Democracy through war?

Democratization

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 487-508

  Merkel, Wolfgang ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Defective democracy; Democratic intervention; Democratic peace; Humanitarian intervention; Hybrid regimes

Indexed keywords

EID: 46249097687     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: 1743890X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340801991106     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. Mansfield and Snyder are a notable exception. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, 'Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and War', International Organization, Vol. 56, No. 2 (2002), pp. 297-337.
2. This is even more so when we take into account that in the past three decades most wars have been internal conflicts rather than intra-state conflicts. These, in turn, are more likely to be understood by political regime research than international relations research.
3. Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden (Stuttgart: Reclam, [1795] 2005), p. 24.
4. See Wolfgang Merkel, Systemtransformation, 2. erw. Aufl. (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008) (forthcoming).
5. Melvin Small and J. David Singer, 'The War-proneness of Democratic Regimes, 1816-1965,' The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations No. 1 (April 1976), pp. 50-69;
6. Bruce M. Russett and John Oneal, Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001);
7. Andreas Hasenclever and Wolfgang Wagner, 'From the Analysis of a Separate Democratic Peace to the Liberal Study of International Conflict', International Politics, Vol. 41, No. 4 (2004), pp. 465-71.
8. Kant (note 3), p. 12 f.
9. Mansfield and Snyder (note 1), p. 300.
10. Lothar Brock, Anna Geis, and Harald Müller, Democratic Wars. Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 6.
11. Johan Galtung, 'Democracy: Dictatorship = Peace: War?', in Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilisation (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 49-59.
12. See for example Rudolph J. Rummel, 'Libertarianism and International Violence', Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 27, No. 1 (1983), pp. 27-71;
13. Michael W. Doyle, 'Liberalism and World Politics', American Political Science Review, Vol. 80, No. 4 (1986), pp. 1151-69;
14. Michael W. Doyle, 'Three Pillars of the Liberal Peace', American Political Science Review, Vol. 99, No. 3 (2005), pp. 463-66;
15. Bruce M. Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold-War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Russett and Oneal (note 5).
16. David Kinsella, 'No Rest for the Democratic Peace', American Political Science Review, Vol. 99, No. 3 (2005), pp. 453-8.
17. See for example Michael W. Doyle, 'Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part I', Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 3 (June 1983), pp. 205-35, here p. 206.
18. Wolfgang Merkel, 'Embedded and Defective Democracies', Democratization, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2004), pp. 33-58.
19. Linz calls South Africa and Rhodesia 'racist democracies'. Juan Linz, 'Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes', in Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds), Handbook of Political Science, Vol.3, Macropolitical Theory (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975), pp. 175-411.
20. Compare the Indian interventions in Pakistan in 1965-1966, 1971-1972, 1981, and 1984-1987.
21. Harald Müller and Jonas Wolff, 'Democratic Peace: Many Data, Little Explanation?' in Lothar Brock (ed.), Democratic Wars. Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (London: Palgrave, 2006), pp. 41-73, here p. 68.
22. Mansfield and Snyder (note 1); p. 300.
23. Doyle argues that this fact - that democracies trust other democracies and not autocracies - above all, makes war unlikely between democracies but not between democracies and dictatorships. Michael W. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace (New York: Norton, 1997).
24. Merkel (note 13).
25. Rosato offers a notable example of an oversimplified understanding of democracy. Based on inconsistent sources and without further ado, he declares 19th-century Great Britain, Belgium at the end of the 19th century, Iran in 1953, Indonesia in 1957, and Nicaragua in 1984 to be democracies. Sebastian Rosato, 'The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory', American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 4 (2003), pp. 585-602, here pp. 589 f.
26. Nevertheless, both Wilson and Roosevelt based their justifications for US entry into the two world wars on democracy arguments.
27. On the cases of Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, see Bernhard Zangl and Michael Zürn, Frieden und Krieg (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 2003), pp. 224-45.
28. Nils Petter Gleditsch, Lene Siljeholm Christiansen, and Hårvard Hegre, Democratic Jihad? Military Intervention and Democracy, Ms. Oslo (2004), pp. 26 f. Paper prepared for the Workshop on 'Resources, Governance Structures, and Civil War', ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, Uppsala, Sweden, 13-18 April 2004.
29. That this is in no way a legitimation for 'democratic wars of aggression', wars intended to bring about democracy, will become clear during the course of this article.
30. Scott Gates and Harvard Strand, Military Intervention, Democratization, and Post-conflict Political Stability, Ms. Montreal (2004). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 17 March 2004.
31. On the 'logic of appropriateness' see James G. March and Johan P. Olson, 'The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life', American Political Science Review, Vol. 78, No. 3 (1984), pp. 738-49.
32. Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990);
33. Hans-Joachim Lauth, Demokratie und Demokratiemessung, eine konzeptionelle Grundlegung fur̈ den interkulturellen Vergleich (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004).
34. Michael Burton, Richard Gunther, and John Higley, 'Introduction: Elite Transformations and Democratic Regimes', in John Higley and Richard Gunther (eds), Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 1-37, here pp. 13 ff.
35. Gleditsch et al. (note 23), p. 33.
36. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, 'Democratization and the Danger of War', International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1995), pp. 5-38; Mansfield and Snyder (note 1);
37. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, Electing to Fight. Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
38. Thus another reason why a brief glance at the Polity IV and Freedom House democracy scores is insuf- ficient is because these indices do not reveal anything about the unfolding of the democratization process over time.
39. The Greek junta's occupation of Cyprus in 1973 and the Argentinean generals' war in the South Atlantic Falklands/Malvinas make clear the hazards of using foreign policy as a strategy of legitimation. The Balkan wars of the 1990s and the religious sectarian power struggle in Iraq show the perils of mobilising people on the basis of primordial beliefs.
40. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968).
41. Mansfield and Snyder (note 30), p. 13.
42. See for example Mansfield and Snyder (note 30); Gates and Strand (note 25); Gleditsch et al. (note 23).
43. Gleditsch et al. (note 23).
44. 'Democratic wars of aggression' here refers to wars initiated by democracies with the goal of democratizing an autocratic regime.
45. Rudolph Rummel, 'Focus on: Power, Genocide, and Mass Murder', Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 31, No. 1 (1994), pp. 1-10; Gleditsch et al. (note 23), p. 13.
46. Ulrich K. Preuss, 'Der Kosovo-Krieg, das Volkerrecht und die Moral', in Reinhard Merkel (ed.), Der Kosovo-Krieg und das Völkerrecht (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 2000), pp. 115-37.
47. Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri Tres (Drei B-dsucher vom Recht des Krieges und des Friedens), Paris 1625, New German and Introduction by Walter Schätzel (Tübingen: Verlag J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1950), pp. 47-82.
48. Quoted from Preuss (note 39), p. 118.
49. Preuss (note 39), p. 118.
50. See Reinhard Merkel in this collection.
51. Kay Hailbronner, 'Der Staat und der Einzelne als Völkerrechtssubjekte', in Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum (ed.), Völkerrecht, 4th ed. (Berlin: DeGruyter Lehrbuch, 2007), pp. 169 ff.
52. Reinhard Merkel, 'Das Elend der Beschützten. Rechtsethische Grundlagen und Grenzen der sog. Humanitären Intervention und die Verwerflichkeit der NATO-Aktion im Kosovo-Krieg', in Reinhard Merkel (ed.), Der Kosovo-Krieg und das Völkerrechti] (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 2000), pp. 66-98, here p. 81.
53. Ibid., p. 79.
54. Ibid.
55. Not counted here are the approximately one million deaths that followed from Saddam Hussein's illegal attack on Iran.
56. This applies especially to China, but also to Russia and occasionally even to the democratic US.
57. Otfried Höffe, Demokratie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung (München: C. H. Beck, 1999), pp. 352 ff.
58. See for example Höffe (note 50), p. 79.
59. Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945).
60. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977);
61. Michael Walzer, Erkläarte Kriege - Kriegserkläarungen (Hamburg: Europäaische Verlagsanstalt, 2003);
62. Michael Walzer, Arguing about War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).
63. Ibid.
64. This position is not recognized by international law positivists. State sovereignty is a sufficient end in itself. According to this legal positivist view, even murderous totalitarian regimes do not lose their sovereignty.
65. Walzer, Erklärte Kriege (note 53);
66. Otfried Höffe, 'Humanitäre Intervention? Rechtsethische Überlegungen', in Reinhard Merkel (ed.), Der Kosovo-Krieg und das Völkerrecht (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 2000), pp. 167-86, here p. 169;
67. Gary J. Bass, 'Jus post bellum', Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 4 (2004), pp. 384-412.
68. Walzer, Erklärte Kriege (note 53), p. 96.
69. John Rawls, Das Recht der Völker (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2002).
70. Bass (note 56), pp. 386, 406.
71. This has been the situation in the US since at least 2006 after the number of casualties as a result of the American occupation in Iraq increased. A forteriori, the same occurred during the last years of the Vietnam War.
72. Walzer, Erklärte Kriege (note 53).
73. Ibid., p. 66.
74. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (note 53), p. 123, 'The theory of ends in war is shaped by the same rights that justify the fighting in the first place.'
75. Robert O. Keohane, 'Political Authority after Interventions: Gradations in Sovereignty', in Jeff L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 275-98, here pp. 275 ff.
76. Brian Orend, War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfried Laurier UP, 2000), pp. 217-63.
77. Rawls (note 58), p. 137.
78. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (note 53), p. 107.
79. Bass (note 56), p. 412.
80. Mansfield and Snyder (note 1), p. 334.
81. Only Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair made a notable contribution. The governments of Italy and Poland would have gladly stood on the side of the victors with symbolic troop contributions. The conservative Spanish President José María Aznar wanted to prove his loyalty to the Bush administration. Italy and Spain have already left the 'alliance of the willing'; Poland will do so in the near future.