Shaky Logic for Democratic Peace

Democratic Peace theory is an interesting one to me. While the theory is supported by evidence that in the past decades democracies had not gone to war with one another, none of the claims as to why this is true are strong enough to support the argument alone. One argument is that any states that have similar social structures would be more likely to cooperate. However, this argument is challenged by feudal warfare. Hegemony has also been used to explain this phenomenon; however, hegemonic theories are not sufficient enough because there are not enough examples to support them. Another argument is that there are no deep conflicts between democratic states, but this statement seems too general to me. It has been suggested by liberal theorists that democratic states are less likely to go to war because the people bear the costs of war and are therefore less likely. But this argument does nothing to satisfy the fact that democratic states often go to war with other authoritarian regimes and democratic states are just as war prone. One of the strongest arguments in my opinion is the commerce and free trade argument. In my opinion, trade relations would seem to be one of the major reasons why states would be less likely to go to war. But this doesn’t necessarily apply to relations between democratic states. The US and China are an example of how war between states with different types of governments will be less likely to engage in major military battles because of trade agreements. While used together, these theories may help explain the peace that exists between democratic states. However, I think that these theories are still inefficient and more research needs to be done. (all information from Doyle “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs.”)