Habermas and Democratic Peace Theory

The Democratic Peace Theory often comes under fire when nations such as our own undertake unilateral policies bent on the conquest of the world… Now, that may have been over the line, but it’s true that the concept that democratic nations go to war less often seems false when the world’s first modern republic seems to be fighting more so than some autocratic regimes. In order to defend this theory, the answer seems obvious; America is no longer a Democracy, or at least an effective one.

 

            The great political philosopher Jurgen Habermas grew up during and after the Nazi regime in Germany and he came to the realization, as many other Germans did, that their nation had been responsible for one of the largest atrocities in all human history. While Germany represented a European cultural center, producing major advances literature, music, art and the like, Habermas points to the fact that Germans lacked critical discussion prior to Hitler’s take over; it was not a question of civilization values and the like. The only party to vote against the enabling act was the Democratic Socialist party (being one, I had to include that in there), while all other parties voted to enable dictatorship. But why was there a lack of critical discussion? The answer is distortion. Habermas believes that distortion comes in many forms (i.e. race, religion, class, sex, etc.), this distortion diminishes the ability of a nation to implement true deliberative democracy.

 

            In the current American democracy, fear represents the greatest distortion. Unlike the successful presidencies of presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, where we had, “nothing to fear but fear itself”, politicians now regularly use fear to distort the political process of deliberative democracy. This distortion does not represent anything new in the world of politics however, as Herman Goering said,

 

“Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

 

As he says, “Naturally the common people don’t want war”, it is clear that democratic systems work when they are undistorted. The question is how do we achieve an undistorted democratic forum especially in the age of globalization?