Democratic Peace Theory 1
-
First conceptualized by Woodrow Wilson and usually applied with the Liberalism governance style
-
Democratic peace theory: Democratic States don’t go to war with one another
-
factors are held as motivating peace between democratic states:
- Democratic leaders are forced to accept responsibility for war losses to a voting public;
- Publicly accountable statespeople are inclined to establish diplomatic institutions for resolving international tensions;
- Democracies are not inclined to view countries with adjacent policy and governing doctrine as hostile;
- Democracies tend to possess greater public wealth than other states, and therefore avoid war to preserve infrastructure and resources.
Criticism: Relations among democracies could be from the democratic US side of the Cold War bipolar world.