Democracies and Peace

The Self-organizing Foundation for the Democratic Peace

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6399341
AutoresGus Dizerega (autor de correspondencia)
Año1995
Volumen57
Número2
Páginas279-308
Fecha de publicación1995-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670500026905
OpenAlexW1988341726
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas37

Democracies do not fight one another. This is because they are self-organizing systems and therefore fundamentally distinct from other states. As systems, liberal democracies have more in common with science and the market than they do with undemocratic states. By contrast, undemocratic states are best conceived as instrumental organizations pursuing relatively well defined goals. Liberal democracies do not normally pursue particular goals, are rarely comprehensible as rational actors, have unusually open boundaries, are self-transforming, and handle greater complexity than instrumental organizations. These characteristics provide the foundation for their mutually pacific relationships. The U.S. president's partial insulation from these characteristics explains why the United States has sometimes undermined small quasi-democratic states. This analysis sheds light on how norms and institutions help maintain the democratic peace

Democracy · Foundation (evidence · Law and economics · Liberal democracy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration · Religion and Society Interactions