Christopher Layne of Los Angeles is an unaffiliated scholar. He is presently a consultant to the government contracts practice group of the law firm of Hill, Wynne, Troop and Meisinger, which represents major firms in the defense industry.
I am extremely grateful to the following colleagues who reviewed various drafts of this paper and offered helpful criticisms: John Arquilla, Ted Galen Carpenter, Kerry Andrew Chase, Jeffry Frieden, John Mearsheimer, Benjamin C. Schwarz, Jack Snyder, Stephen Walt, and Kenneth Waltz. I also thank Stephen Van Evera and David Spiro for providing me copies of, and permission to quote from, their unpublished works.
1. I use the term "democratic peace theory" because it is a convenient shorthand term. However, strictly speaking, the claim that democracies do not fight democracies is a proposition, or hypothesis, rather than a theory. Democratic peace "theory" proposes a causal relationship between an independent variable (democratic political structures at the unit level) and the dependent variable (the asserted absence of war between democratic states). However, it is not a true theory because the causal relationship between the independent and dependent variables is neither proven nor, as I demonstrate in this article, adequately explained. See Stephen Van Evera, "Hypotheses, Laws and Theories: A User's Guide," unpub. memo, Department of Political Science, MIT.
2. Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), chap. 7; and Russett, "Can A Democratic Peace Be Built?" International Interactions, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Spring 1993), pp. 277-282.
3. In this article, I build upon and expand the criticisms of democratic peace theory found in John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-56; and Kenneth N. Waltz, "America as Model for the World? A Foreign Policy Perspective," PS (December 1991), pp. 667-670.
4. Other cases of crises between democratic great powers that might be studied include Anglo-French relations during the Liberal entente cordiale of 1832-48, Franco-Italian relations during the late 1880s and early 1890s and, if Wilhelmine Germany is classified as a democracy, the Moroccan crises of 1905-06 and 1911 and the Samoan crises of 1889 and 1899. These cases would support my conclusions. For example, from 1832 to 1848, the Foxite legacy disposed England's Whigs to feel a strong commitment to France based on a shared liberal ideology. Yet Anglo-French relations during this period were marked by intense geopolitical rivalry over Belgium, Spain, and the Near East, and the threat of war was always a factor in the calculations of policymakers in both London and Paris. Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston profoundly distrusted French ambitions and constantly urged that England maintain sufficient naval power to defend its interests against a French challenge. See Kenneth Bourne, Palmerston; The Early Years, 1784-1841 (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 613. Also see Roger Bullen, Palmerston, Guizot and the Collapse of the Entente Cordiale (London: Athlone Press, 1974); and Sir Charles Webster, The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, Vol. I: 1830-1841, Britain, The Liberal Movement and The Eastern Question (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1951). Italy challenged France for Mediterranean ascendancy although the two nations were bound by liberalism, democracy, and a common culture. The two states engaged in a trade war and came close to a real war. France apparently was dissuaded from attacking Italy in 1888 when the British Channel Fleet was sent to the Italian naval base of La Spezia. Italy was prevented from attacking France by its military and economic weakness. See C.J. Lowe and F. Marzari, Italian Foreign Policy, 1870-1940 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, chap. 4; C.J. Lowe, The Reluctant Imperialists: British Foreign Policy 1879-1902 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), Vol. I, pp. 147-150; John A.C. Conybeare, Trade Wars: The Theory and Practice of International Commercial Rivalry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), pp. 183-188.
5. Melvin Small and J. David Singer first observed the pattern of democracies not fighting democracies in a 1976 article: Small and Singer, "The War-proneness of Democratic Regimes, 1816-1865," Jerusalem Journal of...