The tenet of international relations study is the question of why wars occur. Political theorists have tackled this question with heated debate throughout history and in the post-World War II era the theories of democratic peace and realism have come to the forefront of international relations study. These two theories offer contrasting explanations for the reasons nations fight one another, and also seek to predict the likelihood of future conflict.
The democratic peace theory, which concludes that democratic regimes do not go to war with one another as a result of their democratic nature, has attained the status of a law of international relations in some circles (Owen 1994, Doyle 1983). Utilizing an absence of conflict between democratic nations as the basis for the theory, Spiro identifies that proponents of Democratic Peace assert two aspects of the theory (Spiro, 1994). One is an institutional or structural belief, whereby such factors as public opinion, or checks and balances amongst the government constrain the likelihood of war. The other, is an ideological belief, whereby the liberal values of such regimes strive for peaceful interactions and constrain conflict. Democratic Peace Theory would therefore discredit the realist perspectives for interstate conflict which focus upon a sovereign state’s strategic interest within an anarchic world sphere. The theory has achieved status of dogma in many circles, but nevertheless has its share of critics who subscribe to the realist theory such as David Spiro and Bruce Russett. Realists challenge the relevance of the statistics on which democratic peace is founded, advocating a renewal of interest in realist international relations theory. Realists argue that world politics is dri...
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... infrequent to deliver an empirical foundation for his conclusion. Likewise, the limitations placed upon the categories of war and democracy ignore that liberal states have disregarded mutual respect for democratic institutions and norms and authorized the use of force against another likeminded state. Doyle is cognizant of the limitations of his Democratic Peace Theory, stressing that protection of liberalism’s heritage of democratization may in fact ensure the adverse consequence of stimulating illiberal practices (Doyle, 1983). The significance of a peace theory which concludes its own underlying principles may actually engender belligerent behavior is questionable. Doyle’s Democratic Peace Theory offers an interesting starting point in the study of the relationship between democratic nations and conflict; however, his suppositions should not to be valued as law.
A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles is a flashback of the main character, Gene Forrester’s schooling at the Devon School in New England. During this flashback Gene remembers his best friend Finny, who was really athletic and outgoing. Gene and Finny’s friendship was a relationship of jealousy. Gene was jealous of Finny’s talent in athletics, and Finny was envious of Gene’s talent in school. In the end, Gene’s jealousy of Finny takes over and causes him to shake the tree branch that makes Finny fall and break his leg. The break was bad, but it was not until Finny fell down the stairs and broke his leg again, that he had to have surgery. The surgery that Finny would undergo would cause more complications and heartbreaking news for Gene. During the surgery Finny would lose his life due to some bone marrow that escaped into his blood stream and stopped his heart from beating. “As I was moving the bone some of the marrow must have escaped into his blood stream and gone directly to his heart and stopped it” (Knowles 193). Although people do not normally think about bone marrow as being a huge part of the human body, it can cause some major issues if it has to be replaced or escapes into the blood stream.
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” As depicted in the quote by Ernest Hemingway war is a difficult situation in which the traditional boundaries of moral ethics are tested. History is filled with unjust wars and for centuries war was not though in terms of morality. Saint Augustine, however, offered a theory detailing when war is morally permissible. The theory offers moral justifications for war as expressed in jus ad bellum (conditions for going to war) and in jus in bello (conditions within warfare).The theory places restrictions on the causes of war as well as the actions permitted throughout. Within early Christianity, the theory was used to validate crusades as morally permissible avoiding conflict with religious views. Based on the qualifications of the Just War Theory few wars have been deemed as morally acceptable, but none have notably met all the requirements. Throughout the paper I will apply Just War Theory in terms of World War II as well as other wars that depict the ideals presented by Saint Augustine.
The idea of a lasting, ideally global, peace has been present in the minds of people for centuries. The most notable formulation of this is Kant’s vision of perpetual peace. “He saw it as a condition that needed to be maintained by politics between states with governments which represented society and separation of power. From this basic framework stems the idea called “democratic peace theory” (pg. 82). Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) asserts that democracies do not generally fight other democracies because they share common norms and domestic institutions that constrain international, state actors from going to war. Sebastian Rosato states, “In practical terms democratic peace theory provides the intellectual justification for the belief that spreading democracy abroad will perform the dual task of enhancing American national security promoting world peace” (pg. 585).
Followers of Realist school of thought argue the case of 2003 Iraq war from the standpoint of power and Security. The Bush administration’s rationale for launching a pre-emptive attack against Iraq was based on two misleading assumptions: firstly, Iraq had or was developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (along with Iran and North Korea) and secondly, that it was aiding and protecting terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda. Such a conjecture based on unsubstantiated evidence helped Bush administration conjure up a dystopian situation which justified 2003 invasion of Iraq under the pretext of “security maximization”. This explanation was given in pursuance of the realist assumption that States’ as rational actors always act in accordance with their national security interests.
Farber, H. S., & Gowa, J. (1997). Common Interests or Common Politics? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace. Journal of Politics 59 (2): 393-417.
Neo-realism and Liberalism both provide adequate theories in explaining the causes of war, yet Neo-realist ideals on the structural level and states being unitary actors in order to build security, conclude that Neo-realist states act on behalf of their own self interest. The lack of collaboration with other states and balance of power among them presents a reasonable explanation on the causes of war.
The purpose of this essay is to inform on the similarities and differences between systemic and domestic causes of war. According to World Politics by Jeffry Frieden, David Lake, and Kenneth Schultz, systemic causes deal with states that are unitary actors and their interactions with one another. It can deal with a state’s position within international organizations and also their relationships with other states. In contract, domestic causes of war pertain specifically to what goes on internally and factors within a state that may lead to war. Wars that occur between two or more states due to systemic and domestic causes are referred to as interstate wars.
In conclusion realist and liberalist theories provide contrasting views on goals and instruments of international affairs. Each theory offers reasons why state and people behave the way they do when confronted with questions such as power, anarchy, state interests and the cause of war. Realists have a pessimistic view about human nature and they see international relations as driven by a states self preservation and suggest that the primary objective of every state is to promote its national interest and that power is gained through war or the threat of military action. Liberalism on the other hand has an optimistic view about human nature and focuses on democracy and individual rights and that economic independence is achieved through cooperation among states and power is gained through lasting alliances and state interdependence.
During the latter half of the 20th century, the realist theory has been criticized as an outdated method which can no longer sufficiently explain the actions of the global community. Critics point to liberalism, another widely accepted theory, as the successor of realism as the dominant theory of international relations. Opponents of realism assert that the Democratic Peace theory is evidence that the theory of realism is no longer complete. If realism were to stand alone, this accusation might have some validity. The development of neorealism helps to explain what realism could not, accounting for global developments since the creation of the theory of realism. Thus, the realist philosophy, with aid from neorealism, remains a credible philosophy that is capable of dealing with the challenges put forth by liberalist critics. This essay will review the realist theory, examine challenges offered by its opponents through the liberalist theory, and discuss how the neorealist theory has negated these challenges and provided a new foundation for the claim that states are the most important actors in world politics in light of a world where armed conflict is no longer the primary fixation of the world’s states.
Democratic states are perceived to be more peaceful because “democracies do not attack each other.” The proposition that democracies never (or rarely; there is a good deal of variation about this) go to war against one another has nearly become a truism. Since Michael Doyle’s essay in 1983 pointed out that no liberal democracy has ever fought a war with another democracy , scholars have treated pacifism between as democracies, “as closest thing we have to an empirical law in international relations.” The democratic peace proposition encourages hope for a new age of international peace. Over the years since Michael Doyle’s essay a lot of literature has been written about “democratic peace theory”. A lot of analysis has focused on the claim- that liberal democracies do not fight each one another. There is a lot of action- reaction sequence in the academic arguments. As an idea catches on it accumulates adherents. The more popular an idea, there is more likehood of a critical reaction that raises serious and strong reservations about the validity of the new idea. In this essay, I would like to examine the claim- that democratic states are more peaceful as democracy causes peace. In this essay I draw on the writings of John M. Owen, Michael Doyle, Christopher Layne, Mansfield and Snyder, Alexander Wendt, Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin for their views on why democracies do not fight one another and then deduce my own conclusions.
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.
The democratic peace theory was not always seen as the substantial argument and significant contribution to the field of International Relations that it is today. Prior to the 1970’s, it was the realist and non-realist thought that took preeminence in political theoretical thinking. Though the democratic peace theory was first criticized for being inaccurate in its claim that democracy promotes peace and as such democracies do not conflict with each other, trends, statistical data, reports have suggested and proved that the democratic peace theory is in fact valid in its claim. Over the years having been refined, developed and amended, it is now most significant in explaining modern politics and it is easy to accept that there is indeed a lot of truth in the stance that democracy encourages peace. The democratic peace theory is a concept that largely influenced by the likes of Immanuel Kant, Wilson Woodrow and Thomas Paine.
Liberalism, with regard to International Relations, focuses on the freedom and security of the individual (Baylis, Smith, & Owens, 2014). Additionally, it holds that humans are basically good and that all people should be treated equally under the law and that peace is a priority. By contrast, realists believe that humans and the institutions that they make up are naturally hostile and because there is no overarching government between countries, that states must scramble for power and military resources to maintain their autonomy. With such different ideals concerning security, liberalism and realism contain different philosophies on why states are able to preserve security and further, how security is upheld.
It also provides a discussion on a compounded explanatory framework for analyzing conflicts and global responses. The first section of the paper describes the theoretical frameworks of realism, liberalism, constructivism and critical theories, in relation to conflict in international affairs. The second section of this paper criticizes the choice of using one theory to analyze international conflict, and from this explains a compounded theory that is inclusive of all the previously mentioned schools of thought. The main idea here is that different international relations theories should be looked at as complimentary, and each as a representative sample of the minds that make up the international system. By combining multiple theoretical standpoints of observation, the weaknesses, biases and problems that arise out of the use of a single theoretical perspective can be overcome. Rather than perceiving IR theories as dueling theoretical perceptions of what is and ought to be the future of the international order, IR theories should be considered in tandem when making sense of global phenomena. Using a single mode of descriptions and response would be unwise with so many options available for triangulation. For this reason it seems that the best analytical framework is one that considers the insight of all
It is the time to achieve the probability of peace and chances of war should be minimized. The idea of the “causes of war” should be rejected on the bases of ‘’reasons and advantages to achieve peace’’. War and peace are multi-dimensional and multi-causal, there is need to eliminate the multi dimensional reason of war and to introduce more dimensions of peace. The variable of war-peace system, particular the international system, can be classified roughly by the way in which they contribute either to the strain or to the strength of the system. Conflict activities are those in which we are conscious that an increase in our welfare may diminish the welfare of others or an increase in the welfare of others may diminish our welfare.