User:Pfafrich/Democratic peace theory (Specific historic examples)

Critics of the Democratic peace theory argue that there are many historic examples of wars between democracies. Supporters argue that closer examination shows that none of these conflicts were wars between democracies. These and other possible counter-examples have been discussed in great detail in the literature. Note that this discussion does not concern other claims made by the theory, like a statistical tendency for fewer 'MIDs' between democracies. Note also that more examples are discussed in the article about the book Never at War which also discuss the role of oligarchies.

Definitions
War and liberal democracy can be defined in different ways. The studies supporting the democratic peace theory have often defined war as any military action with more than 1000 killed in battle. This is the definition used in the Correlates of War Project which has also supplied the data regarding the wars and the militarized disputes for many of the studies. The early researcher R.J. Rummel required liberal democracies to have voting rights for at least 2/3 of all adult males and that the democracy should be older than 3 years at the start of the war. He also had some implicit criteria; for example, the elections must be contested and those elected must gain the real political power.

Another example of a definition of used for liberal democracies is requiring that at least 50% of the adult population is allowed to vote and that there has been at least one peaceful, constitutional transfer of executive power from one independent political party to another by means of an election. Many researchers have used the Polity Data Set which scores states for democracy on a continuous scale for every year from 1800 to 2003. There are also many other data sets used in conflict research.

Liberal democracy?
For the First World War critics have argued that the German Empire was a democracy and points out that a higher percentage could vote in the German Empire than in Britain. The Reichstag was elected by universal male suffrage and it did vote overwhelmingly to fund the war. Alternatively, they have argued that Britain was not a democracy since only three-fifths of British males could vote, to say nothing of the Empire beyond the Seas, the majority of which had no say in the decision at all. Supporters respond that the German Kaiser had the executive power. He appointed and dismissed the Chancellor, the Imperial officials, and the officers. He could and did declare war together with the not democratically elected Bundesrat, 30% of which was appointed by the Emperor, and most of the rest by the German princes. The Reichstag had little control over the executive power and its legislative power was greatly limited by the Bundesrat. The Emperor's appointees in the Bundesrat could themselves veto amendments to the German constitution. In 1913 the Chancellor ignored a vote of no confidence and there were often threats of a military coup d'etat if the Reichstag should ignore the Emperor on important issues. In effect, therefore, especially in foreign and military affairs, there was little democratic control. The Emperor was also the King of Prussia which had 3/5 of the German population and the Prussian constitution gave him even greater power there. The landed aristocracy of the Junkers formed the officer corps of the army, dominated Prussia, and had strong influence on national politics as well. If Britain was not a liberal democracy, then this is another reason why WWI was not a war between democracies. The last argument may however weaken the statistical support for the DPT, because fewer democracies mean fewer possible wars.

There can be similar responses to other objections. During the War of 1812, only a small minority had the right to vote in the United Kingdom, many new urban areas had no representation, the ballot was not secret, many seats in Parliament were appointed or openly bought from the owners of rotten boroughs, and the House of Lords could veto all laws. The defenders of DPT exclude the American Civil War because, in addition to it being an internal conflict, in the Confederate States of America less than 2/3 of the adult male population could vote, abolitionists were censored and imprisoned, and there was never a competitive presidential election. Only a minority had the right to vote in the Boer republics before the Boer Wars. Nawaz Sharif, the president of Pakistan at the time of the Kargil War, used terror tactics to silence critical press and the previously independent judiciary, for example storming the Supreme Court in order to force the Chief Justice out of office. Yassir Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority at the start of the latest conflicts with Israel, and Slobodan Milosevic, the president of the Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, can be criticized on similar grounds. There was never a democratic election in the Philippines before the Philippine-American War. All the Mexican presidents at the time of the conflicts with the U.S., like Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, took their power in coup d'etats. At the time of the War of the Pacific, only one man in fifty could vote in Chile and Peru. Spain had the Turno system and the monarchy retained important powers at the time of Spanish-American War.

Some tribes may have a form of democracy in the extended kinship group but no effective control of personal raids against non-kin groups. These often gradually involves friends and relatives and escalate to vendettas and wars. Examples include the Iroquois who frequently raided and eventually destroyed most of the Hurons. Such tribes and liberal democracies have fought one another.

Liberal democracies before the nineteenth century?
In Ancient Greece, city-states with limited democracy fought wars with one another. Most noted is the Sicilian Expedition by the Athenian democracy against Syracuse. These states had large numbers of non-voting slaves and metics. It is estimated that only 30-50% of adult males in Athens had the right to vote. The Roman republic and Carthage had limited democracy and fought the three Punic Wars. There were persistent wars among Venice, Florence, Genoa, and other Renaissance city-states with limited democracy.

Deaths in battle
The rule of at least 1000 killed in battle excludes attacks by one democracy on another in such overwhelming force that there is no effective resistance, and thus few deaths in battle. Some Indian Wars and small scale foreign interventions by the United States may be examples. One example is the non-battle deaths of 4000 Cherokee Native Americas during the Trail of Tears in 1838. The Cherokees had created a republican constitution in 1827 that in theory had many democratic rights. However, the nation allowed slaveholding and become increasingly authoritarian, in the end beating, censoring and even murdering those advocating a voluntary removal. The state of Georgia decreed that the government was dissolved in 1828 which was before three years had passed since the creation of the constitution.

Democracies have engaged in covert conflict resulting in a change of regime on the losing side. The British- and American-supported 1953 coup d'etat in Iran against Mohammed Mossadegh and the 1954 U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala, led by Carlos Castillo Armas are examples of such events, also excluded.

Five months after the start of the Continuation War, the United Kingdom reluctantly issued a formal declaration of war on Finland due to pressure from Soviet Union. However, the United Kingdom's only significant act of war happened prior to the declaration (a Royal Air Force raid on German-run mining operations in Petsamo), Finland spent the Second World War fighting a totalitarian opponent who had previously attacked the nation, the United Kingdom and Finland for almost the whole of WWII carefully avoided attacking one another, and the casualties were too few to be classified as a war statistically. There have been very few formal declarations of war since WWII and using this as the definition of war would mean that for example the US has fought no wars since WWII. The lavish material support the United Kingdom and the United States provided to Soviet Union raises the question if democracies can make war against other democracies through proxies.

Rummel's time limit
Rummel's version of the DPT has a requirement that the democracies must be stable and therefore must be older than three years. This excludes the war between the French Second Republic and the Roman Republic (19th century), the 1911-1912 war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire, and the 1991-1992 war between Yugoslavia and Croatia. The First Balkan War is excluded if one considers the Ottoman Empire to have become democratic after the first election in November 1908 or when the constitution was amended so that the parliament could control the cabinet in April 1909. The war started in October 1912, which would be before four years had passed. Critics instead argue that democracy occurred in July 1908 when a constitution was introduced. It is also doubtful if the opposing Christian states fulfill the democratic criteria since the Kings continued to have extensive powers in all of them. Studies using the Polity data set have required a score of least 7 out of 10, which excludes the French Second Republic (6), the Ottoman Empire (3), Croatia (3), and Yugoslavia (0) at the time of the wars.

The time limit and other requirements like democratic institutions and elections on both sides also exclude civil wars within democracies over legitimacy or secession, such as the American Civil War, the Sonderbund War, the Anglo-Irish War and the Irish Civil War which followed, and the 20th century civil wars in Colombia, Spain, Uruguay and Sri Lanka.