Fishing in the mild West: democratic peace and militarised interstate disputes in the transatlantic community

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUNTHER HELLMANN ◽  
BENJAMIN HERBORTH
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Interstate Disputes ◽  
Empirical Law ◽  
The 1950S

AbstractAccording 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’. 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.

Authoritarian Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark S. Bell ◽  
Kai Quek
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Mass Publics ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Western Democracies

AbstractThe “democratic peace”—the regularity that democracies rarely (if ever) fight with other democracies but do fight with nondemocracies—is one of the most famous findings in international relations scholarship. There is little agreement, however, about the mechanism that underpins the democratic peace. Recently, scholars have shown that mass publics in liberal democracies are less supportive of using military force against other democracies. This finding has been taken to support the idea that the content of public opinion may provide one mechanism that underpins the democratic peace. Using a large-scale survey experiment, we show that mass publics in an authoritarian regime—China—show the same reluctance to use force against democracies as is found in western democracies. Our findings expand the empirical scope of the claim that mass publics are reluctant to use force against democracies, but force us to rethink how public opinion operates as a causal mechanism underpinning the democratic peace.

Kantian Project of Perpetual Peace in the Context of Modern Ethical and Political Concepts of War

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Arseniy D. Kumankov
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Peace Theory ◽  
Perpetual Peace

The article considers the modern meaning of Kant’s doctrine of war. The author examines the context and content of the key provisions of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace. The author also reviews the ideological affinity between Kant and previous authors who proposed to build alliances of states as a means of preventing wars. It is noted that the French revolution and the wars caused by it, the peace treaty between France and Prussia served as the historical background for the conceptualization of Kant’s project. In the second half of the 20th century, there is a growing attention to Kant’s ethical and political philosophy. Theorists of a wide variety of political and ethical schools, (cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and liberalism) pay attention to Kant’s legacy and relate their own concepts to it. Kant’s idea of war is reconsidered by Michael Doyle, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck, Mary Kaldor, Brian Orend. Thus, Doyle tracks democratic peace theory back to Kant’s idea of the spread of republicanism. According to democratic peace theory, liberal democracies do not solve conflict among themselves by non-military methods. Habermas, Beck, Kaldor appreciate Kant as a key proponent of cosmopolitanism. For them, Kant’s project is important due to notion of supranational forms of cooperation. They share an understanding that peace will be promoted by an allied authority, which will be “governing without government” and will take responsibility for the functioning of the principles of pacification of international relations. Orend’s proves that Kant should be considered as a proponent of the just war theory. In addition, Orend develops a new area in just war theory – the concept of ius post bellum – and justifies regime change as the goal of just war.

The Big Push Déjà Vu: A Review of Jeffrey Sachs's The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Easterly
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Development Economics ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Poor ◽  
World Poverty ◽  
Incentive Problems ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Déjà Vu ◽  
Big Push ◽  
Made In

Jeffrey Sachs's new book (The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Penguin Press: New York, 2005) advocates a “Big Push” featuring large increases in aid to finance a package of complementary investments in order to end world poverty. These recommendations are remarkably similar to those first made in the 1950s and 1960s in development economics. Today, as then, the Big Push recommendation overlooks the unsolvable information and incentive problems facing any large-scale planning exercise. A more promising approach would be to design incentives for aid agents to implement interventions piecemeal whenever they deliver large benefits for the poor relative to costs.

scholarly journals Spinifex People as Cold War Moderns

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Greg Castillo
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Atomic Age ◽  
Native Title ◽  
Global Modernity ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Government

Aboriginal Australian contemporary artists create works that express indigenous traditions as well as the unprecedented conditions of global modernity. This is especially true for the founders of the Spinifex Arts Project, a collective established in 1997 to create so-called “government paintings”: the large-scale canvases produced as documents of land tenure used in negotiations with the government of Western Australia to reclaim expropriated desert homelands. British and Australian nuclear testing in the 1950s displaced the Anangu juta pila nguru, now known to us as the Spinifex people, from their nomadic lifeworld. Exodus and the subsequent struggle to regain lost homelands through paintings created as corroborating evidence for native title claims make Spinifex canvases not simply expressions of Tjukurpa, or “Dreamings,” but also artifacts of the atomic age and its impact on a culture seemingly far from the front lines of cold war conflict.

Genesis of Statins

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Jack Li
Keyword(s):  
Heart Disease ◽  
Thyroid Hormone ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Hormone Treatment ◽  
Blood Cholesterol ◽  
Heart Attacks ◽  
Cholesterol Levels ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Loss Of Libido ◽  
Artery Disease

As evidence grew that high blood cholesterol levels were linked to heart disease, scientists in both academia and industry began to look for drugs to lower cholesterol as early as the 1950s. Before Akira Endo discovered the first statin, mevastatin, in the 1970s, many things, including hormones, vitamins, and resins, were tried to lower cholesterol. Some worked, and some did not. Thyroid hormone was one of the fi st drugs used for that purpose. The cholesterol-lowering properties of dextro-thyroxine were discovered by serendipity. At one point, surgical removal of part of the thyroid gland had been used to relieve angina, the pain brought on by exercise in coronary artery disease. Doctors observed that thyroid removal also raised the blood cholesterol level, which in turn sped up arterial degeneration. By deduction, the doctors reasoned that taking thyroid hormone should then decrease blood cholesterol levels. Initial clinical trials proved this theory, and dextro-thyroxine was used to lower cholesterol beginning in the 1950s, when thyroid extract became a standard treatment for hypercholesterolemic (high cholesterol) patients. Unfortunately, too much thyroid hormone made patients tremble all the time. Later, a large-scale, long-term clinical trial named the “Coronary Drug Project” established the association of dextro-thyroxine with ischemic heart disease as a severe side eff ect in men. As a consequence, thyroid hormone treatment was discontinued. Women, in contrast to men, enjoy natural cardiac protection through the action of the female sex hormones, the estrogens. In 1930, a minute quantity of estrogen was isolated from the ovaries of 80,000 sows. In the 1950s, reports appeared that estrogen could lower blood cholesterol levels even more effectively than nicotinic acid, another anticholesterol drug used at the time. Unfortunately, men on estrogen for too long began to develop feminine traits, including breast enlargement and loss of libido, and other side effects, although they did acquire relative immunity from heart attacks until late in life. Due to the lack of safe and effiicacious drugs, some doctors seemed willing to take their chances with estrogens.

Paleoindian Aggregation and Social Context at Bull Brook

2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian S. Robinson ◽  
Jennifer C. Ort ◽  
William A. Eldridge ◽  
Adrian L. Burke ◽  
Bertrand G. Pelletier
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
North America ◽  
Spatial Structure ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Complete Analysis ◽  
Large Circle ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
New Research

Large social aggregations are among the most highly organized events associated with mobile hunter-gatherers. The Bull Brook Paleoindian site in Ipswich, Massachusetts provides the strongest case for large-scale Paleoindian aggregation in North America, with 36 discrete concentrations of artifacts arranged in a large circle. Avocational archaeologists who salvaged the site in the 1950s interpreted it as a single occupation. Professionals first rejected and then revived this hypothesis, but the site remained insufficiently analyzed to evaluate. New research supports the single occupation hypothesis with a fully reconstructed site plan and the first complete analysis of artifact distributions. Clear spatial structure of activities within the ring-shaped site plan provides a window on social contexts that are also visible in smaller Paleoindian settlements.

Democratic peace: Does ethnic inclusiveness reduce interstate conflict?

2019 ◽  
pp. 019251211988473
Author(s):  
Seung-Whan Choi ◽  
Henry Noll
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Estimation Method ◽  
Interstate Conflict ◽  
Model Specification ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Interstate Disputes ◽  
Time Series Data Analysis ◽  
Cross National

In this study, we argue that ethnic inclusiveness is an important democratic norm that fosters interstate peace. When two states are socialized into the notion of ethnic tolerance, they acquire the ability to reach cooperative arrangements in time of crisis. Based on cross-national time-series data analysis covering the period 1950–2001, we illustrate how two states that are inclusive of their politically relevant ethnic groups are less likely to experience interstate disputes than states that remain exclusive. This finding was robust, regardless of sample size, intensity of the dispute, model specification, or estimation method. Therefore, we believe in the existence of ethnic peace: ethnic inclusiveness represents an unambiguous force for democratic peace.

Democracies and Peace: The Self-organizing Foundation for the Democratic Peace

1995 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gus diZerega
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Open Boundaries ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Self Organizing

Democracies do not fight one another. This is because they are self-organizing systems and therefore fundamentally distinct from other states. As systems, liberal democracies have more in common with science and the market than they do with undemocratic states. By contrast, undemocratic states are best conceived as instrumental organizations pursuing relatively well defined goals. Liberal democracies do not normally pursue particular goals, are rarely comprehensible as rational actors, have unusually open boundaries, are self-transforming, and handle greater complexity than instrumental organizations. These characteristics provide the foundation for their mutually pacific relationships. The U.S. president's partial insulation from these characteristics explains why the United States has sometimes undermined small quasi-democratic states. This analysis sheds light on how norms and institutions help maintain the democratic peace.

scholarly journals FromJus ad BellumtoJus ad Vim: Recalibrating Our Understanding of the Moral Use of Force

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Brunstetter ◽  
Megan Braun
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Michael Walzer ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
The One

In the preface of the 2006 edition ofJust and Unjust Wars, Michael Walzer makes an important distinction between, on the one hand, “measures short of war,” such as imposing no-fly zones, pinpoint air/missile strikes, and CIA operations, and on the other, “actual warfare,” typified by a ground invasion or a large-scale bombing campaign. Even if the former are, technically speaking, acts of war according to international law, he proffers that “it is common sense to recognize that they are very different from war.” While they all involve “the use of force,” Walzer distinguishes between the level of force used: the former, being more limited in scope, lack the “unpredictable and often catastrophic consequences” of a “full-scale attack.” Walzer calls the ethical framework governing these measuresjus ad vim(the just use of force), and he applies it to state-sponsored uses of force against both state and nonstate actors outside a state's territory that fall short of the quantum and duration associated with traditional warfare. Compared to acts of war,jus ad vimactions present diminished risk to one's own troops, have a destructive outcome that is more predictable and smaller in scale, severely curtail the risk of civilian casualties, and entail a lower economic and military burden. These factors makejus ad vimactions nominally easier for statesmen to justify compared to conventional warfare, though this does not necessarily mean these actions are morally legitimate or that they do not have potentially nefarious consequences.

British Business and the Uncertainties of Early Independence in Indonesia

Itinerario ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Thomas Lindblad
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Foreign Firms ◽  
Business Climate ◽  
Economic Nationalism ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Physical Assets ◽  
Private Investors ◽  
Moderate Policy

British private investors were not inclined to view the leaders of newly independent Indonesia with much confidence. In 1949, when the transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlands to the Republic of Indonesia was imminent, the chairman of the United Serdang (Sumatra) Rubber Plantations disclosed the following opinion to the firm's shareholders at a gathering in London's Great Tower Street: “The Republican leaders are mainly ambitious men, whose records are well known, striving for personal aggrandizement. The measure of their interest in the welfare of the country is to be gauged by their policy of wanton destruction of life and physical assets, such as estate factories and ancillary buildings, which are essential for the restoration of the economy of the country once the political problem has been settled.” This article is about how a British enterprise dealt with the significant uncertainties prevailing in the business environment of Indonesia during the early independence period, in particular the 1950s.The economic situation in newly independent Indonesia was a peculiar one. As a major exporter of primary products in high demand such as oil and rubber, prospects were generally bright for the Indonesian economy during and after the Korean War. Just as under colonialism, a modern, large-scale sector accounting for almost 25 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) was still dominated by Dutch firms and British and American multinationals. Eight large Dutch trading companies handled 60 per cent of consumer goods imports. Nevertheless, the business climate had changed dramatically for foreign firms operating in Indonesia. The 1950s saw a gradual shift away from moderate policy-makers towards an increasingly vocal economic nationalism. The former were acutely aware of the country's dependence on foreign capital and know-how, whereas the latter relentlessly pushed for full decolonisation, that is not only in political but in economic terms. Nationalist sentiments gained the upper hand during the first cabinet of Ali Sastroamidjojo (July 1953–July 1955), culminating with the takeover of virtually all remaining Dutch-owned enterprises in Indonesia from December 1957 onwards, eventually followed by formal nationalisation in 1959. Although economic nationalism in the 1950s primarily targeted Dutch enterprises, British foreign firms were affected as well. At a later stage, in the context of the Indonesian military confrontation with Malaysia (1963–6), they were also seized, albeit not nationalised.

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