Talk:Democratic peace theory/Archive 9

Graph


I have created this graph for other articles. However, a similar graph for this article could be good. For example, how about a graph showing the number of nations with Polity score of 8 or higher? There has been no wars and I do not think any MID causing battle deaths between such nations.Ultramarine 11:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Influence section
Do we need to move straight into a detailed musing over the legitimacy of the Iraq war before we look at the theory properly? I'm going to trim this section. Slac speak up! 03:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please do not delete sourced material.Ultramarine 09:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

History of the Idea
Hi guys, the article here states that the first clear enunciation of this theory is to be attributed to Kant. I would object: in Demosthenes (IV century BCE), De Rhodiorum libertate (On the Liberty of the Rhodians), 17-18, there is a passage that reads:

You have waged many wars both against democracies and against oligarchies; and of this no doubt you are as well aware as I. But I doubt whether any of you considers for what objects you are fighting in each case. What then are these objects? In fighting against a democracy, you are fighting either over some private quarrel, when the parties have failed to settle their disputes by the means publicly provided; or you are contending for a piece of territory, or about a boundary, or for a point of honour, or for paramountcy. But in fighting against an oligarchy, it is not for any such objects—it is your constitution and your freedom that are at stake. And therefore I should not hesitate to say that I believe it would be better for you, that all the Hellenic peoples should be democracies, and be at war with you, than that they should be governed by oligarchies, and be your friends. For with a free people you would have no difficulty, I believe, in making peace whenever you desired: but with an oligarchical State friendship itself cannot be safe. For there can be no goodwill between Few and Many—between those who seek for mastery, and those who have chosen the life of political equality.

(Source: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Public_Orations_of_Demosthenes/For_the_Freedom_of_the_Rhodians )

Do you think this should be mentioned in the article somewhere? I'd rather discuss it a bit before changing the article.

Paolo (talk) 19:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Demosthenes says that democracies will find it easy to to make peace, if they are at war. That is not the same as that they will not make war on another. Regards. Ultramarine (talk) 10:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Makes sense! But don't you think that this is an -- albeit far -- precursor of this idea? Thanks, Paolo (talk) 23:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * In some sense, it argues for one kind of tendency towards peacefullness between democracies. But it is not what the current DPT is arguing. Note also that democracy in Ancient Greece was in many ways different from modern democracy, it was democracy for only for the minority who was citizens, excluding slaves and metics who often was the majority of the population.Ultramarine (talk) 12:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:DP BACKSIDE V 16.JPG
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Fair use rationale for Image:DP CHART V19.JPG
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Breakup of the Yugoslavia and the Democratic Peace Theory
Well, I don't know if it would be worth to put in the article, since it could be seem like an original research, but I've noted something curious: when Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992, nasty wars followed; the Yugoslav regime in Belgrade was considered a dictatorship led by Slobodan Milosevic. But after Milosevic fell from power in 2000, Serbia became a parliamentary democracy, Montenegro broke away in 2006 and Kosovo now in 2008, and Belgrade sent no troops to these new countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.26.96.216 (talk) 05:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Generally dubious; Milosevic was democratically elected, as such things go in the Balkans; and the extreme versions of DPT on which this article concentrates dismiss very young democracies (as they must; all too many of them have gone to war, often with other democracies). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Slobodan Milosevic was never properly elected in free and fair elections; and most of the democratic nations of the West also did not recognize the government of Serbia and Yugoslvia as democratic, enforcing sanctions that were just abolished with Milosevic’s downfall in 2000.--BalkanWalker (talk) 06:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

What about Franjo Tudjman in Croatia? He was democratically elected, yet he had a sizeable role in the Croatian War of Independence and crucially he was indicted for war crimes. The only time that I've seen this discussed was on Rudolph Rummel's site, where he said that Croatia was only a new nation at the time. I'm not very convinced by that explanation, especially when the Croats had been subject to 40 years of enforced brotherhood with other Yugoslavs before they turned nationalist. Epa101 (talk) 12:53, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Small and Singer 1976
Ray states this regarding this very old study: "This allowed Doyle to reiterate with more authority the claim made by Babst (1972), acknowledged somewhat begrudgingly by Small & Singer (1976) and repeated by Rummel (1975–81), that no two democratic states have ever fought an interstate war against each other." "Small & Singer did report an absence of wars between democratic states with "marginal exceptions," but they discounted the significance of this pattern. What they did not do, again at least partly because they had no comprehensive data on regime types, was to evaluate the statistical likelihood of this absence of war between democratic states."

So I think we should change the text to "Melvin Small and J. David Singer (1976) responded; they found an absence of wars between democratic states with two "marginal execpetions" but denied that statistically democracies were in general less war-like than other nations, starting the academic debate." If objections, I would like to see an actual quote from the 1976 article supporting the other view.Ultramarine 20:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * This is not an accurate account. What you write gives the impression that they support the view that wars between democracies are less likely (what you write means that they don't support monadic peace) while your quote says the opposite. Massimamanno 21:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Your version is an improvement.Ultramarine 22:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't really know where to put this comment so I will just throw it under the "Influences" section. I was looking at the map posted with the article that outlines the degree of freedom in countries based on a 3 level scale: Green=Free, Orange=Some Freedom, and Red=Not Free. I was just thinking that it might need to be updated somewhat. I couldn't seem to locate a date for it, although I didn't look that hard, but I am imagining that this is a Cold War Era, or shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as it still has Russia listed as a "Red" country... I would assume that it should at least be a somewhat freer country since the collapse of communism and deserve an upgrade to orange, if not green. Just a thought, and personally I wouldn't know how to update it, but maybe someone with more time on their hands could look into this... Thanks
 * See Freedom in the World.Ultramarine 23:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * biased source —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.245.12.227 (talk) 18:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge
There is a Merge tag here that leads to this page, but no discussion, so I'm opening a section for it. Moonraker12 (talk) 16:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC) (I've moved the comments here, to keep discussion together. Moonraker12 (talk) 16:48, 27 February 2009 (UTC))
 * The merge was posted by an occasional editor at User:71.167.63.234 at 18:33, 28 January 2009, with the edit hist "splitting this off into a separate article violates NPOV".
 * This comment "Don't merge= This is an excellent article. The nature of the theory makes the debate focus on cases (see e.g. Tony Blair at Jon Stewart). It provides arguments for and against and is therefore NPOV." was posted on the talk page there by Jacob Lundberg (talk) at  23:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would Oppose the merger; Both these articles are long enough already, and this one (DPT) needs splitting; what purpose would be served by merging them? Moonraker12 (talk) 16:50, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This is an unfortunate article, but it will not be improved by adding the sophistry required to prove that the Spanish-American War was not between democracies. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Templates
I have no particular objection in removing the confusing template, but someone complained that the page is indeed confusing very recently. I also think the POV template is almost fixed, although some changes may still be in order. However, my main objection is that discussion on this issue should stay for some longer, say a couple of weeks, to allow people who originally made criticisms to comment on the issues. Massimamanno 17:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Two weeks have passed since I asked for concrete objections, so removing them now.Ultramarine 19:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Where does the recent Isreali/Lebanon war fit into this.

This was a war (even if no major militery response was carried out by Lebanon) and yet it happened between two democracies, Isreal and Lebanon.

You could argue that it was solely a war against Hezbollah, but Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese democratic goverment structure and the infliction of damage by Isreal, went beyond the areas de-facto controlled by Hezbollah. It was faught largely to obtain a political concession from the Lebanese state, that is for them to move against Hezbollah.

The existance of conflicts like this, are recent examples of failiure's of the democratic peace theory in practice. I think they deserve to be mentioned.
 * See List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory.Ultramarine 07:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * What you are referring to falls out of the context of the democratic peace. First, it does not fall within an accepted definition of war in IR. The democratic peace applies to inter-state wars. It occurred in Lebanon, but it was not between Lebanon and Israel, it was between Israel and irregular forces. But even if it had been between Israel and Lebanon, the latter is a new and weak democracy. Those are less likely to fall within the bounds of the democratic peace. (Crunk04gtp (talk) 04:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC))

Improper tone
This article reads like a well-written college paper, specifically in re references. Ease-of-reading would be improved if the entire article was written using footnote referencing. Additionally, a large portion of the article is written in the style of academic debate, with one source arguing against another. The important thing is the Democratic peace theory, not what what scholars think about it.Vrefron (talk) 19:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The fundamental problem is that there is no the Democratic Peace Theory. There is one for each scholar, and no two agree even on what "democracy" and "war" mean, or what exactly their connexion is. If the article has begun to recognize this, it may be worth looking at again.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Is this why the neutrality of the article and it's factual accuracy disputed? The democratic peace is recognized as more or less the law of gravity of IR. The pacifist nature of democratic dyads is not disputed by anyone. (Crunk04gtp (talk) 04:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC))
 * The empirical findings are not disputed, but the conclusions drawn from them are exedingly so, as correlation is not causality.

There are an awful lot of Irish people who dispute the pacifist nature of Britain. In academia, this paper is commonly cited as one skeptical of the theory. Epa101 (talk) 00:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Democratic peace is hardly a natural law. The most common counterargument is that democracy has simply not been around long enough. 28 March 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.212.156 (talk) 01:35, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

United States v. Upper Canada, Lower Canada and the United Kingdom
This article seems to me to omit the War of 1812, wherein the democratically elected government of the United States of America declared war against the democratic government of the United Kingdom, and invaded the territory of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, both of which had elected Parliaments at the time. While the ruler of Upper Canada, Lower Canada and the United Kingdom was nominally the Crown, that is still the case to this day. The Crown makes its decisions solely on the advice of a prime minister supported by the elected parliament. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.40.1.129 (talk) 04:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Elections does not equal democracy. The United Kingdom was far from democratic in 1812. --OpenFuture (talk) 11:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


 * From the standpoint of the normative explanation the United States was a very new state. New and weak democracies do not have democratic norms as deeply ingrained as is necessary for them to externalize those norms. From the structural based explanation it is my understanding that the house of commons did not have a great deal of power at this point and the king could still intervene, though I am no expert in British history. Ultimately those controlling policy in Britain were not accountable enough to either the system, or the people for their war making capacity to be sufficiently restricted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.238.202 (talk) 03:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * One could argue neither UK or US were true democracies, as limited suffrage rights precluded common representation for the majority of the population of both states. They would qualify as limited republics, though no true democracies.
 * Tricky, yes, and a lot depends on your definition of "democracy." Hence all the trouble. 128.220.212.156 (talk) 01:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, and when you are done with arguing away the exceptions, you will be left, as Rummel is, with no "true democracies" before 1880, except the United States, and perhaps Switzerland. (There may be other reasons those two powers didn't go to war with each other.)


 * You will also be left with a fairly restrictive definition of war, one which only a great power can sustain under conditions since about 1875.


 * At that point, you aren't left with much to explain. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:49, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

What this means for the principle of democracy
Rummell, among others, has looked at the facts and data about wars between nations and tried to come up with a hypothesis (or "theory") which fits the facts. This seems scientific to me (see scientific method), and ought to be of great interests to students of Political science.

Indeed, we may be able to come up with a definition (or a list of qualities and attributes) of a "democracy" if by that me mean to describe the type of nation which does not go to war against similar nations. So what is it about not going to war that has anything to do with democracy?

Is it respect for human rights, both within one's own nation and in that of the potential opponent? Is it something about the type of foreign policy that tends to emerge from governments which are accountable to their citizens through voting?

Is there some objective quality that distinguishes democracies from dictatorships (totalitarian and authoritarian, to use Rummell's terms), which makes it easy for the dictators to start wars but impossible for the democrats? If so, it would be nice to identify this quality and enunciate it ... even if it's just a theory. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Is it necessary to point out that "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" were not invented by Rummel, any more than he won the Nobel Prize? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:51, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure whether the citation about DPT and the no true Scotsman fallacy is still in the article - and several peace theorists are not guilty of it. But Rummel and Weart are type cases. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, yes there are objective reasons why democracies fight less often, although I can't remember any source that spells this out in a way that wouldn't be WP:SYN if we used it. One of the main reason is the very simple reason that dictators tend to have gained power by violence or at least keep power by violence. Hence, the people at the top of totalitarian states tends to be used to using violence as a solution. Many dictatorships are run by the military. So these are people that are "good" at using violence. So what will the use to solve their problems? Violence!
 * But democratic leaders have gained power by intrigue, backstabbing and lying. I mean diplomacy. So will they use violence to solve problems? Well, that's less likely. This also explains why most conflicts between democracies are between young democracies, where the people in power usually are heroes of a recent war, and got elected because of that. --OpenFuture (talk) 04:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Doyle and Russert are good sources for many such proposed causes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

What about Israel/Hamas conflict???
Hamas was democratically elected, also Israel is a democracy. And they were at war...Doesn't that count as a war between democracies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.131.220 (talk) 23:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It depends. Only a few authors hold the strong form of the Democratic Peace, which they defend with a narrow definition of "democracy". They  would argue that the Palestinian Authority was both new and imperfect, and their claim is only true for democracies more than a few years old and with  impressive conditions on domestic rights. It also fails some theorists' definition of (full-scale) war: not enough battlefield casualties.


 * Others would express a similar thought by saying that it wasn't much of a democracy, or much of a war, and therefore a marginal case. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The democratic peace applies to interstate wars, which are defined as between two regular armies, 1000 or more combat deaths for a sustained period of time. At least this is the definition used by the Correlates of War. Hamas is not fighting Israel as a Palestinian state, rather as a terrorist organization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.238.202 (talk) 03:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * So defined by some observers, not by others. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Merger
I have suggested List of wars between democracies be merged into this article. The list seems a POV fork if this article and is full of OR and SYNTH mark nutley (talk) 18:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Only the most tangential relationship to this article: most theories of the democratic peace claim that there are less likely to be full-scale international wars between established democracies with wide suffrage, because there have been minor wars between new or marginal democracies and major civil wars within democracies - often the contending parties have both continued to practice the democracy of the undivided state. A separate topic; a separate article.


 * Comment Civil wars are not wars between democracy's, as at least one of the sides would be rebelling against a democratic government mark nutley (talk) 20:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's your opinion, reliable sources disagree. In most of the cases, one of the issues of the war is that one side accuses the other of rebellion, while the other accuses the first of a coup d'etat. In the Swiss Civil War, both sides were alliances of states which had been democratic for centuries; indeed, the Sonderbund included Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, the three direct democracies which had formed the Swiss Confederation in 1291. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In addition, mark nutley's attack on the list is as accurate as his claims that Greeks had no democracys [sic; I see he has invented another spelling below] and that the United States had no elections before 1789. But that subject is best considered on its talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:47, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That's your opinion, reliable sources disagree. In most of the cases, one of the issues of the war is that one side accuses the other of rebellion, while the other accuses the first of a coup d'etat. In the Swiss Civil War, both sides were alliances of states which had been democratic for centuries; indeed, the Sonderbund included Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, the three direct democracies which had formed the Swiss Confederation in 1291. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I would appreciate you not deliberately misrepresenting what i actually said. The Greek city states were not democracys, they were run by a minority of wealthy landowners and traders That is not quite how you keep putting it now is it. And Ok so the american rebellion ended in 1783 right? But the first election was not held until 1789 which is five years after the war. Can you tell me how a country which had not held an election to install a president was a democracy five years beforehand? is also not quite how you are putting it. So stop it now. I would also like to know what you mean by I see he has invented another spelling below mark nutley (talk) 20:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I see this is going to devolve into another remedial education course. Let me, therefore, be brief:
 * Some Greek city-states were run by a minority; some (most notably Athens) were run by the entire adult male citizenry; see Athenian democracy - and its sources - for much much more. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The United States was run by a Congress, not by a President, from 1776 to 1789. The Confederation was still a democracy - except in mark nutley's eccentricities; indeed it may have been too democratic for its own good. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose the U. K. is not a democracy because it does not have an elected president. TFD (talk) 07:18, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Mark nutley's claims are false. His ignorance of the subject, and of the English language, are plastered all over Talk:List of wars between democracies, so I cannot say that he is deliberately lying; I see no evidence that he would know synthesis if he fell over it. If he does not wish to be reminded of statements which are less than English and less than scholarly, he is free to retract them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:12, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - 1. It has been impossible to avoid POV, OR and SYN issues, because of editors political opinions and desire to make the article into a support for their own political standpoint. 2. If we would be able to get the POV out of the article, and list only those wars who really are wars between democracies, that would not only still be SYN, but also so few that we just as well can merge it into this article. 3. The article under it's original name, "List of possible exceptions to Democratic peace theory" makes more sense, but has it's own issues. I think it's a lost cause, so merge. --OpenFuture (talk) 23:34, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Your !vote here, mutatis mutandis, would be a prefect rationale for deleting mass killings under Communist regimes. (Igny (talk) 01:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC))
 * Oppose Per OpenFuture's eloquent argument here, mutatis mutandis. (Igny (talk) 01:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC))
 * Which is obviously not relevant here. You simply vote against *me*. This is Wikistalking. --OpenFuture (talk) 05:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You must be new here. This is not a vote. This is your own argument against merging. (Igny (talk) 11:48, 25 July 2010 (UTC))
 * For a completely different article yes. I think you are pretty alone in thinking that if you are against the merging of one article, you must be against merging all articles. --OpenFuture (talk) 19:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, what you are doing with regard to these articles is called double standards. (Igny (talk) 20:54, 25 July 2010 (UTC))


 * Oppose If the "List" article is full of OR and SYN then it should be corrected or deleted.  TFD (talk) 07:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This strikes me as a way to avoid what is currently a fruitful and more civil discussion at Talk:List of wars between democracies. The purpose of the article Democratic peace theory is to explain that theory, or the related group of scholarly perspectives, including a reasonable number of opposing views. (As a side note, since the purpose of the article is to explain the theory, the article is clearly not the place to debunk it even if it could be shown to be debunkable. This article should not be a battle over who owns "truth"; if I read the phrase "democratic peace theory" in the New York Review of Books, I should be able to come here and get a clear and cogent explanation of what it means, so that I can then return to reading Tony Judt or whatever.) The existence of the article List of wars between democracies is not inherently dependent on either democratic peace theory or the article about the theory. The criteria for inclusion in the list article are at present being debated in a good-faith effort; this merge proposal and the discussion here are destructive of any progress made regarding the list article. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Having restored a purely substantive remark, I will attempt to ignore this unfortunate conversation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose This article is already 113 kb. Manual of Style (summary style) applies. DrKiernan (talk) 08:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well apparently the size of this article is one of the things the deletionists do not like here. Their proposal, as I see it, is to significantly trim the article before merging. (Igny (talk) 11:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC))
 * Please don`t be so combative and using terms like deletionists. Just remove the synth and OR from the other article and there won`t be a lot left to merge mark nutley (talk) 12:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wait, you saw no problem when your buddy, OpenFuture, used the term (for example, here). (Igny (talk) 12:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC))
 * Do you not think maybe i missed it? If you look at my second to last post on that talk page you`ll see i actually said i had fallen behind on the discussion. But i would like to try and keep this on topic and not resort to pointless bickering mark nutley (talk) 12:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a big group on MkuComR that repeatedly start AfD's there. I call them deletionists because there is no better word, and listing their names every time would be ridicolous and unfair. You are clearly referring to only me and Marknutley. Is it too hard to type it out? :-) That said, I don't oppose to the term when used about a group of people who clearly want to delete something. I don't want to delete anything, so even though I do not find it uncivil or anything, it is simply incorrect in your usage. --OpenFuture (talk) 14:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment I think the article List of wars between democracies should be retained as a list, but I would suggest that the problem lays with the lede: "According to most theories of the democratic or liberal peace, established democracies with wide suffrage rarely go to war with one another. This is an incomplete list of wars between democracies, that is, wars between polities that have a constitutionally democratic form of government; most of them are minor wars, between new democracies, or ones without wide suffrage", which turns it into a blatant POVFORK of Democratic peace theory. Re-word the lede to remove reference to Democratic peace theory would fix it for me. --Martin (talk) 02:16, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree with Martintg that democratic peace theory does not belong in the lede of List of wars between democracies, and I have said so many times on the list article's talk page (and above). I won't repeat all that, but it raises POV issues that compromise efforts to create a neutral, verifiable list. (Which, I might add, seems 'way more trouble than it's worth.) Cynwolfe (talk) 08:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree in principle, and inserted Cynwolfe's proposed header without DPT; when a drive-by editor added DPT in less than 24 hours, I concluded that doing without it was probably unstable. At least the present text does not suggest that the list disproves or tends to disprove DPT; I believe all the examples cited are marginal wars, new or limited democracies, or both. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose seems an attempt to define democracy in terms of the democratic peace theory -- Snowded TALK  17:16, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Continuation War as an example???
To consider the Continuation War as an example for a war between democracies is absolutely not correct. The conflict was between democratic Finland and totalitarian Soviet Union and was strictly regarded as a separate conflict. The US and Great Britain did not declare war on Finland, neither did Finland declare war on them. As well, one should take into consideration that Finland had only one single motivation for this war - namely to regain territories occupied by the Soviets during the Winter War. To speak of the indirect influence that the Continuation War had for the whole of WW2 (that every Finnish soldier fighting the Soviets made it possible for the Germans to send one Wehrmacht soldier to the Western Front) is in this context not justified. The essence of the Continuation War was a conflict between a democratic and a totalitarian state.

I understand that the Continuation War "has often been cited as an example" but everything that has often been mentioned has not to be referred to in Wikipedia. Certain quality standards need to be met, in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.191.81.145 (talk) 09:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * United Kingdom declared war on Finland December 6, 1941, followed by several Commonwealth states. --Whiskey (talk) 16:11, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Britain bombed Finland. See this page on the attack on Petsamo in Finland.  Even if you believe in democratic peace theory, this has to be one of the strongest objections to respond to.  Epa101 (talk) 16:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It was a military action; it was also a formal declaration of war. Either of these is a problem for certain proposed mechanisms of democratic peace, and not for others. It has indeed been discussed in the literature; and the problem with this article is and continues to be that it does not reflect the literature on the subject, only part of which was compiled by True Believers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Finland never signed the Tripartite Pact to formally join the Axis, but the UK severed diplomatic relations anyway on August 1, 1941 and then finally declared war on Finland on December 6 when the Finns did not stand down against the Soviets. The British could have remained neutral with respect to Finland in its war with an authoritarian power but since the British decided to intervene legally and practically in support of the authoritarian power it remains a valid exception to the "democratic peace theory."--Brian Dell (talk) 15:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Exceptions???
How are the Continuation War and the Kargil War exceptions to the rule? One of the two warring parties in the Continuation War was the Soviet Union! Not exactly a liberal democracy, especially under Stalin. And one of the two perties in the Kargil War was Pakistan, which, although nominally a liberal democracy, is in fact a military dictatorship (or was at the time). And I want to make this clear, this opinion is coming from a fan of Pervez Musharraf! So I think the line about the Continuation War and the Kargil War being possible exceptions needs to be seriously rethought, if not removed. --SpudHawg948 (talk) 10:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The point is that in the Continuation War Great Britain declared war to Finland. Both countries were established democracies.--Whiskey (talk) 19:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Eventhough the UK and Finland were officially in a war, their troops never actually engaged each other. So technically those two countries did not fight each other.


 * Well, GB bombed Finland. But that doesn't matter as the theory is that democracies to not go to war against each other. In this case England declared war on Germany, after it invaded Poland, and Finlands involvement in WWII was a result of the Soviet Union invading. This led to Finland joining Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. So the declaration of war between Finland and Great Britain comes as a result of USSR joining the allies. It is in effect a joining of two wars, not the starting of a war. So it's not an argument against the democratic peace theory, as the point of it is that democracies will solve their conflicts in some other way than war. But in this case there was no conflict to solve, democracies ended up on different sides because of their respective conflicts with two military dictatorships.--OpenFuture (talk) 11:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I support this argument, and also add that Spain was not under a true democracy at that time of the Spanish-American war. This is widely discussed in List of possible exceptions to the democratic peace theory. I have modified the article adding a clarification. 62.22.162.125 (talk) 18:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I object to citing the South-Ossetian War. A blog with McDonalds pictures refers to the Golden Arches Theory rather that the Democratic Peace Theory. The war itself is hardly an exception. According to the 2008 Freedom House report, "Russia does not have a democratic political system". Fomels (talk) 14:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Rummell's definition says that established democracies do not "go to war" with each other, i.e., engage in military action which causes 1,000 or more deaths. Thus he has a specific definition of democracy that fits the facts, along with a strict definition of war that divides war in to "big war" and "negligible war" (my terms).


 * We need more about Rummell's views. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:06, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * We need more identification - and less defense - of Rummel's views. The academic discussion of the democratic peace goes on without him; a good bit of the initial hostility to it was due to his extreme position, which provoked - as it does here - a great deal of "Oh, come on now". The current literature is about the correlation of democracy and peace (reasonably strong) and its causes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:46, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that major reason why there were few actual acts of war in 'Anglo-Finnish war' was geography: it was not possible for Britain to send land or sea forces to fight Finns. IOW, belligrents were prevented from fighting each other by mere fluke of geography, and not some form of democratic unity. I also bring out another exception - Operation Wilfred and Plan R4 which were Allied plans to mine Norwegian waters and then invade Norway. First part was actually implemented (thus, Allied performed an act of war against a democratic nation), second was not because Germans attacked first - but the invasion troops were ready! Although no actual war was declared between Norway and UK, it goes to show that a democratic nation can deliberately invade another democratic nation.

Counter-argument is, of course, that WW2 was started by a non-democratic nation (Germany) and some democratic nations just became embroiled in it. Neither Finland or Norway started WW2, they just were dragged into it in complicated and unpredictable framework.--Mikoyan21 (talk) 22:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Golden Arches and Dell theory
These are actually capitalist peace theories. As such I've moved all content from this article to that one. And I've made both articles as redirects to the book that they came from. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Article is a mess
It has some nice stuff in here, but it's very disorganized. It needs to be reworked from top to bottom. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). --DavidCary (talk) 23:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Information.svg Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
 * I know how to edit wikipedia pages. I'm just saying the article needs to be re-organized and trimmed from the top to the bottom. I cannot do it alone as it would be a lot of work. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 18:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Wars are led by peoples, not by states
Those who resultatively want to wage war are people, not states; in fact, if a people does not want to wage war, no state can force it, whether democratic or not; what it can get as an outcome if it tries to is only some nonsense happening; and if people of a democratic state want to wage a war, nothing can stop them as well, naturally. So, according to the argument, people would have to hold themselves accountable for losses, and indeed they would. The real problem is, what people find (on a greater scale) to be a loss; peace comes when people consider a war to be a major loss. There is a nice article by Baricco on this (“Un'altra bellezza. Postilla sulla guerra”, “Another Beauty. A Side Remark about War”, commenting on his translation of “Ilyad”), where he claims that “the only road to peace is to build another beauty” to substitute beauty that people find in waging wars and in their patriotic feelings. - 91.122.7.216 (talk) 02:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Patrick J. McDonald
Is PJM notable enough in his theory that USA has simply turned most of the world into Mini-Mes?

http://jnls.cup.org/abstract.do?componentId=9841788&jid=INO&iid=9841770#.VbM12XtdbCQ

Hcobb (talk) 20:33, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Franco-Thai War
This was clearly not a war between democracies. Thailand was a constitutional monarchy with a military strongman, which looks like Romania under Ion Antonescu more than any model democracy. The French colonial authorities in French Indochina at the time answered to Vichy France, a fascist dictatorship which had completely and quickly liquidated any trace of democracy and that had a precarious independence from the totalitarian Third Reich. Neither belligerent could be considered a democracy even by the most permissive standard. Pbrower2a (talk) 00:35, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

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Removed
I removed the following from the introduction, which is presented as a criticism of the claim that there is a link between wealthand avoidance of war: "Physicist and historian Spencer R. Weart has disputed this claim, stating, "It is not because of their advanced economic development—wealthy countries fight wars about as often as poor ones." (referenced to "http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WEART.CHAP.HTM"). Firstly this is not a criticism of the argument as such since the quotation says that advanced countries fight wars - the argument is that they do not fight wars with eachother. Secondly, the criticism should not be plonked in the lede in an ad hoc way, but should be properly integrated into the body. Paul B (talk) 15:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Moved section
I have moved the section 'coup by provoking war' from 'Definitions' to 'Academic relevance and derived studies' and removed the reference to Carl Schmitt from 'See also'. I am not sure this section belongs here at all. I propose to remove it or rewrite it. Agnerf (talk) 07:34, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Excessive Sources
The sources section looks like a disaster to me. Wikipedia should not be a directory of every peer-reviewed article ever written about democratic peace. In fact, it looks to me like the list was created by someone entering the term "democratic peace" or something close into JSTOR. The list needs to be trimmed to a few seminal works, with additonal stuff appearing as references. Anyone have a good idea of what the seminal works are? --Beaker342 04:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I think everything, or most, is cited in the article somewhere.Ultramarine 11:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ultramarine, do you think that those citations would be better (or even ok) inline? I hesitate to convert them myself, given all of the work you've done here, but I wouldn't mind doing it. Smmurphy(Talk) 14:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes I think the references would be best placed in a references section. The parentheticals get distracting.--Beaker342 15:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Obivously it would be better if the article followed one citation style, now it uses several different ones. Personally I think Harvard referencing is superior to the "number" footnote system since one can follow the development of the field by looking at the year and, for example, see what is debated now. It also gives more credit to the individual researchers. Others may find it distracting. It someone is willing to convert to a single system, then that is fine with me.Ultramarine 15:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Kudos to whoever spent all the time citing all that material. The article could be made a little clearer, but still, wow. I stumbled upon the reference section on my ongoing hunt for citation farmers, and assumed all those sources could never have been used in the article. I was wrong. --Beaker342 15:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You are right about the Harvard style. I think we should probably leave them as they are (btw, WP:CITE says that Harvard is fine, and to bring it up on the talk page if you want to change from one style to another).  Best, Smmurphy(Talk) 16:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * As a learning student, the article seems to be very well-written. There is a wide-array of information to be understood, and there could use to be more sources to reflect this. The article is plenty complete, but there is always more information that can be added. And the concept is constantly being added upon and even challenged in some cases, which goes to show that this page will likely always be a work in progress. The article's amount of information is its biggest strength, but it requires a consistent citation style. Some of these must also be reformatted, as the formatting of the citations is not consistent throughout the article.Kspieker20 (talk) 19:53, 25 September 2020 (UTC)