Rescuing the Public Constraint

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Although many of Sebastian Rosato’s criticisms of the causal underpinnings of both the institutional and normative explanations of the democratic peace are valid, his analysis of the failure of the public constraint is incomplete. While I do not disagree with Rosato’s contention that, “democracies are just as likely to go to war as non-democracies” (Rosato, 2003, p. 594), I believe this misses a key contention of the democratic peace: that democracies are less likely to fight wars against other democracies. I argue that democracies are particularly averse to conflict with other democracies, which would explain why democracies are no less likely to go to war in general, but avoid war with democratic nations. Applying the observation that the democratic peace is essentially a post-World War II phenomena restricted to the Americas and Western Europe strengthens this argument. Rosato offers three reasons why the public constraint does not reduce the willingness of democracies to go to war: (1) the costs of war fall on a small subset of the population, (2) nationalism may override concerns over the cost of war, and (3) democratic leaders can exploit nationalism to invoke public support for war. Using empirical evidence on conflicts excluding the two World Wars, Rosato points out that the fatalities of democratic nations have remained small leading Rosato to claim that the general public rarely experiences any loss associated with war and therefore has little incentive to organize dissent (Rosato, 2003). One might argue that the loss of any life would create an incentive for citizens to organize dissent. However, Rosato’s next point—that nationalism overrides cost concerns—can be used to explain why such dissent would be limited and i... ... middle of paper ... ...s not an issue in this situation. In most cases, the cost of war does not play a role in explaining the democratic peace, only in explaining why democracies are unlikely to engage in fewer wars in general. While nationalism can be used to override concerns over the cost of war and mobilize popular support, it does not work against nations which share similar principles and in fact works against the predilection towards war. In part, this may help redeem the public constraint component of the structural explanation of the democratic peace. In particular, when combined with the assumption that the democratic peace is valid only in the post-World War II regions of the Americas and Western Europe, this explanation becomes more plausible. Works Cited Rosato, S. (2003). The flawed logic of the democratic peace theory. The American Political Science Review, 97(4), 585–602.

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