CONCLUSION
Democratic Peace

Study
There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that democracies do not go to war with one another, and political scientists have termed this notion the "democratic peace." There are many theories that offer explanations for this phenomenon. From the identity perspective, for example, some suggest that perhaps democracies are inherently peaceful or that they avoid war on account of their shared norms. The liberal perspective, on the other hand, is likely to explain this correlation in terms of democracies' high levels of trade with one another, common institutional membership, or unique negotiating advantages which allow them to reach settlements other than war. Realists, finally, often attribute this phenomenon to the fact that democracies often belong to the same alliances or that they are able to deftly use balance of power politics to avoid war.

Study Questions

1. What is the democratic peace, and what evidence exists to support it?
   



2. What is an explanation that realists give to account for the democratic peace?
   



3. What is an explanation at the domestic level of analysis that accounts for the democratic peace?