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Fishing in the mild West: democratic peace and militarised interstate disputes in the transatlantic
community
GUNTHER HELLMANN and BENJAMIN HERBORTH
Review of International Studies / Volume 34 / Issue 03 / July 2008, pp 481 - 506
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210508008139, Published online: 30 May 2008
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0260210508008139
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GUNTHER HELLMANN and BENJAMIN HERBORTH (2008). Fishing in the mild West: democratic peace and militarised
interstate disputes in the transatlantic community. Review of International Studies, 34, pp 481-506 doi:10.1017/
S0260210508008139
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Review of International Studies (2008), 34, 481–506 Copyright British International Studies Association
doi:10.1017/S0260210508008139
Fishing in the mild West: democratic peace
and militarised interstate disputes in the
transatlantic community
GUNTHER HELLMANN AND BENJAMIN HERBORTH*
Abstract. According to many of its proponents, the proposition that democracies do not fight
each other is ‘as close as anything we have to an empirical law’.
1
However, there have been
several incidents among solidified liberal democracies where force was threatened or even used.
Since these inter-democratic militarised interstate disputes (MIDs) almost always took place in
the context of fisheries disputes, we examine two of these conflicts in detail: the cod wars
between Iceland and Britain between the 1950s and the 1970s and the turbot war between
Canada and Spain. We ask why these fisheries conflicts became militarised in the first place but
did not escalate further. In both cases it was actually the presumed impossibility of a more
violent escalation which led the parties to use force in the first place. Moreover, the (limited)
use of force was almost always accompanied by the efforts of the parties involved to achieve
some formalisation of international rules in the context of expanding regimes. Having
demonstrated how some of the more prominent causal mechanisms stipulated by democratic
peace theorists fail to convincingly account of these cases, we refrain from concluding that any
of this falsifies the democratic peace proposition. However, in conclusion we do call into
question the premises of the falsificationist methodology underlying much of the democratic
peace debate on both theoretical and metholdological grounds. Reframing the democratic
peace proposition in terms of a large-scale process of descuritisation, we contend, allows us to
understand better how democratic interstate interaction remains inherently conflictive and
possibly still subject to process of resecuritisation.
Introduction
Since the end of World War II the so-called ‘Western world’ (essentially NATO and
the EU) has been hailed as a community of states approaching the ideal of a zone of
democratic peace as no other region. Yet there have been several incidents among
solidified liberal democracies where force was threatened or even used. Such
militarised interstate disputes (MIDs) almost always took place in the context of
* For helpful comments and instructive criticism we’d like to thank Rainer Baumann, Lennart
Bergfeldt, Christian Bu¨ger, Matthias Dembinski, Nils Petter Gleditsch, David Haglund, Andreas
Hasenclever, John MacMillan, Harald Mu¨ller, Torbjorn Knutsen, Wolfgang Wagner, Ole Wæver,
Sascha Werthes and Reinhard Wolf as well as the participants of a PRIF research seminar. For
technical assistance we are grateful to Sonja Schirmbeck and Johanna Rehner.
1
Jack Levy, ‘The Causes of War: A Review on Theory and Evidence’, in Philip E. Tetlock, Jo L.
Husbands, Robert Jervis, Paul C. Stern and Charles Tilly (eds), Behaviour, Society, and Nuclear
War (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 270.
481
fisheries conflicts.
2
Against the background of the liberal theory of the democratic
peace, these cases present some irritating evidence because democracies are said to
‘rarely escalate’ such disputes ‘ to the point where they threaten to use military force
against each other, or actually use force at all’.
3
Yet this is what happened in several
cases of intra-Western fisheries disputes – among others in a series of conflictual
encounters between Iceland and Britain between the 1950s and 1970s (the so-called
‘cod wars’) or between Canada and Spain (the so-called ‘ turbot war’) as recently as
1995. These militarised disputes are even more puzzling since several of the
peace-building factors proposed by democratic peace theories were present: besides
being highly developed liberal democracies these states were also significantly
interdependent economically as well as members of highly institutionalised
international organisations (NATO and the EU). Given that the three Kantian
peace-stabilising factors (democracy, interdependence and international organis-
ation) were present, it would seem self-evident to expect a peaceful resolution.
4
Nevertheless, force was threatened or even used although conflicts never escalated to
full-scale war.
In this article we examine in detail why fisheries conflicts such as the cod wars and
the turbot war became militarised in the first place but did not escalate further. In
order to examine the underlying dynamic of these processes we will examine a limited
number of cases via detailed historical analysis. Contrary to much of what has been
written by democratic peace proponents about the presumed mechanism underlying
inter-democratic conflict resolution, accomodationist strategies – such as ‘mediation,
negotiation, or other forms of peaceful diplomacy’
5
– were largely absent during
crucial phases of these conflicts even though the most important prerequisites for
peaceful resolution (highly developed liberal democracies, interdependence, joint
membership in highly institutionalised international organisations and a ‘security
community’) were present. Instead, sticks seem to trump carrots during critical
phases of the conflict. Still, none of these conflicts escalated to full-scale war – which
is exactly what democratic peace theorists would expect. Indeed there is evidence in
both cases that it was actually the presumed impossibility of such an escalation which
made initiating small-scale violence to use force a viable option in the first place.
Moreover, the (limited) use of force was almost always accompanied or followed by
efforts of the parties involved to achieve some formalisation of international rules in
the context of expanding regimes. Thus, whereas the core argument of the democratic
peace literature is by no means disconfirmed, the various causal dynamics suggested
2
Cf. Sara McLaughlin Mitchell and Brandon C. Prins, ‘Beyond Territorial Contiguity: Issues at
Stake in Democratic Militarised Interstate Disputes’, International Studies Quarterly, 43:1 (1999),
p. 175; Jennifer Bailey, ‘Hot Fish and Bargaining Chips’, Journal of Peace Research, 33:3 (1996),
pp. 257–62.
3
Bruce Russett, ‘And Yet It Moves (Correspondence on the Democratic Peace)’, International
Security, 19:4 (1995), p. 172.
4
John R. Oneal and Bruce Russett, ‘The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy,
Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1885–1992’, World Politics, 52:1 (1999),
pp. 1–37; John R. Oneal and Michael L. Berbaum, ‘Causes of Peace: Democracy, Interdependence,
and International Organizations, 1886–1992’, International Studies Quarterly, 47:3 (2003),
pp. 371–93.
5
Russett, ‘It Moves’, p. 172; see also Willliam J. Dixon, ‘Democracy and the Peaceful Settlement of
International Conflict’, American Political Science Review, 88:1 (1994), pp. 14–32; Willliam J.
Dixon, ‘Democracy and the Management of International Conflict’, Journal of Conflict Resolution,
37:1 (1993), pp. 79–101.
482 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
by democratic peace theorists are obviously deficient in convincingly accounting for
this. This suggests two paths for further research. First, given that even among highly
developed democracies the processes of interaction somewhat euphemistically re-
ferred to as processes of collective identity formation by several democratic peace
theorists
6
may still be highly conflictive, we need to learn more about the conditions
under which democracies consider it legitimate and/or useful to resort to aggressive
strategies in pursuit of certain objectives. Second, the connections between the use of
aggressive power politics strategies and tactics as a means to promote regime building
has, to our knowledge, thus far been largely neglected. Questions such as these should
be examined in more detail in the future.
In the context of the research programme on the democratic peace the cases we
examine here can be viewed as part of what Christopher Layne
7
has termed ‘near
misses’, that is, crises where two democracies almost went to war with each other.
Yet whereas these projects were trying to prove the ‘insignificance’ of the
democratic peace, arguing that factors other than those favoured by democratic
peace proponents were responsible for the observable outcome, we are interested in
a particular class of MIDs among democracies where we are trying to find out why
these conflicts escalated at all. Some scholars have questioned whether conflicts such
as the cod wars or the turbot war are actually relevant for the research programme
on the democratic peace.
8
Given the fact that these conflicts did not only involve
public force on both sides (even though private actors did play an important role) but
also fervid emotion and public mobilisation, we argue that they do indeed belong into
this context.
Before we proceed we should, however, add some remarks as to the theoretical
perspective of the article. We fully share the normative appreciation of the democratic
peace which is prevalent among the majority of democratic peace researchers:
it is desirable to further expand democracy not only in order to create security
communities but also as an end in itself. Yet we are more sceptical vis-à-vis
the underlying theoretical argument according to which the democratic peace is
secure because of its ‘law-like’ nature. In part, this scepticism is the result of a
difference in epistemological outlook. In contrast to the overwhelming majority of
democratic peace researchers who subscribe to what is usually (if somewhat
misleadingly) called a positivist epistemology and a corresponding understanding of
what it means to formulate laws or to test theories, we take a pragmatist position
rejecting the dichotomous distinction between nomothetic versus idiographic
methods and the accompanying conceptions of science emphasising either generality
6
Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Democratic Peace: Warlike Democracies? A Social Constructivist
Interpretation of the Liberal Argument’, European Journal of International Relations, 1:4 (1995),
pp. 491–517; Colin H. Kahl, ‘Constructing a Separate Peace: Constructivism, Collective Identity,
and the Liberal Peace’, Security Studies, 8:2/3 (1998/99), pp. 94–144.
7
Christopher Layne, ‘Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace’, International Security, 19:2
(1994), pp. 5–49.
8
Gleditsch and Hegre, for instance, have argued that ‘(m)any of the MIDs between democracies are
fisheries disputes such as the cod wars between Iceland and its neighbours). In such conflicts, the
threat or use of force is usually acted out between the government on one side and a private fishing
vessel on the other. The intergovernmental interaction is generally limited to diplomatic exchange,
and it is questionable whether such conflicts have any place in a dataset on interstate disputes’ (Nils
Peter Gleditsch and Havard Hegre, ‘Peace and Democracy: Three Levels of Analysis’, Journal of
Conflict Resolution, 41:2 (1997), p. 288, ftn. 7). We are grateful to Andreas Hasenclever for pointing
us to this quote.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 483
or uniqueness.
9
To be sure, there are similarities between different historical events or
processes which merit systematic comparisons. Yet, given the contingency of
historical processes, these comparisons must not be subjected to the rigours of a
positivist straight-jacket.
Therefore we position ourselves apart from the dualistic opposition of historical
uniqueness on the one hand and theoretical generality on the other. We make explicit
use of general claims to knowledge as present in much of the theoretical literature on
the democratic peace while examining specific historical cases. We do not claim that
our preliminary findings undermine (or even ‘falsify’) claims made by others.
However, the very purpose of this article is to offer an alternative to falsificationist
approaches by providing an empirically informed critique of the behaviourist quest
for empirical regularities. Given the abundance of causal hypotheses as to what may
explain the purported ‘law-like quality’ of the democratic peace, one might in fact
stipulate that what integrates this vast body of literature today is its showcase quality
as an outstanding example of empirical regularity. Hence, while the evidence
presented here may seem empirically unspectacular, the theoretical use we make of it
in order to subvert the behaviourist presumptions of the democratic peace debate
should be of more general concern to democratic peace theorists. When we
systematically confront evidence from our cases with some of the more prominent
explanations of the democratic peace, we thus do so in order to demonstrate how
they fail to apprehend the inherently conflictive nature of political interaction that
prevails even among democracies. In so doing we attempt to take seriously one of the
most important epistemological guidelines Hayward Alker has put forward in his
incisive critique of behaviourist peace research: ‘Going beyond the idea of ‘ ‘deviant
case analysis’’, and the empiricist search for analytical-empirical accounts of
behavioral regularities concerning peace-making successes and failures, approach
case data from what Habermas calls a reconstructive perspective: take the best or the
worst cases of conflict resolution outcomes and use them to uncover the practical
grammars of action (and habit) making such outcomes possible’.
10
Hence, the
conclusions we draw from our analysis are not framed in terms of specifying the
empirical scope of our findings, but rather in terms of proposing an alternative
theoretical vocabulary that is more sensitive to the practical grammar of inter-
democratic conflict.
In the following we will first provide a brief historical summary of our two cases.
We will then point out some striking differences between processes of escalation
in both, comparing these observations to the causal mechanisms stipulated by
democratic peace theorists. Third, we suggest reformulating the democratic peace
story in terms of a more dynamic vocabulary of desecuritisation that is better
equipped to deal with irritating contingencies as processes of resecuritisation. In
9
For an overview of the diverse sources of such a pragmatist conception, see Geoffrey Hawthorn,
Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences, 2nd edn
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action (Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 1997); Hilary Putnam, Pragmatism: An Open Question (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1995); Richard Rorty, Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998); John R. Shook and Joseph Margolis (eds), A Companion to Pragmatism
(Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
10
Hayward Alker, ‘Emancipatory Empiricism: Toward the Renewal of Empirical Peace Research’,
Rediscoveries and Reformulations: Humanistic Methodologies for International Studies (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 348.
484 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
the concluding section we summarise our findings and their theoretical implica-
tions, sketch some avenues for future research, and propose a tentative reinterpre-
tation of the democratic peace proposition in terms of ‘resecuritisation among
democracies’.
Does the democratic peace swim?
A brief history of the Cod War and the Turbot War
The Cod War
The cod war between Iceland and Great Britain (and to a lesser extent between
Iceland and the Federal Republic of Germany) escalated three times between 1952
and 1976. At the first glance, it appears to be rather obscure that a lengthy conflict
arose on such an issue. However, Iceland has for a long time been largely dependent
on its fishery exports. The disappearance of the herring in Icelandic waters combined
with a decline in export prices between 1966 and 1968 led to a drop in real per capita
income in excess of 16 per cent.
11
In Great Britain jobs in the fishery industry were
at stake, too.
12
The starting point of the conflict was the unilateral extension of the fishery limits
from three to four nautical miles by Iceland in 1952. In reaction, Britain refused to
process fish caught around Iceland. The Soviet Union stepped into the breach as
importer of Icelandic fish and thereby grasped the opportunity for an economic and
diplomatic rapprochement with Iceland. In order to prevent closer relations between
the Soviet Union and a Western state, the OEEC (later OECD) set up an informal
group of negotiators who succeeded in preparing a resolution of the conflict. This was
announced by the OECD on 14 November 1956. British restrictions were to be called
offand a definite setting of the fishery borders was to be postponed until the UN had
completed negotiations on the law of the sea.
13
In 1958, however, Iceland again unilaterally extended its fishery limits from four
to twelve nautical miles. Britain ignored Icelandic jurisdiction until the Icelandic
coastguard tried to seize a British trawler. A British destroyer intervened. In January
1959 an Icelandic vessel fired on a British trawler. The situation eased offwhen
11
Richard F. Tomasson, ‘Iceland’s Survival and the Law of the Sea’, Current History, 70:415 (1976),
p. 155.
12
For a thorough historical reconstruction, see Valur Ingimundarson, ‘A Western Cold War: The
Crisis in Iceland’s Relations with Britain, the United States, and NATO’, Diplomacy and Statecraft,
14:4 (2003), pp. 94–136.
13
Frank R. Pfetsch, (ed.) Konflikte seit 1945. Daten–Fakten–Hintergründe (Freiburg, Wu¨rzburg:
Ploetz, 1995), p. 68. Since the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) began a project
to codify the law of the sea, three conferences were held. In 1958, at the first United Nations
Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I), four treaties were adopted and signed. Although
it set forth some principles concerning the regulation of fishing on the high seas, the main problem,
the breadth of territorial waters was not solved. UNCLOS II broke down over the same issue. A
third conference (UNCLOS III) was held intermittently from 1973 to 1982. It finally achieved an
agreement on the contested issue, establishing a 200 mile exclusive economic zone which was,
however, ‘widely accepted as international customary law by the mid-1970s.’ (Marvin S. Soroos,
‘The Turbot War: Resolution of an International Fishery Dispute’, in Nils Petter Gleditsch (ed.),
Conflict and the Environment, NATO ASI Series (Boston, MA and London: Dordrecht, 1997),
pp. 247–8.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 485
Iceland declared its intention to discuss the matter at the planned 1960 Law of the Sea
conference of the United Nations. As the conference did not succeed, Britain offered
a bilateral settlement of the conflict. In 1961 Iceland agreed to an exchange of notes
which ended the first cod war. Great Britain generally recognised the 12 mile zone,
Iceland allowed British trawlers to fish within this zone during certain months.
14
In
addition it was announced that in case of any further extension of the fishery zone
Iceland ‘shall give to the United Kingdom Government six months’ notice of such
extension and, in case of dispute in relation to such extension, the matter shall, at the
request of either party, be referred to the International Court of Justice’.
15
However, the 1961 agreement did not succeed in settling the dispute either. In July
1971 a newly elected leftist-agrarian coalition government in Iceland decided to
abrogate the agreement contained in the 1961 Exchange of Notes and to extend
fishery limits to fifty miles on 1 September 1972. This unilateral move was especially
surprising as the third Law of the Sea Conference (UNCLOS III) was about to
formulate explicit rules on fisheries issues. Einar Agustsson, the Icelandic foreign
minister, claimed at a press conference, though, that Icelandic fish stocks were
‘threatened with imminent ruin’.
16
The third extension escalated the conflict once
again, yet this time not only was Great Britain involved, but also West Germany and
Denmark. Britain suggested negotiations but also threatened to refer the case to the
International Court of Justice (ICJ). Iceland denied ICJ jurisdiction arguing that
the 1961 agreement was no longer valid, as it had come into being under duress (the
presence of the Royal Navy in Icelandic waters). In addition it had already served its
purpose in ending the first cod war. Several bilateral discussions between Iceland and
Britain remained unsuccessful. An EC proposal to reduce tariffs for Icelandic fish
products by 50 per cent if Iceland abandoned its new fishery limits, was not accepted
either.
17
When Great Britain and Germany applied to the ICJ for a ruling on the
dispute, Iceland announced that it would not send a representative as it denied ICJ
jurisdiction. On 17 August 1972 an ICJ interim order ruled that Britain and West
Germany should observe certain catch limits and, postponing a decision on whether
it had jurisdiction or not, reminded the parties of the above cited clause on ICJ
jurisdiction in any occurring Anglo-Icelandic fisheries dispute. Iceland ignored the
order; yet British and also West German trawlers continued to fish in the contro-
versial area. In response, the Icelandic coastguard developed a new weapon against
foreign trawlers, cutting the warps holding their nets. Moreover, British and German
trawlers were shot at several times. In reaction British trawlers started ramming
Icelandic coastguard vessels trying to enforce the observance of the fishery limits.
Responding to strong requests from their fishermen, the British government in May
1973 sent in the Royal Navy in order to protect the trawlers. Further clashes led to
several casualties. When Iceland threatened to ‘alter its ties with NATO and sever
diplomatic relations with Britain’,
18
NATO Secretary-General Joseph Luns, who
feared to lose the strategically important airbase at Keflavik, intervened to achieve a
14
Pfetsch, ‘Konflikte’, p. 68.
15
Tomasson, ‘Iceland’, p. 157.
16
Quoted from Jeffrey A. Hart, The Anglo-Icelandic Cod War of 1972–73. A Case Study of a Fishery
Dispute, Research Series (Berkeley, CA: Regents of the University of California, 1976), p. 7; Prime
Minister Johannesson expressed similar fears (see Hart p. 9).
17
Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 20.
18
Ibid., p. 44.
486 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
truce. In discussions with the British Prime Minister, Luns allegedly put pressure
on Heath to come to an agreement with Iceland for the sake of NATO.
19
On
15–16 October, Prime Ministers Heath and Johannesson agreed on an interim
formula laying down restrictions for the subsequent two years.
20
On 25 July 1974
the ICJ issued its final ruling, emphasising on the one hand the weak position of
states which are dependent on fishery exports, but condemning on the other the
unilateral extension as contradicting international law.
The third cod war started when negotiations on the extension of the 1973
agreement between Iceland and Britain broke down on 26 November 1975 and
Iceland extended its fishery limits to 200 nautical miles.
21
Even though a consensus on
a 200-miles-limit had already emerged at the Law of the Sea conference, Iceland
again painted a devastating picture of the condition of its fish stocks and Britain
again sent tugboats and frigates in order to defend its distant-water fleet. Several
clashes finally culminated in the severance of diplomatic relations by Iceland on 18
February 1976. While US offers to mediate between the two parties were ignored,
Britain (under pressure from NATO) finally gave in. When it gave up its claim for a
certain allowable catch level (Great Britain demanded 85,000 tons, Icelandic officials
unofficially spoke of 65,000 tons and agreed to negotiate a limitation of British
trawlers in the contested area), Iceland agreed to further negotiations. On 2 June 1976
Einar Agustsson and Anthony Crosland, the Foreign Ministers of both countries,
signed an agreement which limited the presence of British trawlers in the contested
area to 25 per day. The 200 miles exclusive economic zone was later codified as
international law by the third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS III).
The Turbot War
In 1986, when Spain and Portugal officially joined the European Community, a
major condition of their inclusion stipulated that their respective fishing fleets,
among the largest in the world, had to cease fishing offof the coasts of other
European signatories for a period of ten years in order to prevent traditional
fishing grounds, especially the so-called Irish box offthe coast of Ireland, from
being over-exploited.
22
As a result Spanish and Portuguese trawlers moved on to
other fishing grounds such as the Grand Banks, a shallow nutrient-rich marine
area offthe coast of Newfoundland. However, the fish stocks in the Grand Banks
rapidly decreased. In reaction Canada declared a moratorium on the fishing of
numerous stocks in 1994 within its 200 mile coastal economic zone. This extremely
unpopular measure forced 40,000 fisheries workers out of their jobs in
Newfoundland.
19
Ibid., p. 45.
20
The controversial area was split into six ‘boxes’, five of which were open to British trawlers, certain
areas were generally closed and both parties agreed on an estimated annual catch of 130,000 tons,
although no limits were fixed.
21
Meanwhile West Germany and Iceland came to a bilateral agreement on 28 November 1975.
22
Soroos, ‘Conflict’, p. 243; Yvan Champagne, ‘An Expose of British Noncooperation in the EU’,
The Yale Political Quarterly, 18:2 (1997).
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 487
Meanwhile foreign fishing fleets continued to exploit the stocks. Especially in
two areas of the Grand Banks, the so-called ‘Nose and Tail’ which fall outside
the 200 mile fishery limit, Canada wanted to overcome its inability to halt the
depletion. Having unsuccessfully lobbied through the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries
Organization (NAFO)
23
to establish stricter regulations, the Canadian government
passed some amendments to the Coastal Fisheries Protection act, which unilater-
ally extended Canadian jurisdiction beyond the acknowledged 200 mile zone. It
allowed Canadian officials to seize vessels which allegedly participated in the
overfishing outside this zone. During the 1994 NAFO quota-setting meetings
Canada succeeded in significantly reducing the Spanish and Portuguese catch
quota.
At the beginning of the 1995 fishing season, Spanish and Portuguese officials
furiously dismissed the quotas and announced they would disobey them. Spanish
trawlers exceeded the strict annual catch limits during the first two weeks of the 1995
fishery season.
24
As EU officials did not respond to complaints and a unilateral
moratorium, Canada sent a naval destroyer to the Grand Banks in order to enforce
the NAFO quotas. On 9 March 1995, Canadian officials boarded the Spanish fishing
vessel Estai after a four-hour chase with several shots over the trawler’s bow. In
reaction Spain sent a patrol boat to protect its trawlers.
25
The EU in turn accused
Canada of piracy, whereas Canada complained about illegal nets (with smaller
meshing) of the Estai. As a result the conflict escalated. Both continued their
aggressive rhetoric and action. Canadian naval destroyers tried to board Spanish
vessels meanwhile protected by armed patrol boats.
26
In both countries the conflict
gave rise to remarkable nationalist sentiments. An overwhelming majority of 89 per
cent of the Canadians approved the government’s position and a stunning 58 per cent
said that they would support still higher levels of force. Spanish reactions culminated
in a demonstration of 50,000 people. In furious protests Spanish fishermen pelted the
Canadian embassy in Madrid with fish.
27
Attempts to achieve a resolution in
negotiations failed several times. EU attempts to impose economic sanctions on
Canada were blocked by Britain.
28
Spain faced mounting pressure from EU officials,
especially Germany and France who did not want to further jeopardise relations with
Canada.
29
When negotiations appeared to fail again Canada dispatched two
warships, a frigate and a destroyer, to the Grand Banks to back up patrol vessels and
coastguard ships already in the area. They were ‘instructed to use force if Spanish
naval vessels fired on Canadian boarding parties’.
30
Under this pressure the EU
23
The NAFO replaced the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (ICNAF)
in order to facilitate cooperation among the countries fishing in the area, to rationalise the
management of the fishery and to conserve fishery resources. The two main organs of NAFO are
the Scientific Council which evaluates the situation and provides recommendations and the
Fisheries Commission which decides on total allowable catches, catch quotas and conservation and
enforcement measures (see Soroos, ‘Conflict’, p. 247 ‘(see n. 13 above)’).
24
Champagne, ‘Noncooperation’.
25
Soroos, ‘Conflict’, pp. 237–9; Donald Barry, ‘The Canada-European turbot war’, International
Journal, 53 (1998), pp. 264–6.
26
Soroos, ‘Conflict’, p. 239 ‘(see n. 13 above)’.
27
Christian Science Monitor, 17 April 1995, p. 6.
28
During the conflict British fisherman held rallies supporting the Canadian actions. Hundreds of
them flew the Canadian maple leaf (see Soroos, ‘Conflict’, p. 239).
29
Champagne, ‘Noncooperation’.
30
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 276.
488 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
finally agreed upon a new formula which was adopted by the Council on 17 April
1995, establishing stronger enforcement mechanisms such as independent monitors
on all fishing vessels in the contested area, verification of gear and catch records,
enhanced satellite surveillance, minimum mesh sizes for nets and penalties for
violations.
31
These measures were to be implemented under the auspices of NAFO
which approved the agreement at its annual meeting in September 1995.
32
Heating up without breaking out: understanding the Cod War and the Turbot War
(and what it may mean for the democratic peace)
Democracies, democratic peace theorists contend, don’t fight each other. According
to the normative strand of debate they have not only overcome warfare but also
abstain, by and large, from threats to use force, ‘even in the form of symbolic,
ritualised bargaining behavior’.
33
Militarised interstate disputes such as the cod wars
and the turbot war should be a case in point.
34
In this section we will thus contrast
evidence from our cases with some of the most prominent causal mechanisms
proposed by democratic peace theorists.
The limits of collective identity
The early normative model suggested by Russett and Maoz,
35
arguing that democ-
racies externalise the peaceful norms of conflict resolution they have established at
the domestic level, has been criticised as an insufficient explanation of the democratic
peace proposition, for only if we assume that democratic states perceive each other
as peaceful, can we ‘deal convincingly with the uncertainty factor inherent in the
security dilemma’.
36
It has, however, inspired further research on the impact of
democratic norms, shifting from the unit-level to the level of interaction and mutual
31
Soroos, ‘Conflict’, p. 248.
32
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 283.
33
Bruce M. Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 42.
34
MIDs are commonly defined as events ‘in which at least one state directs a militarized action
against another state, and where militarized action can take the form of a threat, display, or use of
force’. Kenneth A. Schultz, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), p. 71. While in many fisheries conflicts the threat or use of force is usually acted out
between the government on one side and a private fishing vessel on the other (Gleditsch and Hegre,
‘Peace’, p. 288, fn. 7), the cases investigated here actually classify as MIDs because they were
interstate disputes, that is, ‘authorized by the government of a state, clearly directed at another
state and public in nature’ (Schultz, p. 126; cf. Daniel M. Jones, Stuart S. Bremer, and J. David
Singer, ‘Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, Coding Rules, and Empirical
Patterns’, Conflict Management and Peace Science, 15:2 (1996), pp. 169. The most recent version
(3.02) of the MID dataset is available at 〈http://www.correlatesofwar.org〉, checked 15 February
2008.
35
Zeev Maoz and Bruce M. Russett, ‘Normative and Structural Causes of the Democratic Peace: A
Theoretical and Empirical Re-assessment’, American Political Science Review, 87:3 (1993),
pp. 624–38.
36
Risse-Kappen, ‘Warlike Democracies’, p. 500.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 489
recognition. Among these analyses of processes of collective identity formation
37
or
mutual recognition as liberal democracies,
38
Colin Kahl
39
has paid particular
attention to procedures of operationalisation which help to relate the behavioural
microfoundations of foreign policy decision-making to the causal mechanisms of the
democratic peace. In line with much of the prior research on MIDs, he advances four
propositions that should apply if we observe two democracies forming a collective
identity: (1) ‘significant portions of public and elite opinion should be strongly
liberal, trusting, and pacific’ vis-à-vis each other and the ‘extent and intensity of these
opinions should covary with the degree of positive identification’;
40
(2) these
favourable opinions and perceptions regarding other democracies should be held
consistently as long as the hypothesised processes of collective-identity formation
operate;
41
(3) ‘the majority of decision-makers should be liberal and avoid foreign
policies that carry a substantial risk of war with other states perceived to be liberal’;
and (4) ‘When illiberal decision-makers, or decision-makers who do not share the
perception that another state is liberal, guide the foreign policy of a liberal
democracy, they should be constrained by liberal public or elite opinion when and if
these decision-makers adopt belligerent policies that run the significant risks of war
with another liberal state’.
42
To be sure, the emphasis on mutually accepted democratic norms does not imply
that competing interests among democracies cease to exist. ‘It does require, though,
that leaders of democratic states use third-party mediation or engage in specific
communicative behaviour such as apologies, justifications, or offers of compensatory
action when violating norms’.
43
The analysis of both the cod war and the turbot war indicate that these
assumptions about democratic collective identity did not materialise. First, the fact
that in both cases examined the parties concerned were allies was almost totally
absent in the way the conflicts were handled. Seldom (if at all) the parties have
been referring to common values or even a collective identity in justifying either
escalating or de-escalating actions or strategies. As a matter of fact, we found only
one reference which can be interpreted in this way. There is some evidence that
during the turbot war the Canadian Department of National Defence explicitly
opposed the use of force against Spain arguing that this would be inappropriate
among NATO-allies.
44
Also within the European Union the maintenance of good
relations to Canada contributed to German and French opposition against an
aggressive course.
45
However, although Germany played an important back-stage
role in the diplomatic game it was not a primary actor as compared to Spain and
Canada.
37
Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Wie weiter mit dem ‘ demokratischen Frieden$?’, Zeitschrift für
Internationale Beziehungen, 1:2 (1994), pp. 491–517; Risse-Kappen, ‘Warlike Democracies’,
pp. 367–79.
38
John M. Owen, ‘How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace’, International Security, 19:2 (1994),
pp. 87–125.
39
Kahl, ‘Separate Peace’, pp. 94–144.
40
Ibid., pp. 138–9; see also Owen, ‘Liberalism’, p. 103.
41
Kahl, ‘Separate Peace’, p. 139.
42
Ibid., p. 140.
43
Risse-Kappen, ‘Warlike Democracies’, p. 504.
44
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 265.
45
Champagne, ‘Noncooperation’.
490 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
The opposite type of behaviour, however, was ever-present. The strategies of
justification used to legitimise aggressive behaviour can be interpreted as a distinct
democratic strategy of confrontation. The opponent was criminalised, charged with
outrageous behaviour in violation of either fundamental norms of civilised inter-
national conduct or of broader norms of global responsibility. Aggressive behaviour
could thus be framed as international police action taking care of law-breakers.
However, these rhetorical strategies were typically used instrumentally on both sides,
with enforceable legal rules being absent. The kind of ‘spirit’ that should have been
expected based on the much hailed ‘transatlantic community of values’ was almost
totally absent. During the turbot war, for instance, the Canadian fisheries minister,
Brian Tobin accused the Spanish and Portuguese fleets of acting ‘criminal in the legal
sense and in a moral sense too’.
46
He emphasised that he was ‘not afraid of these
people. I’ll take them on.’
47
In response the EU denounced ‘in the strongest possible
terms’ Canada’s ‘illegal’ action, claiming solidarity with Spain in the face of ‘ a
flagrant violation of the law of the sea’.
48
Emma Bonino, EU commissioner for
fisheries, accused Canada of turning ‘the Northwest Atlantic into the Wild West’
49
adding that ‘Canada has not only taken an EU boat to satisfy its internal needs and
to hide its inefficiency in fisheries management. Canada has taken the international
community hostage.’
50
A similar pattern of behaviour and rhetoric could also be observed during the cod
war. In September 1972 Icelandic Prime Minister Johannesson described British
trawlers (whose warps had been cut by Icelandic coastguard vessels) as ‘law-
breakers’. The next day, the Deepsea Fishing Industry Committee sent a deputation
to James Prior, the British Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (AFF),
referring to Icelandic actions as ‘piracy’.
51
In a similar fashion Johannesson’s
successor as prime minister, Geir Hallgrimsson, justified unilateral action in a radio
address to the nation on 14 October 1975: ‘The answer is that the fish stocks in the
waters adjacent to Iceland are in such danger of extinction that it would, indeed, be
a matter of heavy responsibility to wait any longer (. . .) Our livelihood is at stake.’
Later he added: ‘We shall not enter into any agreements which do not fully conform
with our interests, and we shall either negotiate for full victory or, if such is our fate,
fight until victory is won’.
52
Second, the mechanisms for conflict resolution emphasised by democratic peace
proponents were hardly ever used, in spite of the fact that clear-cut rules did exist
as to how to address conflicts of interests. As described above, the first cod war
from 1958 to 1961 had been settled when Iceland and Great Britain bilaterally
agreed upon an Exchange of Notes which explicitly defined rules for any further
conflict on a similar issue. It was announced that in case of any further extension
of the fishery zone Iceland ‘shall give to the United Kingdom Government six
46
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 261. In another context he said that the issue is not ‘an issue about who
gets what slice of the pie but rather sustaining the pie, sustaining the resource, preventing its
extinction’ (Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 267).
47
Ibid., p. 257.
48
Quoted from ibid., p. 266.
49
Ibid., p. 271.
50
Ibid., p. 268.
51
Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 28.
52
Tomasson, ‘Iceland’, p. 156. Moreover, leftist governments in Iceland often framed their position in
an anti-Western, even anti-colonial manner (Ingimundarson, ‘Western’, pp. 95, 103).
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 491
months’ notice of such extension and, in case of dispute in relation to such
extension, the matter shall, at the request of either party, be referred to the
International Court of Justice’.
53
In 1972, however, Iceland unilaterally abrogated
the agreement, arguing that it had come into being under duress – a reference to
the presence of the Royal Navy in Icelandic waters at the time. Iceland thus
denied the ICJ’s jurisdiction and did not even send a representative to the hearings
when Great Britain and West Germany sued it for the violation of international
law. Iceland’s aggressive unilateralism is particularly surprising as the contested
issues were on the agenda of the third UN Law of the Sea Conference at that
time. Prime Minister Johannesson explained though, that ‘because of imminent
danger of overexploitation of the fish stocks, Iceland could not wait for the
outcome of the upcoming Law of the Sea Conference.’
54
This pattern was exactly
repeated during the third cod war (1975/76).
55
The turbot war took place under circumstances which appeared to be sufficiently
regulated and provided clear-cut rules for addressing conflicts of interest in a peaceful
way as well. The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) was a regime
for the management of the scarce resources of the Grand Banks establishing total
allowable catches (TACs), quotas, and conservation measures for stocks under its
control. TACs, quotas and other measures were to be decided by majority votes.
Rules also provided for procedures according to which any member state that
objected to a quota set by majority voting within sixty days would not be bound by
it. However, Canada referred to a moral interpretation of international law and
unilaterally extended its exclusive economic zones via national legislation, thereby
claiming jurisdiction even on foreign catch levels and quotas in clear disregard of
international rules.
As these examples show, threats and the use of force were applied much earlier
than democratic peace theorists would have us expect. This is even more surprising
given that one of the most important factors emphasised by constructivist theorising
(the mutual recognition as liberal democracies
56
) was doubtlessly present in all cases.
Therefore, if democracies are indeed ‘better equipped than others with the means for
diffusing conflict situations at an early stage before they have an opportunity to
escalate to military violence’,
57
the highly developed democracies involved in these
conflicts should have been prime candidates to prove this point. Yet the strategies of
escalation chosen often were highly aggressive. Apparently, even among highly
developed democracies a recourse to violent means in exchanges with other
democracies cannot be excluded.
58
53
Tomasson, ‘Iceland’ p. 157.
54
Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 9. Hart argues that the ‘imminent danger’ repeatedly referred to by
Johannesson was certainly a matter of interpretation since it was not convincing that Iceland could
not have waited for a few months for an international agreement. Iceland was ‘in no immediate
danger of collapse in 1971, it was in danger of a gradual and perhaps irreversible decline’. (Hart,
‘Cod War’, p. 13, emphasis added.)
55
See Tomasson, ‘Iceland’, p. 156.
56
In response to realist critics that democracies should not threaten each other, Owen argues that the
‘causal mechanism’ which prevents democracies fighting each other lies in their mutual perception
as ‘liberal democracies’. ‘ Ideologically, liberals trust those states they consider fellow liberal
democracies and see no reason to fight them’, see Owen, ‘Liberalism’, p. 124.
57
Dixon, ‘Settlement’, p. 14.
58
What will be interesting to examine in more detail later on is the question what possibly caused the
crossing of the threshold from the use of peaceful means to threats and the actual use of violence
492 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
Third, and related to the last point, mediation was not sought by the conflicting
parties, as expected by democratic peace proponents. Rather, if mediation efforts
were undertaken, they were usually pushed by interested third parties via inter-
national organisations, sometimes even against the will of one or even both
conflicting parties.
59
After a threshold of militarised strategies had been crossed, the
conflicting parties themselves preferred unilateral strategies instead. During the cod
war, for instance, Iceland apparently regarded NATO as a bargaining chip in its
overall strategy rather than as a forum for mediation. Referring to the strategic
importance of the Keflavik airbase Iceland put pressure on its Western allies to push
for the withdrawal of three British frigates from Icelandic waters,
60
while rejecting
mediation.
61
When NATO Secretary-General Joseph Luns tried to mediate in an
effort which finally did indeed resolve the conflict, Luns had to put enormous
pressure on British Prime Minister Edward Heath to achieve concessions which were
considered acceptable by Iceland. Thus, an imminent fear among NATO members
that a further escalation of the conflict might lead to Iceland’s retreat from the
alliance (with NATO losing the strategically important airbase at Keflavik as a
consequence) made it possible to secure a resolution of the conflict at the negotiating
table.
62
During the turbot war mediation did not play a major role either. The US
which was an obvious candidate did not want to get involved, in part, perhaps,
because it had long-standing differences with Canada on fisheries issues itself.
However, in spite of the rhetoric the conflict itself did not seem to be as threatening
to the parties involved and both sides were willing to sit down for negotiation even
at the height of the conflict.
63
In sum, the strategies of conflict applied by the mature democracies under
consideration were not the ones expected by constructivist democratic peace theo-
rists. Rather they resembled old-fashioned carrot-and-stick tactics, balance of power
strategies and (given social-constructivist expectations) threats which went much
further on the continuum between peacefulness/accommodation and violence than
suggested by proponents of democratic peace theory.
Constraining and enabling structures: when and why it might pay to pursue power
politics strategies
Structural explanations of the democratic peace emphasise that democratic institu-
tions and decision-making processes provide significant constraints working against
decisions to go to war. Given the ‘complexity of the democratic process and the
requirement of securing a broad base of support for risky policies, democratic leaders
at a rather early stage. Why was it that the conflicting parties did not pursue the paths of conflict
resolution expected by democratic peace proponents?
59
Interview with the German representative to the EU, Dietrich von Kyaw, who due to personal ties
to the Canadian ambassador in Brussels served in a key role to broker the final deal.
60
Times, 31 May 1973; 4 June 1973; Guardian, 2 June 1973.
61
Guardian, 30 May 1973.
62
According to press reports (Guardian, 6 June 1973) high-ranking NATO-officials were convinced
that Iceland’s threat to withdraw from NATO was real indeed. Moreover, the loss of Keflavik was
considered as worse as a loss of the Mediterranean base in Malta.
63
Cf. Barry, ‘Turbot War’, pp. 269–77.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 493
are reluctant to wage wars’.
64
Democratic societies are considered to be difficult to
mobilise, especially against other liberal democracies. To be sure, even liberal
democracies may ‘sometimes (be) governed by illiberal leaders who are somewhat
autonomous in implementing foreign policy. Such leaders may make threats; (yet)
they are simply unable to mobilise the nation for war, due to the constraints of
democratic institutions.’
65
Moreover, according to rationalist variants in particular,
elected politicians in democracies are said to have multiple incentives not to pursue
confrontational foreign policies since this might negatively affect trade relations and,
in consequence, lead to welfare losses to their prospective voters. For all these reasons
democracies are expected to go an extra mile in exhausting alternative ways of
conflict resolution. Again the conflicts examined here provide some irritating
evidence that it might actually pay to pursue escalatory strategies of conflict.
First, contrary to liberal expectations about the benevolence of democratic public
opinion in situations of conflict with other democracies,
66
there is little evidence in
these cases that the publics reacted substantially differently than they might have in
a confrontation with an autocracy. Rather, the speed and intensity of public
mobilisation was stunning. One might even say that some of the perceived confron-
tational actions taken were seen to be particularly outrageous given that the
democratic perpetrator was expected to behave in line with the ‘civilised’ rules
espoused by one’s own side. Thus it was significant in both cases that public opinion
did not hamper the escalation to the level of threats and small-scale use of violence.
On the contrary, it even pushed a more aggressive line of action. The turbot war, for
instance, aroused nationalist sentiments in Canada as well as in Spain. According to
a poll taken in early April 1995, 89 per cent of the Canadians approved of the actions
taken by their government in spite of the fact that they violated international law.
Fifty-eight per cent were even ready to support an escalation if the fishing vessels
would not stop. In Spain the public was also mobilised against Canada’s ‘illegal
actions’. In Vigo, the home port of the Spanish distant-water fleet, 50,000 people
went to the streets in fierce demonstrations after Canada had seized the Estai. The
Canadian embassy in Madrid was pelted with fish on 6 April when thousands came
out in protest.
67
When in the run-up to the escalation the EU fisheries commissioner
Emma Bonino signalled objection to the restrictive quota demanded by Canada,
Canadian fisheries minister Brian Tobin was strongly supported by the largest
fisheries workers association of Newfoundland, the Newfoundland Fish, Food and
Allied Workers Union (FFAW) which urged the government to fight the EU with
‘every means at its disposal’. FFAW president Earle McCurdy said: ‘ I don’t know if
you’d call it gunboat diplomacy. If that’s what it is then so be it’. Canadian public
opinion did not object. Tobin fulfilled the expectations of his closest supporters and
declared that he would ‘not let the EU devastate turbot the way it has devastated
other groundfish stocks in the 1980s’.
68
As the Commission’s position solidified the
64
Maoz and Russett, ‘Causes’, p. 626.
65
Owen, ‘Liberalism’, p. 120; see also: ‘When a liberal democracy is in a war-threatening crisis with a
state it considers liberal-democratic, its liberal elites agitate against war. Illiberal leaders find they
cannot persuade the public to go to war’ (Ibid., p. 124).
66
See, for example, Ernst-Otto Czempiel, ‘Kants Theorem. Oder: Warum sind die Demokratien
(noch immer) nicht friedlich?’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 3:1 (1996), pp. 79–101;
Owen, ‘Liberalism’, pp. 87–125.
67
Soroos, ‘Conflict’, p. 240.
68
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 263.
494 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
FFAW, supported by fishing groups from British Columbia, Quebec, and the
Maritime provinces, pushed for an amendment of the Coastal Fisheries Protection
Act in order to allow fisheries officers to arrest Spanish trawlers fishing turbot outside
the Canadian exclusive economic zone. McCurdy described the issue as ‘a question
of national will’ and expressed his expectation of Atlantic Canada ‘to be protected
from foreign invasion on the fishing grounds in the same way that people on the
Prairies would expect to be protected from foreign invasion of their farmlands’. In
response, Tobin and his officials reviewed the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act to
determine how it might be extended from stateless and flag-of-convenience vessels to
NAFO members. These steps were backed by ‘detailed domestic and international
communications plans (. . .) to maximize support for Ottawa’s anticipated action.’
69
Again we can observe a similar pattern during the cod war. When several attempts
to prevent the 1972/73 cod war in negotiations in the late September 1972 had failed,
the Socialist and Communist Parties organised ‘well-attended demonstrations in
Reykjavik, and many people put bumper stickers on their cars depicting the map of
Iceland encircled by a chain’.
70
On October 20, the Icelandic Federation of Labour
urged workers in member unions to boycott British trawlers and support vessels
which used the contested 12–50 mile zone, and the Icelandic Minister of Communi-
cations, Hannibal Valdimarsson, called for port authorities to refuse aid to British or
West German support vessels in Icelandic ports. The next day, the British Transport
and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) announced a ban on landing of all Icelandic
fish and goods by Icelandic vessels (which accounted for approximately 10 per cent
of Iceland’s annual export revenues). While the British government quickly dissoci-
ated itself from the TGWU’s actions, the West German government did not do so
with regard to similar actions taken by West German unions.
71
After several
wire-cutting incidents, in a radio telegram the skippers of approximately one hundred
trawlers from Grimsby, Hull, and Fleetwood threatened to withdraw from the
50-mile zone unless the Royal Navy intervened. They asked for a decision within
24 hours. This put enormous pressure on the British government as the withdrawal
would have been a de facto recognition of the contested 50 mile zone. However, the
British government was highly reluctant to send in the Royal Navy, as it had done in
previous disputes. They assumed that ‘a display of military muscle by a large country
like Britain against a small country like Iceland would not help to win domestic or
international support’, but rather ‘create sympathy for the Icelanders and increase
their determination to resist’. In the end a fast ocean-going tugboat was sent in.
72
The
final decision to send in the two frigates of the Royal Navy was announced only after
69
Ibid., p. 264. Referring to Robert H. Edwards, ‘The 1995 Canada-European turbot crisis: Canada’s
use of force in fisheries diplomacy’, unpublished MA thesis, Dalhousie University, 1996, p. 6.
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 279, emphasises that in Canada, ‘the fishing industry and the federal
government played mutually reinforcing roles during the dispute’. As the turbot issue unfolded, the
industry mobilised fishing groups across the country to support convincing action against the
Spanish fleet.
70
Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 30.
71
Ibid., p. 31.
72
According to Hart (ibid., p. 34–5), a ‘reliable source’ reported that these events ‘precipitated a
minor outburst of bureaucratic politics’. The Minister of State for AFF, Anthony Stodard, pointed
out that the tugboat, the Statesman, was ‘flying a funny flag’ – a Liberian one. Attempts to change
it to a Blue Ensign (the flag worn by government vessels) failed as the Liberian registration ‘could
not be waved aside so easily’. The process would have involved the Statesman staying some days in
port. However, the orders by the Foreign Secretary to do so were ignored by an Assistant
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 495
the trawler skippers had sent a second ultimatum to the Ministry of Agriculture,
Fisheries and Food (AFF) stating that they would leave the disputed waters if no
naval protection was sent within twelve hours.
73
The intensity of these reactions can be interpreted as a clear signal that even among
liberal democracies there are interests which are considered worth ‘fighting’ for.
Iceland, for instance, was extremely dependent on fisheries exports. ‘Fisheries have
practically made the country inhabitable, and have provided the bulk of her export
earnings, which in turn have been used to import consumer goods, investment goods
and essential raw materials’.
74
Although Canada as a whole is not as dependent on the
fishing industry, it provides the main income for the Atlantic provinces. In Newfound-
land, for instance, it accounts for 10 per cent of the gross provincial product and 25
per cent of employment. Moreover almost 700 Newfoundland coastal communities
depend in whole or in part on fishing.
75
Thus, the combination of several factors –
such as material interests which were considered vital, well-organised interest groups
ready to go on the offensive, and the behaviour of foreign fishermen considered to be
outrageous both from a material and a moral point of view – provided strong
incentives to ignore major international rules and even use force.
76
Second, the logic of the structural argument implies that the use of force is only
possible if an immediate threat overrules the structural and institutional constraints.
‘Shortcuts to political mobilisation of relevant political support can be accomplished
only in situations that can be appropriately described as emergencies’.
77
The crux is
that ‘emergencies’ obviously are a matter of perception (or propaganda). In the two
cases examined here, there is significant evidence that the use of force was
strategically planned well ahead of the time the conflicts actually escalated. For
instance, it had been well known for some time that Canada was seriously worried
about the depletion of its stocks. In a 1992 lecture given at the Belgian Royal Institute
for International Affairs under the presidency of minister Hermann De Croo the
Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Clyde Kirby Wells, warned: ‘Simply put,
there is no more room for complacency in tackling this problem. Further diplomatic
caution or legal indifference will mean the end of a major world marine resource, and
the demise of hundreds of coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador’.
78
Secretary, knowing that the vessel was under the command of the minister of AFF who opposed
any delay. The tugboat left with its Liberian registry intact.
73
Ibid., p. 39.
74
Thrainn Eggertsson, ‘Determinants of Icelandic foreign relations’, Cooperation and Conflict, 10:1/2
(1975), p. 91. Prime Minister Johannesson said at a meeting of the Nordic Council in February
1973 that ‘it is a well known fact that the economic survival of the Icelandic nation is dependent
upon the fisheries. Eighty to ninety percent of the foreign exchange income of the country is
derived from the export of fishery products. If the fishing grounds in Iceland are destroyed, the
basis for the economic survival of the nation is demolished.’ (Quoted ibid., pp. 8–9.)
75
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 254.
76
In his case study on the 1972/73 cod war Jeffrey Hart concludes that one important lesson to be
learned may be ‘to maintain individuals at relatively high levels in the government who are
knowledgeable about fishery affairs, but who are also able to see how the interests of various
subnational actors may differ from the interests of the nation as a whole’ (Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 68).
Thus, whereas some authors (such as Czempiel, ‘Kants Theorem’, pp. 79–101) suggest that
democracies may use violent means because they are not yet democratic enough, Hart argues that
the voice of the people may indeed be a factor which may push even liberal democracies towards
violent strategies vis-a`-vis fellow liberal democracies (Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 39).
77
Maoz and Russett, ‘Causes’, p. 626.
78
Clyde-Kirby Wells, ‘Foreign overfishing of the high seas adjacent to Canada’s exclusive economic
zone’, Studia diplomatica, 45:4 (1992), p. 28.
496 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
Wells compared the effects of a depletion of stocks on Newfoundland with a
hypothetical disappearance of wheat in Ukraine, fruit and vegetables in California or
grapes in France.
79
Not only was the problem of the depletion of straddling stocks in
the Northwest Atlantic well known for years, there are also clear indications that the
aggressive measures applied by Canada in 1995 had been strategically planned.
Already in early 1994, as Tobin later revealed, the Canadian military had been asked
to develop plans to intercept foreign trawlers outside the 200-mile limit.
80
The cod
war provides an even more serious challenge to this basic assumption of the
structural model as the conflict escalated three times during a period of almost
20 years with the escalation always being preceded by several attempts to come to a
negotiated settlement. One might argue that structural constraints do only work
when broader sections of society are really threatened, such as in the case of full-scale
wars. Yet, as our cases show, public interest was high in most countries involved
81
and public opinion, in contrast to the expectations of democratic peace proponents,
even pushed for sterner measures (sometimes mobilised by skilful politicians, who,
even if they were shying away from threats and the use of force, could hardly be
called ‘illiberal’).
82
Third, the turbot war in particular shows that the democratic process may provide
both constraints as well as opportunities for individual politicians and interest groups
to pursue confrontational strategies. In general, among the manifold explanatory
factors which are commonly discussed in the context of the democratic peace
proposal (including systemic, external, societal and governmental factors) surpris-
ingly the sources of explanation that lie within the people involved in making policy
decisions tend to be largely neglected.
83
Given that political leaders bear the final
decisions on war and peace and given, moreover, that institutional and cultural
constraints do not directly affect the ‘behaviour’ of states (as anthropomorphised
actors)
84
but only insofar as they shape the perceptions of decision-makers, the
analysis of the effects of political leaders’ attitudes should play a much more
important role in attempts to understand the democratic peace. During the second
cod war, for instance, British officials deeply mistrusted the Icelandic Fisheries
Minister Josepsson, a member of the communist people’s alliance. As a matter of
fact, Josepsson openly expressed his anti-British and anti-NATO positions. In one
instance he flew over the fishing grounds in a helicopter, dramatically declaring that
‘this cannot go on’, threatening arrests and confrontation.
85
Early considerations on
the British side to suggest negotiations were withdrawn, as British officials assumed
that Josepsson was not really interested in a resolution of the conflict anyway.
86
In
addition Josepsson caused confusion when he gave an assessment of the situation to
79
Ibid., p. 17.
80
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 257.
81
Britain was an exception because the public did not follow the fisheries lobbies as in the other
countries. According to Hart the British public ‘was ambivalent about the cod war. Although most
British people saw the Icelandic actions as justifying the exercise of gunboat diplomacy (. . .) there
was still a certain amount of popular sympathy for Iceland as a country continually threatened by
‘‘ fire and ice’’ ’ (Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 56).
82
See second Section above.
83
Margaret G. Hermann and Charles W. Kegley Jr., ‘Rethinking Democracy and International
Peace: Perspectives from Political Psychology’, International Studies Quarterly, 39:4 (1995), p. 512.
84
For a critique of anthropomorphisation, see Czempiel, ‘Kants Theorem’, p. 83.
85
Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 28.
86
Ibid., p. 20.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 497
his British colleague which differed significantly from the Foreign Minister’s assess-
ment in bilateral talks with the British foreign minister. The Icelandic Foreign
Minister, a member of the moderate Progressive Party, signalled a conciliatory
attitude whereas Josepsson remained unaccommodating. Afterwards the British
ministers are said to have doubted whether they were dealing with the same issue in
their respective negotiations.
87
Obviously transparency is not an inherent quality of
a democracy as some democratic peace theorists suggest.
88
Although Josepsson even
increased his verbal radicalism during the conflict – for example, when expressing his
hope that Icelandic gunboats would soon have an opportunity to arrest a British
trawler
89
– his role as an allegedly hostile communist should not be overestimated
since the ‘moderate’ Prime Minister Hallgrimsson was even more assertive in his
verbal attacks during the third phase of the cod war in 1975/76.
90
The escalation during the turbot war was also brought about by some rather
extroverted individual politicians pursuing a specific political agenda. Verbal radi-
calism and the criminalisation of the opponent were pushed mainly by Canadian
fisheries minister Brian Tobin and EU fisheries commissioner Emma Bonino. While
negotiations continued behind the scenes, some of the key politicians did little to
contribute to a solution. As a commission source put it: ‘Even as the Brian and
Emma show goes on (. . .) while they are throwing with dirt in public, we are
negotiating in private.’
91
However, private negotiations failed several times – at least
in part due to the fact that public opinion and the media were mobilised by ministers
‘throwing with dirt’. Public insults reached a curious peak when Tobin dramatically
displayed the Estai’s double mesh net on a barge on the Hudson River across from
the United Nations headquarters. The net was about as big as a football field.
Presenting undersized turbot, even smaller than his hand, and American plaice, a fish
which was not allowed to be caught, Tobin declared: ‘We’re down now finally to one
last, lonely, unloved, unattractive little turbot, clinging on by its fingernails to the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland, saying ‘‘ someone reach out and save me this
eleventh hour as I’m about to go down to extinction’’ ’.
92
Reaction within the
Canadian government was not unanimous. As a matter of fact, the bureaucracy was
sceptical as to the measures undertaken by Tobin. Foreign affairs officials wanted
more time for negotiations with EU officials, the Department of Justice worried
about the legality of seizing foreign vessels, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) were concerned about civil liabilities that could result from an armed
confrontation, and the Department of National Defence opposed the use of force
against an ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
93
Yet with the
tacit support of Prime Minister Chretien
94
Brian Tobin skilfully managed to mobilise
87
In the end Josepsson’s position prevailed due to strong public sentiments against any agreement
(ibid., p. 30).
88
Cf. Bernard I. Finel and Kristin M. Lord, ‘The Surprising Logic of Transparency’, International
Studies Quarterly, 43:2 (1999), pp. 315–39.
89
Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 39.
90
See ibid., p. 48 and the examples given in the third Section p. 491 above.
91
Globe and Mail, 30 March 1995. The German EU Representative Dietrich von Kyaw, who was
playing a key role behind the scenes, emphasised that Bonino was ‘talking for the galley’ in order
to placate the Spaniards who were fuming about what they perceived as lagging support from their
EU partners; interview 30 January 2001.
92
Calgary Herald, 29 March 1995.
93
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 265.
94
Ibid., p. 257.
498 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
support. In the end his strategy paid off. Contrary to his own public assessment – ‘if
there is a winner in this conflict then it’s the fish’
95
– Tobin emerged as ‘the big
winner’ managing to ‘convert his carefully cultivated image as a tough negotiator and
defender of Newfoundland into a landslide provincial electoral victory’
96
as he
became Prime Minister of his home province.
What is interesting about all these examples, though, is that few (if any) decision-
makers actually expected that the chosen strategy of confrontation might entail
uncontrollable risks of escalation.
97
On the contrary, often the strategy chosen was
seen to be a necessary means of signalling the importance of one’s own interest to the
other side in order to get them back to the negotiation table – a tactic which is well
known among negotiation experts.
98
The most striking example in this regard is again
provided by Brian Tobin who privately confided later on that initially he had hoped
diplomacy would not succeed. When negotiations went on with the EU in early March
1995 he hoped that they would lead to a dead end ‘because only action could lead to
meaningful talks’.
99
While this is certainly one of the most explicit statements in this
regard, our analysis has shown that it is by far not the only one. Contrary to liberal
democratic peace expectations, leaders of democracies do see threats and the use of
force as a legitimate means to pursuing vital interests. What is more, often these means
are not only viewed as an instrument of last resort but rather as legitimate means in a
larger diplomatic bargain. None of this means that the cases we examined undermine
the democratic peace proposition per se. Indeed, as we have already indicated before,
none of the decision-makers seemed to have expected (not to mention: even intention-
ally risked) a further escalation of these exchanges. One might even say that they did
pursue the respective strategies of conflict because the likelihood of an escalation was
considered very small indeed. However, these cases do raise doubts as to the role of the
use of force in situations of conflicts among democracies – not to mention the risk that
situations such as these might spiral out of control against the will of decision-makers,
especially when public opinion is highly mobilised.
The Kantian ‘tripod’ – three pillars for perpetual peace?
The conflicts examined in this article are particularly striking because the states
confronting each other were not only highly developed democracies but because their
joint membership in international organisations and a high level of economic
interdependence presented additional factors which should have provided for a
peaceful resolution of the underlying conflict of interests.
100
As repeatedly stated,
such conflicts do arise and they may even be serious, yet democracies are said to be
95
Ibid., p. 276.
96
Kevin Cox, Who Won the Great Turbot War?, in The Globe and Mail, 16 March 1996.
97
This was the general sense projected by the media at the time. It was also confirmed in our
interviews.
98
See Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1980), pp. 123–31, 175–84; I. William Zartman and Johannes Aurik ‘Power Strategies in
De-Escalation’, in Louis Kriesberg and Stuart J. Thorson (eds), Timing the De-Escalation of
International Conflicts (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991), pp. 177–9.
99
Toronto Sun, 19 March 1995.
100
See, for example, Oneal and Russett, ‘Kantian Peace’, pp. 1–37; Bruce Russett, John Oneal and
David Davis, ‘The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod of Peace: International Organizations and
Militarized Disputes, 1950–1985’, International Organization, 52:3 (1998), pp. 441–67.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 499
very good at developing specific procedures for coping with them, such as mediation
in and through international organisations or by third parties.
101
While there are some indications that concern for negative effects on trade
relations did play a role in some quarters, they were not strong enough to overrule
vocal groups pushing determined action, including the threat or use of force. In 1972,
for instance, Iceland rejected an EC proposal (probably inspired by West Germany)
to abandon its new exclusive economic zone in exchange for a 50 per cent reduction
on tariffs for Icelandic fish products.
102
Considering serious doubts that, despite a
general and dangerous decline, the cod was not ‘threatened with imminent ruin’ this
appeared to be a very attractive alternative. Yet although there had been close
contacts between officials from all countries involved at various bureaucratic levels,
an agreement could not be achieved.
103
Second, joint membership in international organisations did appear to play some
role in the way the conflicts were handled, yet not necessarily in the manner expected
by democratic peace theorists. Rather than dampening the emotions they (at least
initially) often provided a forum for presenting and pushing the conflicting claims in
a traditional bargaining mode. For instance, Iceland could not have succeeded to the
extent it did without playing its major trump.
104
The NATO-airbase at Keflavik was
of enormous strategic importance to the alliance for the control of submarine
movements in the so-called GIUK-gap (the area between Greenland, Iceland and
Scotland). ‘By linking NATO with the fishery dispute, the Icelandic government was
putting pressure on Britain through NATO and the United States’.
105
This was quite
risky since, if the strategy had not worked, Iceland would have lost $50–70 m per
annum which were brought to the Icelandic economy via the Keflavik air base. Thus,
rather than providing for an avenue for mediation, joint membership in NATO
served as a bargaining chip in Iceland’s strategy of confrontation. Similarly, neither
the regional fishery commissions nor other possible channels of interaction such as
the United Nations, the OECD or the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
played a significant role during the cod wars of the 1970s. In general, diplomatic
channels were extensively used during the cod war, yet it was not the type of modern,
accommodative, intra-institutional (and inter-democratic) communication suggested
by liberal theory, which carried the day. Rather, old-fashioned diplomatic tools, such
as ultimatums, helped to turn the tide in favour of a settlement. Iceland’s concrete
threats to sever relations with Britain and to close the Keflavik NATO base on the
one hand, and the British threat to send the Royal Navy unless their final proposal
was accepted on the other hand, helped to reach a breakthrough. In addition NATO
allies often put tacit pressure on Britain to accept lower catches, since many feared a
major strategic loss for the NATO in the North Atlantic.
106
It was obviously not by
101
Dixon, ‘Settlement’, pp. 14–32; Dixon, ‘Management’, pp. 79–101.
102
Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 20. Later the EC attached a special protocol to the trade agreement with
Iceland, making a tariffreduction conditional upon settlement of the dispute (ibid., p. 23).
103
Jeffrey Hart (ibid., p. 52) concluded that the cod war of 1972/73 ‘is a good example of a dispute in
which the existence of solid, long-term working relationships between experts and lower-level
bureaucrats was not sufficient to prevent a resort to violence’.
104
‘Glu¨ckliches Island – ohne die NATO-Trumpfkarte wu¨rde sich wohl kaum ein Mitglied der
nordatlantischen Vo¨lkerfamilie darum ku¨mmern, ob und wie die erste nachchristliche Demokratie
Europas u¨berlebt’. (Der Spiegel, 52, 1975, pp. 72–73.)
105
Hart, ‘Cod War’, pp. 42–3.
106
Ingimundarson, ‘Western’, pp. 120–7; Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 51.
500 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
mere coincidence that about ten Soviet ships and an equal number of submarines
appeared in the conflict area in May 1973 after having completed a major exercise in
the North Atlantic and shortly after the Royal Navy had entered the conflict. Earlier,
the Soviet Union had already saved Icelandic exports when Reykjavik had suffered
from the consequences of the British trade restrictions during the first cod war. Since
the Soviet exercises occurred after a reported request to the USSR by Iceland’s
coastguard (and just after London had ordered British warships into the area),
Moscow probably intended the exercises to signal Iceland that it would be ready to
come to its support, as one observer argued.
107
During the turbot war, the role of international organisations was mixed. The
existing regulatory regime for fisheries issues (NAFO) certainly did not live up to
liberal expectations because it lacked the necessary tools to settle the conflict. Other
international organisations such as NATO did not significantly contribute to the
resolution either.
108
However, the role of the EU was more ambiguous. It is quite
plausible that the conflict might even have escalated further, if EU members such as
Germany, France and Britain had not pushed Spain to refrain from some of the more
violent countermeasures against Canadian unilateralism.
109
In addition, institutional
competencies and procedures helped to dampen the conflict potential. Due to the
institutional rules of the Common Agricultural Policy, Spain had ceded its authority
to the European Commission. This might have been a factor in Spanish calculations
to let the conflict escalate by channelling blame from Madrid to Brussels. Yet it also
put the European Commission in a rather strong position as an arbiter in terms of the
interests of the EU. Still, as in the cod war, alliances did not always go along with
institutional ties during the turbot war. Britain vetoed any economic sanctions
against Canada in the Council of the European Union, in spite of the fact that it had
to gain most from stricter enforcement rules aside of Ireland when the restrictions on
the Spanish and Portuguese fleet to fish in European waters were due to expire one
year later.
110
Yet rather than historic ties and sentiment between commonwealth
partners, strategic calculations best account for British non-cooperation within the
EU.
111
Javier Solana, then Spanish Foreign Minister, emphasised the irritation on
Britain’s stance pointing out that ‘our memory is long’ and that Britain’s behaviour
‘could lead us to a deep crisis in Europe’.
112
Given that both NATO and the EU are
generally considered to be the most highly institutionalised international organisa-
tions (and therefore prime candidates for the kind of moderating effect during times
of crises among member states) it is striking to see that confrontative behaviour of
various sorts was much more prevalent than the accommodative, mediating type of
initiatives suggested by democratic peace theorists.
In spite of the lack of a dampening effect of joint membership in international
organisations, however, it is important to add that some of the institutional settings
provided a forum for pursuing negotiated settlements of the disputes later on. As a
matter of fact, one might even say that the violent strategies were calculated steps
107
Ibid., pp. 135–6.
108
Cf. David G. Haglund, ‘Bewa¨ hrte Partnerschaft bewahren: Lehren aus dem nordatlantischen
Fischereikrieg’, Das Parlament, 20, 12 May 1995.
109
Champagne, ‘Noncooperation’; interview with Dietrich von Kyaw, 30 January 2001.
110
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 272.
111
Ibid., p. 283.
112
Ibid., p. 274.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 501
(and thus only ‘interludes’) in an underlying strategy to pursue one’s interests. As
already quoted above, Brian Tobin did emphasise this strategic signalling function of
the use of force. Similar attitudes apparently also played a role in the positioning of
the Icelandic Fisheries Minister Josepsson’s party, the Peoples’ Union.
113
Thus the
way the democracies handled the conflicts seemed to correspond to traditional
carrot-and-stick type diplomacy which, at some point, seemed to necessitate some
more violent signalling of the significance of the interests at stake. Yet their practices
were a far cry from the accommodative strategies presumed to dominate among
democracies according to democratic peace proponents.
Third, democratic peace proponents argue that liberal democracies should submit
to international jurisdiction if they cannot solve their disputes or if mediation is not
available. Yet, as described above, this is not what we observed in the cases examined.
The first cod war from 1958 to 1961 had been settled when Iceland and Great Britain
had bilaterally agreed upon an Exchange of Notes which explicitly defined rules for
any further conflict on a similar issue. Yet this did not prevent the conflict from
escalating, with Iceland denying ICJ jurisdiction.
114
An interim decision by the ICJ
on 17 August 1972
115
was even politically counter-productive as it strengthened the
British position and thereby reinforced the Icelanders’ commitment to resistance.
After having decided that it had jurisdiction in February 1973, the Court ruled in July
1974 that it was not permissible to hinder foreign fleets in fishing in the contested
area. Yet Iceland did not accept the judgement.
116
During the turbot war Spain also
went to the ICJ against Canada. Similarly to Iceland, Canada denied the ICJ’s
jurisdiction on environmental issues and won two years later. In justifying its decision
not to recognise ICJ jurisdiction, Brian Tobin commented that Canada did not want
a two-year process at the end of which there would be no decision and no turbot
anymore, either.
117
In spite of these cases of disregard for international jurisdiction
which contradicts liberal expectations, surprisingly the settlement of both cases
anticipated upcoming international law. The third UN Law of the Sea Conference
eventually agreed upon a 200-miles exclusive economic zone, and the bilateral
agreement between Canada and the EU was approved without incident by NAFO at
its annual meeting in September 1995.
118
Research by legal experts suggests that this might indeed be a structural factor in
international law in general which needs to be taken into account more systematically
since ‘the dynamism of the development of international law creates opportunities
for countries to test the limits of acceptability’.
119
Moreover, according to this view,
‘existing international law’ can even be developed ‘ by illegal, unilateral measures’.
120
The cases examined here point to a close link between the strategic use of threat and
(small-scale) force in an attempt to reach more precise and/or beneficial regulations
113
See Hart, ‘Cod War’, p. 30.
114
See third Section, p. 489, above.
115
See second Section, p. 486, above.
116
Hart, ‘Cod War’, pp. 25, 36, 53; Pfetsch, ‘Konflikte’, p. 69.
117
Times, 28 March 1995, 29 March 1995; New York Times, 28 March 1995.
118
Barry, ‘Turbot War’, p. 283. Soroos argues that the turbot war at least partly contributed to the
approval of the UN Treaty on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in August 1995 by
breaking ‘new ground on enforcement’ (Soroos, ‘ Conflict’, p. 248–50).
119
Ted L. McDorman, ‘Canada’s Aggressive Fisheries Actions: Will They Improve the Climate for
International Agreements?’, Canadian Foreign Policy, 2:3 (1994), p. 9.
120
Ibid., p. 27.
502 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
within international regimes. To our knowledge, this aspect of the link between MIDs
among democracies and regime building has not been pursued thus far.
Conclusion: it swims, but the sea remains rough
Against the background of the democratic peace literature the evidence provided by
the cod war and the turbot war is irritating in some crucial ways and reassuring in
others. It is reassuring in the sense that it strengthens the point that democracies have
strong incentives not to let disputes escalate to large-scale violence. As a matter of
fact, especially in the case of the turbot war there are clear indications that the
militarisation observed was not part of a conflict with a medium or even high
potential for escalation, but rather an expression of certainty on the part of some
decision-makers that it was not risky at all to use some force to prove a certain point
and to improve the Canadians’ hand in the negotiations with the EU. In this sense the
cases at hand were not ‘near misses’ but almost ‘ guaranteed misses’. Yet while this
may be reassuring, it does not sufficiently take into account that escalation processes
are inherently risky, especially when prestige and reputation are involved in highly
publicised conflicts (as was the case to some extent in the turbot war). Therefore, it
would be foolish indeed to assume that inter-democratic conflicts can be rendered
safe for small-scale militarisation.
Secondly it is also reassuring to see that the (limited) use of force was almost
always accompanied by efforts of the parties involved to achieve some form of more
explicit international regulation of the disputed issues as a result. In this sense, the use
of force or ‘aggressive’ behaviour was seen as a useful and possibly necessary means
by the parties initiating violence to further develop international law. Yet this
contradicts much of what has been written by democratic peace theorists about the
presumed mechanism underlying inter-democratic conflict resolution. Accomoda-
tionist strategies were not prominent at low levels of violence, nor was mediation
actively sought by the conflicting parties. This is even more irritating since there were
plenty of avenues for such mediation given their joint membership in several
international organisations. In this regard even the transatlantic community (which
comes closest to a security community in a Deutschian sense) was highly deficient.
Rather, traditional power politics strategies prevailed most of the time. Thus, our
findings suggest that even among highly developed democracies the processes of
interaction which might lead to the achievement of commonly held legal positions
can be highly conflictive. During these processes the resort to violence cannot be
excluded even if the states involved almost ideally fit into the picture drawn by
democratic peace theorists.
121
What is more, the threat or use of force may be an intentionally chosen instrument
to pursue wider-raging objectives in democratic strategies of conflict management.
Neither their democratic constitution, nor their engagement in international organi-
sations or their high levels of interdependence have prevented the democracies
121
For other recent work on the resort to violence by democracies, see Anna Geis, Lothar Brock, and
Harald Mu¨ller (eds), Democratic Wars: Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Anna Geis, Harald Mu¨ller, and Wolfgang Wagner
(eds), Schattenseiten des Demokratischen Friedens – Zur Kritik einer Theorie liberaler Außen- und
Sicherheitspolitik (Frankfurt: Campus, 2007).
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 503
examined here from resorting to an anachronistic repertoire somewhat reminiscent of
the age of gunboat diplomacy. Still, one of the similarities in both cases has been that
the bilateral settlement of the conflict was later institutionalised in a broader
international regime well beyond the conflicting parties. A 200 nautical miles
exclusive economic zone, the corpus delicti in the third cod war, has been accepted by
most of the coastal states on the basis of the 1981 UN Convention on the Law of the
Sea. Also, the agreement between Canada and the EU on reduced catch quotas has
been accepted by NAFO. Yet formal agreements such as these do not ultimately bind
states, as we have seen in the case of Iceland’s unilateral abrogation of the 1961
Exchange of Notes. The effect of progress in issue-specific regime building might
indeed be to reduce the uncertainty on the legal binding force of such agreements.
However, the binding force of international regimes is still far from the level of
legitimacy of law achieved within democratic nation-states and international law is
still likely to emerge – undemocratically – from international conflicts, even in the
densely institutionalised context of the ‘Mild West’.
What does this tell us about the status of the democratic peace proposal?
Empirical regularities as they have been identified in large-nstudies remain as valid
as they have been before. Law-like generalisations, legitimately including probablil-
istic laws,
122
however, have not been the focus of the argument presented here.
Instead, we have argued that standard causal mechanisms suggested by democratic
peace theorists fail to grasp the complexity of interactions in the cases we investi-
gated. This is hardly surprising as most of the causal mechanisms have been modelled
in order to explain the ‘regular’ patterns of behaviour in democratic dyads. In this
picture, the cases presented here would appear as irregularities, somewhat irritating,
maybe puzzling in a theoretical sense, but after all a quantité negligeable. In contrast,
as we have outlined above, from our perspective these unwelcome contingencies of
inter-democratic non-cooperation might tell us more about the democratic peace
than a positivist epistemology would concede.
123
First of all, a focus on detailed dynamics of escalation and de-escalation in
inter-democratic disputes might provide a number of specific suggestions to the
democratic peace research agenda that are able to foster the grasp on the complexities
of these interactions rather than continuing ‘the proliferation of competing explana-
tions for a single observation’.
124
Specifically, case studies can yield insights on the
conditions under which democracies consider it legitimate and/or useful to resort to
aggressive strategies in pursuit of certain objectives. Moreover, it might prove helpful
to further investigate the connection between aggressive power politics strategies and
the emergence of new, widely accepted codifications within international regimes.
Finally, our findings indicate that the positive correlation between interdependence
122
Cf. Stephen Van Evera, ‘Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science’ (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1997).
123
Hence, in a peculiar sense, non-positivist epistemologies are scientifically even more ambitious
insofar as they insist that what is usually dumped into the error term must still be the product of
social rules we need to understand. In contrast, even the methodologically most sophisticated
‘positivist’ studies have tended to ignore deviant cases. The observation that fisheries disputes
originate in democracies and are reciprocated by democracies would make them an interesting test
case for the literature on signalling and domestic audience costs, for instance: cf. Schultz,
‘Diplomacy’; James D. Fearon, ‘ Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International
Disputes’, American Political Science Review, 88:3 (1994), pp. 577–92).
124
Kenneth A. Schultz, ‘Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two
Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War’, International Organization, 53 (1999), p. 233.
504 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
and peace posited by Russett et al.
125
can be reversed if resources are at stake that
states (or specific areas) perceive as vital.
Secondly, one could argue that democratic peace theories’ negligence of causal and
historical contingencies represents a major theoretical weakness which ought to be
addressed. This could, for instance, be done via a more dynamic, processual
vocabulary which basically tells the democratic peace story from a different angle.
One of the peculiar features of the democratic peace research programme is that it
appears to be based on realist core assumptions. The fact that democracies do not
fight each other appears prima facie as a puzzle, an empirically and theoretically
challenging datum, only if we presuppose something close to an atemporal Hobbe-
sian state of nature as the pre-democratic point of departure neglecting, for instance,
the medieval security community in Europe and subsequent historical transforma-
tions.
126
With democratisation, increasing interdependence and a dense network of
institutions the resort to force became increasingly inconceivable as a means of
political contention. The fixation and mutual recognition of territorial borders
127
further contributed to the desecuritisation of the West in the post-war order.
128
This
is where the ‘dynamic vocabulary’ comes in. Ole Wæver
129
has suggested conceiving
of a speech act of securitisation as the (only) defining feature of a security issue, thus
abandoning a traditional view of security problems as externally given realities.
130
Securitisation is the speech act whereby a particular issue is defined as an existential
threat to a political community. Its intersubjective recognition justifies extraordinary
political measures in order to protect the political community from what has thus
become a security issue. Obviously, democratic peace tells the reversed story of
desecuritisation. Encounters between Western democracies are routinely perceived as
by no means threatening the existence of the respective political communities. The
Western zone has moved beyond the security/insecurity problematique as interac-
tions ceased to be framed as security issues. Democratic zones of peace are thus
ideally zones of asecurity.
131
These routine perceptions, however, can be interrupted
by the redefinition of particular issues as relevant to security. Such a process of
125
Bruce M. Russett, ‘A Neo-Kantian Perspective: Democracy, Interdependence, and International
Organizations in Building Security Communities’, in Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds),
Security Communities in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
pp. 369–94.
126
Cf. Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society (London: Routledge, 1992); Barry Buzan
and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International
Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Daniel Deudney, Bounding Power: Republican
Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2007).
127
Arie M. Kacowicz, ‘Explaining Zones of Peace: Democracies as Satisfied Powers?’, Journal of
Peace Research, 32:3 (1995), pp. 265–76.
128
Kacowicz’s reconceptualisation of the democratic peace proposition in terms of zones of peace
among satisfied powers implies a focus on interactions in specific regions rather than statistical
dyads. For an elaborated regional approach in security studies, see Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver,
Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), pp. 3–89.
129
Ole Wæver, ‘Securitization and Desecuritization’, in Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 46–86.
130
Cf. Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
131
Ole Wæver, ‘Security, Insecurity, and Asecurity in the West European Non-War Community’, in
Emmanuel Adler and Michael N. Barnett (eds), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), pp. 69–118.
Disputes in the trans-Atlantic community 505
resecuritisation occurs in the extraordinary, non-routine event of something per-
ceived as an essential threat to a political community; for instance, when the
‘livelihood is at stake’ on account of the depletion of natural resources that are
considered vital. While the image of a desecuritised zone of democratic peace might
thus be a perfectly adequate description of empirical regularities and political
routines in the Mild West, the picture remains incomplete without taking into
consideration the latent possibility of resecuritisation in the event of extraordinary
situations, political crises that are perceived to justify a relapse to power politics. To
be sure, power politics among democracies is a far cry from the cabinet wars from
which we have inherited the very notion of power politics. Acknowledging that the
‘practical grammar’ of conflict has changed, however, implies a need to reconstruct
this very grammar. As we have seen, dynamics of securitisation among democracies
tend to travel across different sectors – including the economic security of particular
groups as well as the protection of a particular ‘livelihood’ – rather than leading to
full-scale escalation.
Against this background, a reformulation of the democratic peace proposition in
terms of dynamics of securitisation, sketchy as it is, would have two major
advantages. First, it can integrate results from democratic peace research as
explanations of routine behaviour without pushing aside exceptional cases.
Second, it cautions against an exaggerated ‘Fukuyama effect’, the liberal-democratic
triumphalism of states perceiving themselves as role-models for a peaceful world
neglecting the remnants of traditional power politics they display when challenged.
Moreover, it offers an analytical vocabulary capable of grasping the more subtle
forms of contemporary power politics.
Finally, bearing in mind that Western democracies are not necessarily as dovish as
research on the democratic peace may have us believe, may also lead to a more
Kantian interpretation of IR’s democratic peace. For unlike current receptions in the
democratic peace debate,
132
Kant’s political philosophy makes a clear distinction
between an idealised, empirically unattainable (!) republic (respublica noumenon)
where unanimity is the only source of legitimate laws and the empirical republic
(respublica phaenomenon), which is historically attainable at the cost of reducing
standards of legitimation to the rather vague notion of a historical tendency
approaching the idealisations of the respublica noumenon. Achieving an empirical
republic that has approached the ideal to an extent that makes pacific benefits seem
plausible, Kant argues, will be a process accompanied by ‘manifold feuds and
wars’.
133
The beautiful idea of a perpetual peace would then remain a political
project, rather than an empirical law.
132
Cf. the claim that ‘it has only recently become possible to evaluate his ‘ ‘philosophical sketch’’
scientifically’, in Oneal et al., ‘Causes of Peace’, p. 372.
133
Immanuel Kant, ‘Schriften zur Anthropologie, Geschichtsphilosophie, Politik und Pa¨ dagogik’, in
Wilhelm Weischedel (ed.), Werke in zwölf Bänden: XI (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1964), p. 364. For a
critique of the reading of Kant in the democratic peace debate, see Georg Cavallar, ‘Kantian
Perspectives on Democratic Peace: Alternatives to Doyle’, Review of International Studies, 29:2
(2001), pp. 229–48; Antonio Franceschet, ‘Sovereignty and Freedom: Immanuel Kant’s Liberal
Internationalist ‘ ‘Legacy’’ ’, Review of International Studies, 29:2 (2001), pp. 209–28; John
MacMillan, ‘A Kantian Protest against the Peculiar Discourse of Inter-Liberal State Peace’,
Millenium, 24:3 (1995), pp. 549–62. Discussing qualifications to the liberal peace, John MacMillan
in ‘Liberalism and the Democratic Peace’, Review of International Studies, 30:2 (2004), p. 200, has
aptly pointed out the importance of looking beyond empirical generalisations and thus putting
‘politics’ back into Democratic Peace research.
506 Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth
