Democratic Peace and Liberal Peace: Argumentative and Intentions

Abstract


 Some people believe that the concept of liberal peace should be seen in relation to the thesis of democratic peace. This literature focused more on whether democratic countries are more peaceful in their foreign relations and tried to provide a theoretical and empirical explanation for this. The democratic peace thesis states the following: 1) Democratic states rarely fight each other. 2) Democratic countries tend to be more open to international trade than non-democratic ones, which creates interdependencies that prevent war from breaking out between them.3) Democracies tend to be more internally peaceful than other systems. Here, it is important to point out that the thesis of democratic peace is closely related to Immanuel Kant’s idea of “perpetual peace”. As for the liberal peace thesis, from Richmond’s point of view, it bears four main aspects that emerged from the discussions in international theory and the different historical contexts related to the subject, especially in the West. These include the four aspects of liberal peace (victorious peace, constitutional peace, institutional peace, and civil peace). Richmond noted that the peace of the victor is the result of the old realist argument that peace depends on military victory and on the domination of the victor. But the peace of the victor may result in political resistance, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second, constitutional peace, derives from the Kantian argument that peace is the result of democracy, commerce, and a set of universal values based on individualism. Richmond notes that "the constitutional peace struggles with those who do not want to share power, and who do not want to entrench local legal structures that might prohibit their activities." As for institutional peace, it is the peace that results from normative and legal institutional arrangements between countries that agree - in a multilateral manner - on ways to act and impose or define their behavior. This can be found in international institutions such as the United Nations as well as regional organizations such as the European Union, the African Union (AU), the League of Arab States (AL), the Organization of American States (OAS), and subregional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The fourth aspect, (civil peace), which emphasizes the importance of the participation of citizens and civil society institutions in making peace. Unlike the other three aspects of liberal peace, the contribution of individuals rather than the state or international organization is included in this strategy.