Democracy and Integration

Why Democracies Don't Fight Each Other

Bibliographic Data

ID3917229
AuthorsHarvey Starr (0000-0002-3123-3398, University of South Carolina, corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume34
Issue2
Pages153-162
Publication date1997-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Peace Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022343397034002003
OpenAlexW2098098315
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited33

While a large and growing literature has emerged which investigates the impact of the expansion of democracy on foreign policy and international politics, much of it has been characterized by insufficient attention to theoretical and conceptual clarity. To address such problems, this article is an exercise in concept clarification. It stresses that the democratic peace is a subset of the processes and results of integration, that it fits within an integration framework, and that it works according to processes already identified by integration theory which permits the synthesis of a number of `contending' explanations for the democratic peace. As part of this argument, the article also stresses the transparent nature of democracy, emphasizing the importance of the mutual perceptions of two democracies, that the other is clearly a democracy. Finally, this article reminds scholars that the focus of the democratic peace proposition is on war. While it is important to explore our theories in terms of their extension to other conflictual phenomena, we must be careful in specifying exactly what these relationships should look like

Argument (complex analysis) · CLARITY · Democracy · Economic system · Economics · Epistemology · Extension (predicate logic) · Foreign policy · International relations · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Proposition · Sociology · Computer Science · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Philosophy · Political Conflict and Governance