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The subject of democratic peace theory (the idea that democratic states don't fight each other) has come up on here a few times. Aside from the fact that there are plenty of historical exceptions to this rule (Philippine-American war, Irish war of Independence etc) one of my hunches is that democracies havent fought it each other simply due to the fact that they have little to fight about anyway. Democratic peace theorists on the other hand would explain this using regime type.
For example Joanne Gowa (playing devils advocate) sums up this argument by saying
“The checks and balances that define a democracy
constrain the autonomy of its leader. These constraints apply a fortiori to decisions
involving force, delaying the dispatch of troops abroad even in international crises. As
such, they create a window of opportunity that diplomats can exploit to settle conflicts of
interests without recourse to arms.”*
However if this was the case you would think that there was some example of two democracies having some dispute that they would have fought over were it not for democratic constraints, so presumably there would be some case where two democracies came to the brink of war and then stopped. Does such an example exist?
*http://web.mit.edu/polisci/research/wip/dempeace_final.pdf p5
For example Joanne Gowa (playing devils advocate) sums up this argument by saying
“The checks and balances that define a democracy
constrain the autonomy of its leader. These constraints apply a fortiori to decisions
involving force, delaying the dispatch of troops abroad even in international crises. As
such, they create a window of opportunity that diplomats can exploit to settle conflicts of
interests without recourse to arms.”*
However if this was the case you would think that there was some example of two democracies having some dispute that they would have fought over were it not for democratic constraints, so presumably there would be some case where two democracies came to the brink of war and then stopped. Does such an example exist?
*http://web.mit.edu/polisci/research/wip/dempeace_final.pdf p5