The Limited Scope of the Democratic Peace

• In Event: Bringing IR Back in: The International in Conflict Processes

Abstract

Can the democratic peace explain peaceful dyads? Our study addresses this question via two analyses. First, we identify and examine dyads that have never had an interstate war across three distinct time periods—1816-1945, 1946-1989, and 1990-2001—with particular attention to whether both dyad members are democratic (i.e., joint democracies) or not (non-joint democracies). In general, we find that joint democracies could theoretically account for only a minority of peaceful dyads—only 4-26%; the vast majority of peaceful dyads are non-democracies. To check the robustness of this result, we next lower the “peaceful” threshold from war to militarized interstate dispute (MID). An analysis of the dyads that never experience a MID during the same, distinct, three time periods yields similar results. Such findings cumulatively produce three broad conclusions: (a) although joint democracy may be associated with peace, it accounts for only a small proportion of interstate peace; (b) another set of factors must theoretically explain most peaceful dyads across the period 1816-2001; and therefore (c) the democratic peace must be limited in its scope. With this in mind, our study explores some possible explanations—and related factors—that can account for the large majority of non-democratic peaceful dyads in the international system.

Authors

• Andrew Owsiak, University of Georgia

• John A. Vasquez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign