This is a straightforward question. I am attempting to see how many people agree with the notion of the democratic peace thesis, which I will explain after analyzing the poll results.
I can not vote for yes or no , most of the times a legitimate democratic regime has less chances to declare war than an autocratic one , even if you look at it statistically when was the last time two democracies fought a war against each other ?
Democracy is irrelevant in terms of peace, there is no way that this question could be answered. The actual political system any State uses does not affect their decision to make war or not. A communist system is not any less likely to go to war than a democratic system is.
The nature of Democracy in IR is much more complex than the domestic power source of political government. The question, henceforth, is answerable, but not absolutely definitive. However, for simplicity, I pose the inquiry as one of 'yes' or 'no' responses.
Democracy is just a technology of governance used by the ruling elite, and it does not affect the peacefulness or the aggressiveness. All the couses of wars are the economic interests of the ruling class, not the way it control the people.
IR theory doesn't really address democracy as a single entity per se. It breaks it down into different ideologies such as realism, liberalism, economic structuralism, feminism, constructivism, and so on. Writers on IR theory such as Wendt, Hobbes, Lock, Kent... and so on would argue that there is not really such a thing as a democracy that can be defined to broadly encompass a multitude of States. Each State acts differently, even if you claim they are democratic, depending on a number of varying factors.
Sorry, but the question is somewhat clumsy. For example, none of us live in a pure democracy. Secondly, what constitutes peace? From all accounts, the first democracy in Greece did not prevent war nor do the ones now. I suppose one could argue that if all nations had the same form of government then war would cease to be. Perhaps that is the incentive for all of the world's democracies trying to take out dictatorships one by one in the Middle East with war no less, whch is pretty ironic in itself. It would not surprise me if their foreign policies were based on such poo. It reminds me of why the US picked a fight with Vietnam. The consensus was that if they US did not start fighting off communism in countries like this then countries would start to fall like dominos to communism around the world. The ignorance in Washington is astounding. I mean, I can picture "W" thinking up this stuff but the whole city seems to think the same way. LOL. As for myself, the whole globalist utopia in regards of the notion of a one world government makes me uneasy. For you see, although it may avert war on a large scale, what you have done is basically remove checks and balances regarding tyranny. For example, what if a one world government of some kind formed and then morphed into a Nazi like nightmare? We have all seen how governments evolve into giant beasts with ever decreasing checks and balances. And when these governments over step their bounds other governments are there to war with them as a check and balance. What would the world have done if there were no other opposing world power to oppose Nazism even if they had elections?
Most IR theorists would argue that a democracy is a power source of political government in the form of free and fair elections and protection of fundamental rights and freedoms by constitutional law (Fukuyama). These constitute institutions of governance, which, as a typical definition of 'institution' in IR prescribes, constrains the activities of an actor within the international system. Still, as you said, and as others have said, there is no such thing as a pure democracy, which is why there are broad definitions of democracy in IR. Nevertheless, when looking at the empirics as manifestations from the qualitative analyses, based in liberal institutionalism, on democratic peace thesis, one sees that such has almost complete robustness (Ray). Sources: Ray, James Lee. "Does Democracy Cause Peace?". Annual Review Political Science (199, 1: 27-46. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man.
The form of government has absolutely nothing to do with peace or not. After all, Germany was a Democratic Republic, and look what they did. The United Kingdom was a Democracy, and look at all of "Vicky's Little Wars". Sorry, the entire premise of this is flawed. You could take a country like say Palestine, make it a democracy, and I bet a lot of people would actually vote to go to war with Israel. Democracies can actually be one of the most stupid forms of government in the world, which is why I am glad I do not live in one. It is essentially mob rule, and if you go back 120 years I am sure most of the people in this country if given the right to vote about it would have supported "Jim Crowe", ownership of individuals, or the deportation of blacks out of the US after the Civil War. After all, everybody knew they were inferior, did not have the same intelliegence as white people, and did not deserve the same rights. Thank goodness that never happened, because our nation is not a Democracy, but a Representative Republic. Because a Democracy can often get away with anything it wants, simply blaming it on the "will of the people".
Not when the citizens have little to no influence on government policy. There's a huge disparity between Washington's policies and what the public wants.
