Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T17:27:24.681Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

How far is it from Königsberg to Kandahar? Democratic peace and democratic violence in International Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2010

Abstract

Over the last two decades, there has been a ‘democratic turn’ in peace and conflict research, that is, the peculiar impact of democratic politics on a wide range of security issues has attracted more and more attention. Many of these studies are inspired by Immanuel Kant's famous essay on ‘Perpetual Peace’. In this article, we present a critical discussion of the ‘democratic distinctiveness programme’ that emerged from the Democratic Peace debate and soon spread to cover a wider range of foreign policy issues. The bulk of this research has to date been based on an overly optimistic reading of a ‘Kantian peace’. In particular, the manifold forms of violence that democracies have exerted, have been treated either as a challenge to the Democratic Peace proposition or as an undemocratic contaminant and pre-democratic relict. In contrast, we argue that forms of ‘democratic violence’ should no longer be kept at arm's length from the democratic distinctiveness programme but instead should be elevated to a main field of study. While we acknowledge the benefits of this expanding research programme, we also address a number of normative pitfalls implied in this scholarship such as lending legitimacy to highly questionable foreign policy practices by Western democracies. We conclude with suggestions for a more self-reflexive and ‘critical’ research agenda of a ‘democratically turned’ peace and conflict studies, inspired by the Frankfurt school tradition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Doyle, Michael, ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12:3 (1983), pp. 205235; 12:4 (1983), pp. 323353Google Scholar .

2 This phrase has been coined by Owen, John, ‘Democratic Peace Research: Whence and Whither?’, International Politics, 41:4 (2004), p. 605CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

3 Henderson, Errol A., Democracy and War. The End of an Illusion (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002), p. 3Google Scholar .

4 Farber, Cf. Henry and Gowa, Joanne, ‘Polities and Peace’, International Security, 20:2 (1995), pp. 123146CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

5 Bremer, Cf. Stuart, ‘Dangerous Dyads. Conditions Affecting the Likelihood of Interstate War, 1816–1965’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 36:2 (1992), pp. 309341CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; also Maoz, Zeev and Russett, Bruce, ‘Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946–1986’, American Political Science Review, 87:3 (1993), pp. 624638CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

6 Henderson, , Democracy and War, p. 5Google Scholar .

7 For an overview see, Müller, Harald and Wolff, Jonas, Democratic Peace. Many Data, Little Explanation’, in Geis, Anna, Brock, Lothar and Müller, Harald (eds), Democratic Wars. Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 4173Google Scholar .

8 For an outline of the ‘selectorate theory’, see, de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, Morrow, James, Siverson, Randolph and Smith, Alastair, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003)Google Scholar .

9 Reiter, Dan and Stam, Allan, Democracies at War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 198Google Scholar .

10 Ibid., p. 200.

11 Russett, Bruce, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 38Google Scholar .

12 Schultz, Kenneth, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 23115CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

13 Cf., among others, Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs’; Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace; Owen, John, ‘How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace’, International Security, 19:2 (1994), pp. 87125CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Risse-Kappen, Thomas, ‘Democratic Peace – Warlike Democracies? A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument’, European Journal of International Relations, 1:4 (1995), pp. 489515CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

14 See for a recent critique of this ‘extension hypothesis’ Friedman, Gil, ‘Identifying the Place of Democratic Norms in Democratic Peace’, International Studies Review, 10:3 (2008), pp. 548570CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

15 Chernoff, Cf. Fred, ‘The Study of Democratic Peace and Progress in International Relations’, International Studies Review, 6:1 (2004), pp. 4977CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; also Lee Ray, James, ‘A Lakatosian View of the Democratic Peace Research Program’, in Elman, Colin and Elman, (eds), Progress in International Relations Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003), pp. 205243Google Scholar .

16 See Russett, Bruce, ‘Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace’, International Studies Perspectives, 6:4 (2005), pp. 395408CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

17 Ish-Shalom, Piki, ‘Theory as a Hermeneutical Mechanism. The Democratic-Peace Thesis and the Politics of Democratization’, European Journal of International Relations, 12:4 (2006), pp. 565598CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Smith, Tony, A Pact with the Devil. Washington's Bid for World Supremacy and the Betrayal of the American Promise (New York: Routledge, 2007)Google Scholar .

18 MacMillan, John, ‘A Kantian Protest Against the Peculiar Discourse of Inter-Liberal State Peace’, Millennium, 24:3 (1995), pp. 549562CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

19 Russett, Bruce, ‘A Neo-Kantian Perspective: Democracy, Interdependence and International Organizations in Building Security Communities’, in Adler, Emanuel and Barnett, Michael (eds), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 368394CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

20 The works of Adam Smith, Richard Cobden, Norman Angell and Joseph Schumpeter may be regarded as milestones in that tradition.

21 Levy, Jack, ‘War and Peace’, in Carlsnaes, Walter, Risse, Thomas and Simmons, Beth (eds), Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage, 2002), p. 356Google Scholar .

22 Bruce Russett, ‘A Neo-Kantian Perspective’, p. 374; Doyle, Michael, Ways of War and Peace (New York: Norton, 1997), chap. 8Google Scholar .

23 For an overview see Mansfield, Edward and Pollins, Brian, ‘Interdependence and Conflict: An Introduction’, in Mansfield, Edward and Pollins, Brian (eds), Economic Interdependence and International Conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), p. 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

24 Schneider, Gerald, Barbieri, Katherine and Petter Gleditsch, Nils (eds), Globalization and Armed Conflict (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003)Google Scholar .

25 Gelpi, Christopher and Grieco, Joseph, ‘Economic Interdependence, the Democratic State, and the Liberal Peace’, in Mansfield, Edward and Pollins, Brian (eds), Economic Interdependence and International Conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), pp. 4459Google Scholar .

26 Bliss, Harry and Russett, Bruce, ‘Democratic Trading Partners: The Liberal Connection’, Journal of Politics, 60 (1998), pp. 11261147, quotes from pp. 11281129CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

27 Franceschet, Antonio, ‘Popular Sovereignty or Cosmopolitan Democracy? Liberalism, Kant and International Reform’, European Journal of International Relations, 6:2 (2000), pp. 283, 295CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

28 Singer, David and Wallace, Michael, ‘Intergovernmental Organization and the Preservation of Peace, 1816–1964’, International Organization, 24:3 (1970), pp. 520547CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

29 Moravcsik, Andrew, ‘Federalism and Peace: A Structural Liberal Perspective’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 3:1 (1996), pp. 123132Google Scholar .

30 Russett, Bruce, Oneal, John and Davis, David, ‘The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod for Peace: International Organizations and Militarized Disputes, 1950–1985’, International Organization, 52:3 (1998), pp. 441467CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; also Haftel, Yoram, ‘Designing for Peace: Regional Integration Arrangements, Institutional Variation, and Militarized Interstate Conflict’, International Organization, 61:1 (2007), pp. 217237CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

31 Bearce, David and Omori, Sawa, ‘How Do Commercial Institutions Promote Peace?’, Journal of Peace Research, 42:6 (2005), pp. 659678CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

32 Russett, Bruce and Oneal, John, Triangulating Peace Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations (New York: Norton, 2001), p. 173Google Scholar .

33 Lipson, Charles, Reliable Partner. How democracies have made a separate peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar .

34 Martin, Lisa, Democratic Commitments: Legislatures and International Cooperation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

35 Taylor Gaubatz, Kurt, ‘Democratic states and commitment in international relations’, International Organization, 50:1 (1996), pp. 109139CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

36 Hasenclever, and Weiffen, Britta, ‘International Institutions are the Key: a new Perspective on the Democratic Peace’, Review of International Studies, 32:4 (2006), pp. 563585CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

37 Shanks, Cheryl, Jacobson, Harold and Kaplan, Jeffrey, ‘Inertia and Change in the Constellation of International Governmental Organizations, 1981–1992’, International Organization, 50:4 (1996), pp. 593627CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Pevehouse, Jon, Nordstrom, Timothy and Warnke, Kevin, ‘The COW-2 International Organizations Dataset Version 2.0’, Conflict Management and Peace Science, 21:2 (2004), pp. 101119CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

38 Ashley Leeds, Brett, ‘Alliance Reliability in Times of War: Explaining State Decisions to Violate Treaties’, International Organization, 57:4 (2003), pp. 801827Google Scholar .

39 Pevehouse, Jon and Russett, Bruce, ‘Democratic International Governmental Organizations Promote Peace’, International Organization, 60:4 (2006), pp. 9691000CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

40 See Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs’, pp. 226–7; Pevehouse and Russett, ‘Democratic International Governmental Organizations Promote Peace’.

41 A textual analysis of Kant's pertinent writings is beyond the scope of this article but see the plausible argumentation proposed by MacMillan, ‘A Kantian Protest’, pp. 553–60; Jahn, Beate, ‘Kant, Mill, and Illiberal Legacies in International Affairs’, International Organization, 59:1 (2005), p. 191CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Eberl, OliverDemokratie und Frieden. Kants Friedensschrift in den Kontroversen der Gegenwart (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2008), pp. 200204Google Scholar .

42 Russett and Oneal, Triangulating Peace.

43 Rengger, Nicholas, ‘On Democratic War Theory’, in Geis, Anna, Brock, Lothar and Müller, Harald (eds), Democratic Wars. Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 133Google Scholar .

44 Forsythe, David, ‘Democracy, War and Covert Action’, Journal of Peace Research, 29:4 (1992), pp. 385395CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

45 Czempiel, Ernst-Otto, ‘Kants Theorem. Oder: Warum sind die Demokratien (noch immer) nicht friedlich?’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 3:1 (1996), pp. 79101Google Scholar .

46 Mansfield, Edward and Snyder, Jack, Electing to Fight. Why Emerging Democracies go to War (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005)Google Scholar .

47 Risse-Kappen, ‘Democratic Peace – Warlike Democracies?’.

48 Hellmann, Cf. Gunther and Herborth, Benjamin, ‘Fishing in the mild West: democratic peace and militarised interstate disputes in the transatlantic community’, Review of International Studies, 34:3 (2008), p. 505CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

49 See, among others, Geis, Anna, Brock, Lothar and Müller, Harald (eds), Democratic Wars. Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)Google Scholar ; Freedman, Lawrence, ‘The age of liberal wars’, in Armstrong, David, Farell, Theo and Maiguashca, Bice (eds), Force and Legitimacy in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 93107Google Scholar ; Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Christiansen, Lene and Hegre, Håvard, Democratic Jihad? Military Intervention and Democracy (Washington: World Bank Policy Research Paper WP 4242, 2007)Google Scholar .

50 Dunne, Tim, ‘Liberalism, International Terrorism, and Democratic Wars’, International Relations, 23:1 (2009), p. 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

51 Duffield, Mark, Global Governance and New Wars. The Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001)Google Scholar and Chandler, David, From Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond. Human Rights and International Intervention (London: Pluto Press, 2006)Google Scholar .

52 For an elaboration on this concept of democratic peace as the flipside of democratic wars see Geis, Brock, Müller, Democratic Wars.

53 Doyle, , Ways of War and Peace, p. 284Google Scholar .

54 See, for example, the analysis by Peceny, Mark, Democracy at the Point of Bayonets (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999)Google Scholar on US interventions in the 20th century, which demonstrates how political elites justified such missions by references to security concerns as well as liberal values.

55 Cf. Freedman, ‘Age of Liberal Wars’ and Chandler, From Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond.

56 See, for example, Risse-Kappen ‘Democratic Peace – Warlike Democracies?’; and Kahl, Colin H., ‘Constructing a Separate Peace: Constructivism, Collective Liberal Identity, and Democratic Peace’, Security Studies, 8:2–3 (1998), pp. 94144CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

57 Wendt, Alexander, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 82CrossRefGoogle Scholar . We cannot deal with the problem of causal claims in IR research here, see for this Kurki, Milja, Causation in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

58 Lupovici, Amir, ‘Constructivist methods: a plea and manifesto for pluralism’, Review of International Studies, 35:1 (2009), pp. 195218CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

59 Anna Geis, Harald Müller and Niklas Schörnig (eds), The Janus Face of Liberal Democracies. Militant ‘Forces for Good’ (unpublished manuscript, 2010); Müller, Harald, ‘The Antinomy of Democratic Peace’, International Politics, 41:4, pp. 494520CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; MacMillan, cf. John, ‘Liberalism and the democratic peace’, Review of International Studies, 30:2 (2004), pp. 179200CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Wiener, Antje, The Invisible Constitution of Politics. Contested Norms and International Encounters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 3758CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

60 Sørensen, Georg, ‘Liberalism of Restraint and Liberalism of Imposition: Liberal Values and World Order in the New Millennium’, International Relations, 20:3 (2006), pp. 251272CrossRefGoogle Scholar . A new wave of Kant readings is an indicator of this revived debate. These interpretations of Kant differ considerably in the question whether he was a staunch advocate of non-intervention or whether he developed liberal justifications for forcible interventions into non-democratic regimes. See, for example, Müller, Harald, ‘Kants Schurkenstaat: Der “ungerechte Feind” und die Selbstermächtigung zum Kriege’, in Geis, Anna (ed.), Den Krieg überdenken (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006), pp. 229250Google Scholar , and Desch, Michael, ‘America's Liberal Illiberalism’, International Security, 32:3 (2007/8), pp. 743CrossRefGoogle Scholar for readings of Kant's ‘unjust enemy’ as fathering liberal interventions; and see MacMillan, ‘A Kantian Protest’ and Eberl, Demokratie und Frieden for readings of a Kantian self-restraint and a prudent evolutionary approach to non-democracies.

61 Brock, Lothar, ‘The Use of Force by Democracies in the Post-Cold War Era’, in Bothe, Michael, O'Connell, and Ronzitti, Natalino (eds), Redefining Sovereignty. The Use of Force after the End of the Cold War (Ardsley: Transnational Publishers, 2005), pp. 2152Google Scholar .

62 Desch, ‘America's Liberal Illiberalism’.

63 John MacMillan, ‘Liberalism and the democratic peace’; Geis, Müller, Schörnig (eds), The Janus Face of Liberal Democracies.

64 Müller, ‘Antinomy of Democratic Peace’.

65 Risse-Kappen ‘Democratic Peace – Warlike Democracies?’; see also Kahl, ‘Constructing a Separate Peace’.

66 See, for example, Campbell, David, Writing Security. US Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992)Google Scholar and Neumann, Iver, Uses of the Other: The “East” in European Identity Formation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998)Google Scholar .

67 See references in fn. 66; on the combination of social-constructivist and ‘critical’ studies see Price, Richard and Reus-Smit, Christian, ‘Dangerous Liaisons? Critical International Theory and Constructivism’, European Journal of International Relations, 4:3 (1998), pp. 259294CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

68 See Müller, ‘Kants Schurkenstaat’ and Desch, ‘America's Illiberalism’; whereas Desch contends that Kant's liberalism indiscriminately regards all non-Republican states as dangerous threats (ibid., p. 13), Müller (ibid., pp. 242–5) stresses that it is a matter of differentiated practical judgement by liberal actors which kind of non-Republican state is perceived as an ‘unjust enemy’, hence as potential object for forcible intervention.

69 Jahn, ‘Kant, Mill, and Illiberal Legacies’.

70 Müller, ‘Kants Schurkenstaat’.

71 Geis, Müller, Schörnig (eds), The Janus Face of Liberal Democracies.

72 Freedman, ‘Age of Liberal Wars’, p. 98.

73 Vasquez, John, ‘Ethics, Foreign Policy, and Liberal Wars’, International Studies Perspective, 6:3 (2005), pp. 307311CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

74 Geis, Müller, Schörnig (eds), The Janus Face of Liberal Democracies.

75 Reiter, and Stam, , Democracies at War, p. 9Google Scholar .

76 Desch, Michael C., ‘Democracy and Victory: Why Regime Type Hardly Matters’, International Security 27 (2002), pp. 547CrossRefGoogle Scholar , and recently Desch, Michael C., Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)Google Scholar .

77 Reiter, and Stam, , Democracies at War, pp. 164192Google Scholar .

78 Mueller, John E, War, Presidents and Public Opinion (New York: Wiley 1973)Google Scholar . For a recent overview see Smith, Hugh, ‘What Costs Will Democracies Bear? A Review of Popular Theories of Casualty Aversion’, Armed Forces & Society, 31:4, (2005), pp. 487512CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

79 Watts, Stephen, ‘Air war and restraint: the role of public opinion and democracy’, in Evangelista, Matthew, Müller, Harald and Schörnig, Niklas (eds), Democracy and Security (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 5455Google Scholar ; Shaw, Martin, The New Western Way of War (Cambridge: Polity, 2005)Google Scholar .

80 Downes, Alexander B., Targeting Civilians in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)Google Scholar . Downes finds two main reasons why governments decide to target civilians, one is desperation to reduce one's own military casualties or avert defeat, the other is the ambition to annex enemy territory. According to this study, democracies historically stand out for targeting civilians out of desperation.

81 Gelpi, Christopher, Feaver, Peter D. and Reifler, Jason, Paying the Human Costs of War: American Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

82 Schörnig, Niklas, ‘Die Vision des wohlfeilen Krieges’, in Geis, Anna, Müller, Harald and Wagner, Wolfgang (eds), Schattenseiten des Demokratischen Friedens (Frankfurt: Campus, 2007), pp. 93122Google Scholar .

83 Møller, Cf. Bjørn, The Revolution in Military Affairs: Myth or Reality? (Copenhagen: COPRI Working Papers No. 15 (2002)Google Scholar .

84 Pertinent here is in the UK the recent ‘Liberal Way of War Programme’ at the University of Reading, see: {http://www.rdg.ac.uk/spirs/Leverhulme/spirs-leverhulme_home.aspx}. In Germany, comprehensive investigations into Western modes of warfare and armament policies have been conducted by the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) within the framework of its research programme on ‘Antinomies of Democratic Peace’.

85 Ignatieff, Michael, Empire Lite. Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (Toronto: Penguin, 2003)Google Scholar .

86 See the discussion in Smith, William and Fine, Robert, ‘Cosmopolitanism and military intervention’, in Devetak, Richard and Hughes, Christopher (eds), The Globalization of Political Violence (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 58Google Scholar , and Kaldor, Mary, New and Old Wars (Cambridge: Polity, 2006, second edition), pp. 119149Google Scholar .

87 Krain, Matthew and Myers, Marissa E., ‘Democracy and Civil War: A Note on the Democratic Peace Proposition’, International Interactions, 23:1 (1997), pp. 109118CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Hegre, Håvard, Gates, Scott, Gleditsch, Nils Petter and Ellingsen, Tanja, ‘Towards a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Democratization, and Civil War 1816–1992’, American Political Science Review, 95:1 (2001), pp. 3348Google Scholar .

88 Müller, Harald and Becker, Una, ‘Technology, nuclear arms control, and democracy’, in Evangelista, Matthew, Müller, Harald and Schörnig, Niklas (eds), Democracy and Security (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 102119Google Scholar .

89 Goldsmith, Benjamin, ‘Defense Efforts and Institutional Theories of Democratic Peace and Victory: Why Try Harder’, Security Studies, 16:2 (2007), pp. 189222CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

90 Goldsmith, Benjamin and He, Baogang, ‘Letting Go Without a Fight: Decolonization, Democracy and War, 1900–94’, Journal of Peace Research, 45:5 (2008), pp. 587611CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

91 Abrahms, Max, ‘Why Democracies Make Superior Counterterrorists’, Security Studies, 16:2 (2007), pp. 223253CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

92 Wagner, Wolfgang, ‘Building an Internal Security Community: The Democratic Peace and the Politics of Extradition in Western Europe’, Journal of Peace Research, 40:6 (2003), pp. 695712CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

93 George, Alexander and Bennett, Andrew, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), p. 58Google Scholar .

94 critique, In, Rengger, Nicholas, International Relations, Political Theory and the Problem of Order (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 116Google Scholar .

95 Czempiel, ‘Kants Theorem’.

96 There are some Democratic Peace studies that have opened up the ‘black box’ of democracy and distinguish different institutional types of democracies or parliamentary oversight powers, see for example, Fendius Elman, Miriam, ‘Unpacking Democracy: Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Theories of Democratic Peace’, Security Studies, 9:4 (2000), pp. 91126CrossRefGoogle Scholar , and Dieterich, Sandra, Hummel, Hartwig and Marschall, Stefan, ‘“Kriegsspielverderber?” Europäische Parlamente und der Irak-Krieg 2003’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 15:1 (2009), pp. 537CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Such approaches, however, remain within the established lines of institutionalist readings of democracy. In contrast, we are hinting here at ‘radical’ critiques of existing democracies. For a comprehensive treatment of radical democratic readings of Kant see Eberl, Demokratie und Frieden.

97 See, for example, Crouch, Colin, Post-Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 2004)Google Scholar .

98 Hobson, Christopher, ‘Beyond the End of History: The Need for a “Radical Historicisation” of Democracy in International Relations’, Millennium, 37:3 (2009), pp. 631657CrossRefGoogle Scholar , and Ish-Shalom, Piki, ‘Theorization, Harm, and the Democratic Imperative: Lessons from the Politicization of the Democratic-Peace Thesis’, International Studies Review, 10:4 (2008), pp. 680692CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

99 For such references see, among others, Ish-Shalom, ‘Theory as a Hermeneutical Mechanism’ and Smith, Pact with the Devil.

100 See Steele, Brent, ‘Liberal-Idealism: A Constructivist Critique’, International Studies Review, 9 (2007), pp. 2352CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

101 Grimm, Cf. Sonja and Merkel, Wolfgang (eds), War and Democratization: Legality, Legitimacy and Effectiveness, Special Issue of Democratization 15:3 (2008)Google Scholar .

102 Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War.

103 Ibid., p. 203.

104 Ibid., p. 204.

105 Bruce Russett, ‘Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace’, p. 396.

106 For a fierce critique see Smith, Pact with the Devil.

107 Ish-Shalom, ‘Theorization, Harm, and the Democratic Imperative’.

108 See, for example, Rawls, John, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999)Google Scholar . See for a critical summary Simpson, Gerry, ‘Two Liberalisms’, European Journal of International Law, 12:3 (2001), pp. 537571CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

109 Buchanan, Allen and O. Keohane, Robert, ‘The Preventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan Institutional Proposal’, Ethics and International Affairs, 18:1 (2004), p. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

110 See, for example, Feinstein, Lee and Slaughter, Anne-Marie, ‘A Duty to Prevent’, Foreign Affairs, 83:1 (2004), pp. 136150CrossRefGoogle Scholar , and Daalder, Ivo and Lindsay, James, ‘Democracies of the World, Unite’, The American Interest (January/February 2007)Google Scholar . For a critique of a liberal international law see Reus-Smit, Christian, ‘Liberal hierarchy and the license to use force’, in Armstrong, David, Farrell, Theo and Maiguashca, Bice (eds), Force and Legitimacy in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 7192Google Scholar .

111 Ikenberry, G. John and Slaughter, Anne-Marie, Forging a World of Liberty under Law. US National Security in the 21. Century, Final Paper of the Princeton Project on National Security (2006), p. 25Google Scholar .

112 Kagan, Robert, The Return of History and the End of Dreams (New York: Knopf, 2008), p. 98Google Scholar .

113 See the comprehensive account by Clark, Ian, ‘Democracy in International Society: Promotion or Exclusion’ Millennium, 37:3 (2009), pp. 563581CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

114 Cf. the research programme on ‘Antinomies of Democratic Peace’ of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF); Müller, ‘Antinomy of Democratic Peace’.

115 See, for example, Calhoun, Craig, Critical Social Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995)Google Scholar and Devetak, Richard, ‘Critical Theory’, in Burchill, Scott et al. (eds), Theories of International Relations (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, third edition), pp. 137160Google Scholar .

116 For some preliminary reflections on the inclusion of critical theory into the study of Democratic Peace see Geis, Anna, ‘Spotting the “Enemy”? Democracies and the Challenge of the “Other”’, in Geis, Anna, Brock, Lothar and Müller, Harald (eds), Democratic Wars (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 142169CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Müller, Harald and Schörnig, Niklas, ‘“Security Studies” Cinderella?’, in Evangelista, Matthew, Müller, Harald and Schörnig, Niklas (eds), Democracy and Security (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 189Google Scholar . For an instructive elaboration on that topic see Christopher Hobson, ‘Towards a Critical Theory of Democratic Peace’, forthcoming in Review of International Studies.

117 Steele, ‘Liberal-Idealism’, and Hobson, ‘Towards a Critical Theory of Democratic Peace’. See for this issue within a wider framework of ‘positive’ liberal theories Reus Smit, Christian, ‘The Strange Death of Liberal International Theory’, in European Journal of International Law, 12:3 (2001), pp. 573593CrossRefGoogle Scholar .