Peace Through Democratization?

Abstract

Is successful democratic transition an effective tool for building international peace? Overall, the evidence presented in this book suggests a positive answer to this question. Although it does not contribute to the aggressiveness of transitional regimes, the successful process of democratization typically exerts no pacifying influence on foreign policy either. Yet, in accordance with the ‘democratic peace’ thesis, consolidated democracies — an outcome of successful democratization — have been historically inhibited from fighting wars with each other. The apparent contradiction between the separate ‘democratic peace’ and the absence of a general pacifying effect of democratic institutions and norms quickly disappears when we take into account the fact that cooperative intentions of a single state are not enough to maintain non-coercive international peace — other states need to be willing to reciprocate. The ‘pacific union’ of democratic regimes provides such a favourable international environment of reciprocity in which states can fully develop their peaceful qualities. Consequently, if not by making more countries more pacific, successful democratization strengthens international security through the expansion of an oasis of peaceful relations between well-established democratic regimes. Assuming that the historical trend envisioned by Immanuel Kant continues to hold, a world in which all countries are democratic should be free of large-scale international violence.