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  1. Home
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  3. The Militant Face of Democracy
  • Cited by 24
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
October 2013
Print publication year:
2013
Online ISBN:
9781139764391
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139764391
Subjects:
Politics and International Relations, International Relations and International Organisations
Information

Book description

Democratic peace theory - the argument that democracies very rarely go to war with each other - has come under attack recently for being too naïve and for neglecting the vast amount of wars fought by democracies, especially since the end of the Cold War. This volume offers a fresh perspective by arguing that the same norms that are responsible for the democratic peace can be argued to be responsible for democratic war-proneness. The authors show that democratic norms, which are usually understood to cause peaceful behaviour, are heavily contested when dealing with a non-democratic other. The book thus integrates democratic peace and democratic war into one consistent theoretical perspective, emphasising the impact of national identity. The book concludes by arguing that all democracies have a 'weak spot' where they would be willing to engage militarily.

Reviews

‘Focusing on the dark side of the democratic peace, this book inquires into the ambivalences that have arisen when democracies fight non-democracies. Focusing on different types of war since the end of the Cold War, this theoretically self-conscious, well-designed, data-rich, methodologically sophisticated, tightly argued and morally nuanced book opens up a new avenue for research that both enriches and unsettles the conventional wisdom. Its conclusions pose important intellectual challenges that will influence international relations research and graduate instructions for years to come.’

Peter J. Katzenstein - Walter S. Carpenter, Jr Professor of International Studies, Cornell University

‘Liberal democracies may not fight one another but they go to war more frequently than other regime types. Contributors to this volume find that they do so more for humanitarian reasons than to bring about regime change or uphold regional and international order. They find a deep ambivalence about conflict and war in democracies. Exemplary case studies of multiple democracies inform these conclusions. Substantively and theoretically, this is the most impressive study to date of a critically important subject.’

Richard Ned Lebow - King's College London

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