Democracy and Peace

To the Editors: Certain topics have currency. If one is to judge from scholarly publications and statements by foreign policy elites, the relationship between democracy and peace is one of those topics. There have been differences over definitions and debate about whether the relationship between democracy and peace is absolute. There is disagreement as to whether normative or institutional factors better explain the relationship. But there appears to be little doubt in the minds of most observers that the “joint democracy effect”is real and, for some, it approaches the status of an empirical law of international relations.’ Stated simply, while states characterized by democratic polities are as warprone as any other states,democraciesrarely (if ever) engage in war against one another. Extrapolating the logic, a world of democracies would be a peaceful world (although the path to this end might be strewn with conflict).2 Any time scholars write about empirical laws and policy elites invoke such laws to just6 policy behavior, one should be wary. Yet, in this case, the weight of evidence seems to support the claim. Nevertheless, there are dissenting views. The article ”Polities and Peace” by Henry Farber and Joanne Gowa that appears in the Fall 1995 issue of International Security (and has since been reprinted in Debating the Democratic Peace) stands out as, perhaps, the most carefully crafted challenge to the democratic peace the~is.~ If Professors Farber and Gowa are correct, the democratic peace thesis is “without legs,“ and policies based on the thesis ill-advised. “Polities and Peace” is an extremely appealing article. The exposition of substantive arguments and quantitative methodology is wonderfully lucid. The attention to detail, explanation of methodology, and discussion of findings provide a textbook example of how quantitative analysis should be presented. The issue addressed is important and policy relevant; the conclusion contrary to “conventional wisdom.“ There is, to my Charles 5. Gochman is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Henry S. Farber is the Hughes Rogers Professor of Economics at Princeton University. joanne Gowa is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. 1. Jack S. Levy, “Domestic Politics and War,” journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Spring 19881, pp. 653-673. 2. On this latter point, see Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratizationand the Danger of War,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 5-38, and Edward D. Mansfield and JackSnyder, ”Correspondence:Democratization and the Danger of War,” Intemational Security, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Spring 1996),pp. 196-207. 3. Henry S. Farber and JoanneGowa, “Polities and Peace,”International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall1995),pp. 12S146; MichaelE. Brown,SeanM. Lynn-Jones,and StevenE. Miller,eds., Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge,Mass.:MIT Press, 1996). International Securily, Vol.21, No. 3 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 177-187 0 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 177 International Security 21:3 I 178 mind, only one major problem. I believe the authors have misread their results and the appropriate inference from their findings is opposite of what they conclude. More precisely, Farber and Gowa report that the joint democracy effect underlying the democratic peace thesis is, first, largely a post-World War I1 phenomenon and, second, more convincingly explained by the existence of common interests than by the normative or institutional explanations proffered in the literature. I would suggest that Professors Farber and Gowa‘s analysis indicates that the ”joint democracy effect” was at work prior to 1946, and that the distinction drawn between normative and institutional explanations and interest-based explanations cannot be sustained. THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE PRIOR TO 1946 The basis for Farber and Gowa‘s conclusionsis straightforward. They argue that if the democratic peace thesis is valid, it should apply to relations among democratic states regardless of the historical period. They examine the conflict behavior of states from 1816 through 1980, concentrating primarily on the years prior to World War I and following World War 11. They find that while the behavior of democratic states is consistent with the thesis in the years after World War I1 (1946-801, it is not during the years prior to World...