Toward a Social-Democratic Peace?

Abstract

The decline in organized violence in the period after World War II provides the promise of a more peaceful future. How can we move further in this direction? Democratic peace—the absence of armed violence between democracies and the domestic peace of mature democracies—may provide part of the answer. This phenomenon is a well-established empirical regularity, but its mechanisms and its limits remain a subject of continuing research. The key role of democracy in reducing violence has been challenged by alternative explanations, such as the liberal peace, the capitalist peace, the developed peace, the organized peace, the quality of government peace, the feminist peace, and the civil society peace—but also by realism. In this essay, part of the roundtable “World Peace (And How We Can Achieve It),” I argue that it is a social-democratic peace that provides the best basis for a lasting world peace. This formula includes democracy but incorporates additional elements, such as a market economy, an active and competent state, close international cooperation, and the reduction of discrimination and group-based inequality. Combining these elements would provide a solid basis for eliminating violence between, as well as within, states. The main limitation of such a program is its demanding nature. Few states and interstate relations as yet fulfill all these conditions, but the long-term trends are moving in the right direction.

The domestic democratic peace: How democracy constrains political violence

“…There are a number of reasons why established democratic states provoke less violence than other regime types. Obvious among these is that democratic states are themselves less violent than other regimes, not least as their actions are constrained by law (Eck and Hultman, 2007: 533; Gleditsch NP, 2020). Because democratic states engage in less repression, and because the repression they deploy to defend the state is legally circumscribed, they generate fewer grievances.…”

“…Beyond these general patterns, there are more specific processes by which democratic structures can moderate the incidence of political violence, processes which act both on grievance formation and on the structure of political opportunities. Where democratic states institute formal opportunities for political participation, diverse and otherwise marginalized perspectives are more likely to be included within decision-making processes (Gleditsch NP, 2020). Institutionalized participation does not only provide channels for the expression of grievances; ideally, it allows for their reformulation as tractable political claims that can be the objects of negotiation, bargaining and credible commitments (Fearon, 2004).…”