POLSCI 1AB3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Democratic Peace Theory, Information Overload
11 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Democratic peace theory (see the article by rosato (on the syllabus)), from whom this discussion is taken): According to proponents of this theory, a simple study of the empirical evidence reveals the following pattern: democracies do not go to war against other democracies. Democracies do go to war against non-democracies, but not against each other. There (cid:373)ay (cid:271)e a (cid:272)orrelatio(cid:374) (cid:271)et(cid:449)ee(cid:374) de(cid:373)o(cid:272)rati(cid:272) states a(cid:374)d pea(cid:272)e (cid:271)ut correlation does not prove causation. Any hypothesized cause must be able to, at the same time, explain why democracies will go to war against non-democracies. Modern scholars have posed two different types of explanation for the democratic peace: norm (shared values) based explanations: Democracy reinforces and institutionalizes the norm that conflicts should be resolved peacefully rather than through force. Democratic leaders are socialized into solving disagreements without the use of violence. These leaders are likely to transfer this conflict resolution strategy to the international realm when dealing with other democracies: institution based explanations:
