Article Review: “Does Democracy Cause Peace?”

Published by Annual Review of Political Science Journal on Volume 1, 1998, the article on “Does Democracy Cause Peace?”, James Lee Ray, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University, discussed on the proposition that democratic states are peaceful in their relations with each other and are less war-prone in general, the greater number of democratic states in the international system, the lower the incidence of war in that system.

In his study, James Lee Ray focused on the historical background, contemporary origins, analyzing data, attacking the evidence in support, and theoretical bases of the democratic peace proposition. In the historical background of democratic peace, he said that it is from Immanuel Kant’s 1975 essay, perpetual peace. According to this essay, perpetual peace would occur only when states had civil constitutions establishing republics. In the contemporary origins of democratic peace proposition, James tried to cite and explain the study of democratic states do not fight with each other from different scholars, including Babst, Wright, Doyle, Ray, and Rummel.

In the analyzing data regarding the democratic peace proposition, James cited the data from the study of Maoz & Abdolali, Bremer, and Maoz & Russet. In analyzing data from their 271,904 observations, Maoz & Abdolali reported that in the years from 1816 to 1976, democratic states never fight one other. They are also less likely to engage in lower-level conflicts with each other. The study data of Maoz & Russet on the period from 1946 to 1986 from 29,081 observations showed no democratic states at war with each other. In attacking the evidence in support of democratic peace, James tried to finger out the criticism to supported data of democratic peace proposition and the respond to the criticisms. In the theoretical point, James cited theories from different scholars – Rummael, Ray, and Bueno de Mesquita & Siverson – to support the democratic peace proposition.

Based on these studies, James Lee Ray showed the empirical evidence in favour of the proposition that democratic state has not initiated and are not likely to initiate interstate wars against each other is substantial, especially when compared with that which could be brought to bear by specialists in the 1970s. Criticism of this evidence has also far met with reasonably persuasive counterarguments by the defenders of the proposition. The well-developed theoretical bases reinforce a lengthy list of systematic empirical analyses in support of that proposition. Moreover, the multiple streams of arguments and evidence supporting the proposition are highly diverse. James finally found the finding answer to the question of whether democracy causes peace or not. He strongly concluded that democracy really causes peace.

I, in a personal view, assume that the study of James Lee Ray on whether democracy cause peace is a very significant one. He tried to look in different angels in this study. He did not only raise the empirical and theoretical evidence to support the study, but he has also cited the criticisms to the data and fined the response back to the criticisms.  James’ finding will strongly contribute to further study in the field of democracy and peace.