POSC240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Perpetual Peace, United Nations General Assembly, Design Issues
30 Aug 2016
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Understanding why some places do not have wars. Zones of peace = developed, western (even some asian), market economies, democratic states. Does not mean democracies don"t fight wars, but that these wars are against non-democracies: more selective on who they fight wars with, does not mean they are more peaceful. Democratic peace: the concept states: western-style, european: excludes ethnic identities (ex: turkey fighting kurds), colonies, repressed groups. Democracy: competitive elections and universal male suffrage pretty low threshold (hard to measure elections, but can measure turnover) Democratic values and political culture explain non-war: democratic norms. Democratic institutions only work if people believe in and uphold them, which is extremely difficult. If all you see if corruption in your government, you"re not going to believe in it our trust it: ex: 2000 elections, we believed our gvt would not engage in conflict which is extremely powerful. Democracies can still fight wars with non-democracies because they don"t have democratic values.
