particularly impressive.

Also, Caid is right. The idea that countries of a certain sort "don't go to war with each other" has been repeatedly been used an an excuse by leaders with imperial ambitions to invade foreign countries and convert them to whatever form of government they believed to be most peaceful.

Sounds like the MacDonalds Peace Theory.

Mahdi, have you read this article? It uses the phrase "McDonald's Peace Theory" and I agree with its analysis of the DPT.

[Mahdi]

No I haven't, I was just replying to Dunenewt.

[Egeides]

Sounds like the MacDonalds Peace Theory.

This seems to be mixed with the real ideal, as war is instead waged underground (economically, by proxies, etc.) while telling other to "remain peaceful" (i.e. defenseless).

I would more easily see this as very source of society's corruption, with overall lies to people etc. I don't think that people would rule to have things done upside down and snake-style like that. Maybe these theories were found towards the end of Roman, Persian or other empire with another word than democracy.