Democratic Peace Theory on Trial
Contentious Debate: Liberals v. Realists
GISA218
19 May, 2014
Bumjoon Kwon
Issue & Overview
* Issue
- Whether the DPT presents reliable and valid methodologies?
* Overview
- Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs” (1983)
- Bruce Russett, “Grasping the Democratic Peace” (1993)
- Christopher Layne, “Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic
Peace” (1994)
- David Spiro, “The Insignificance of the Liberal Peace” (1994)
- R, L, & S in “Correspondence: The Democratic Peace” (1995)
Essay Questions
Q: What are the main points of contention between Layne,
Spiro, and Russett in terms of methodology?
And, who do you think has won the debate?
A: In terms of the superiority of research methodology,
there is no decisive winner.
The decision results in hung jury.
DPT on Trial: Review of Issue
* Democratic Peace Hypothesis (Kant, Wilson, Doyle)
- Grasping the Democratic Peace (1993) by Bruce Russett
- IV1 : Institutional factors
- structural checks & balances rooted in democracy
- governmental accountability to public opinion
- IV2 : Cultural factors
- liberal norms, culture & values mutually shared by
democratic countries
- DV: Absence of war between democracies
Review of Issue (cont’d)
* IV1 : Institutional factors (checks and balances & accountability)
- Tendency of democratically elected state leaders
- Foreign policy decision-making process
- Separation of power
* IV2 : Cultural factors (liberal norms, culture & values)
- Culture of negotiation and compromise
- Greater concern for human rights
- Peaceful means of conflict resolution (non-violence)
- Democracies possess greater public wealth
Review of Issue (cont’d)
* Some contentious issues over methodology of DPT
- Correlation is not causation
- How to define democracy & war
http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm
(Polity data series)
- Operationalization & conceptualization issues
(year-by-year or aggregate data analysis)
- Problem with “dogs that didn’t bark”
- Internal violence (e.g. American Civil War 1861-1865)
- Reliability & validity of research design
Review of Issue (cont’d)
* Some contentious issues over methodology of DPT
- John Mearsheimer
“Democracies have been few in number over the past two
centuries, and thus there have not been many cases where
two democracies were in a position to fight each other.”
DPT on Trial: Prosecution’s case
* Realists’ argument
1) Christopher Layne (Texas A&M Univ)
- Qualitative analysis
- Case studies of four “near misses”
- Process tracing approach
2) David Spiro (Columbia Univ)
- Quantitative (statistical) method
- Probability analysis of dyadic relationships (1816-1980)
- Tests for null hypothesis
Prosecution’s argument 1
* Layne’s argument
- Focus on the validity of IVs
1) Rejects IV1 on the ground of logical fallacy
- “Pacific public attitude should not discriminate between
other democracies and non-democracies”
- “The policymaking elites should refrain from making military
threats and making preparations to carry out threats
against other democracies”
Prosecution’s argument 1 (cont’d)
* Layne’s argument
- Rejects the validity of IV1
2) Tests the validity of IV2 with four “near miss” cases
- 1861 Anglo-American crisis in the Trent Affair
- 1895-1896 Anglo-American crisis over Venezuela
- 1898 Anglo-French struggle in Fashoda case
- 1923 French-German crisis over the Ruhr
Prosecution’s argument 1 (cont’d)
* Layne’s conclusion from four case studies
1) 1861 Anglo-American crisis in the Trent Affair
- Public opinion in both US & GB favored war
- Policymakers in both countries made military plans and
strategies, and engaged in cost-benefit analyses for war
- Result of no war is due to the realist strategic consideration
- Washington conceded to London due to realist motivations
(American Civil War, waterbirds dilemma, etc.)
Prosecution’s argument 1 (cont’d)
* Layne’s conclusion from four case studies
2) 1895-1896 Anglo-American crisis over Venezuela
- Anglo-Venezuelan border dispute
- Monroe doctrine in play
- Pres. Cleveland’s message to London
“The U.S. was willing to fight Britain if necessary in order to
establish America’s primacy in the Western hemisphere.”
- London ultimately backed down
(Britain’s hostile relationship with other great powers, and
its plunging domestic economic situation) - realist motivations
Prosecution’s argument 1 (cont’d)
* Layne’s conclusion from four case studies
3) 1898 Anglo-French struggle in Fashoda case
- Culmination of imperial territorial disputes over the control of
the upper Nile
- “Quarrel was not about Fashoda,...it was about the relative
status of France and Britain as powers”
- British public & policymakers eager for war
- French considered costs of war too high - realist indicators
- Diplomatic blow was more acceptable than military defeat
(GB’s naval superiority over France, int’l prestige at stake, etc.)
Prosecution’s argument 1 (cont’d)
* Layne’s conclusion from four case studies
4) 1923 French-German crisis over the Ruhr
- French occupation of the Ruhr region
- French public and policymakers viewed Germany as a
“latent power”
- French move to revise the Versailles reparations system in
its favor
- Ruhr occupation in attempt to annex the Rhineland
- Germany had no military capabilities to wage war
(realist motives and explanations, not DPT)
Prosecution’s argument 1 (cont’d)
* Layne’s argument
- “I test the explanatory power of democratic norms and culture(IV 2),
and conclude that this causal logic does not hold up when
examined in four key cases where it should apply. Once DPT’s
causal logic is shown to be threadbare, then, indeed, little is left
but statistical correlation; DPT offers no convincing explanation of
why democracies do not fight each other.”
(correlation is not causation)
Prosecution’s argument 1 (cont’d)
* Layne’s conclusion from four case studies
- Realist indicators explain non-occurrence of war
1) Adverse distribution of military strength
- Fashoda and Ruhr cases
2) Waterbirds dilemma
- Trent and Venezuela cases
- Also, in France & Britain, crucial foreign policy decisions were
made by elites without consultation (democratic ideals?)
- “Liberal DPT is based on hope, not on fact”
Counter-argument by Defense
* Russett’s counter-argument to Layne
- Layne fails to consider “non-barking dogs”
- Layne commits logical fallacy
- Necessary v. Sufficient conditions
- 4 cases is Too few to dismiss DPT
- Layne did not vary his DV
- Layne intentionally selected cases to substantiate his argument
- Selective evidence for process tracing only in favor and in support
of his argument
Prosecution’s argument 2
* Spiro’s argument
- Non-occurrence of wars between democracies (zero
probability in statistics) is not significant
- DPT rests on the contortion of definitions and concepts,
resulting in biased conclusion
- Problem of collinearity in DPT
- Random chance explains no wars between democracies
except for a period during WWI
Prosecution’s argument 2 (cont’d)
* Spiro’s methodology
- Quantitative probability testing for zero significance
(Hypergeometric distribution)
- Dyadic relationship as unit of analysis
(democratic dyads, warring dyads, etc.)
- Year-by-year analysis from 1816 to 1980
- Multi-year periods analysis of 5, 10, 20, 30….150 years
from 1816 to 1982
- Testing for null hypothesis
Prosecution’s argument 2 (cont’d)
* Spiro’s argument
“In statistical analysis, the measure of the significance of a
relationship between variables is usually compared to the ‘null
hypothesis’ of random chance. If we cannot reject the null
hypothesis of random chance, it does not mean we must accept
random chance as an explanation, but it does mean that we
should reject the hypothesis being tested.”
Prosecution’s argument 2 (cont’d)
* Spiro’s argument
- “As the period gets longer, the analysis indicates that the
absence of wars between liberal regimes is predicted by random
chance.”
- Both year-by-year and multi-year probability analyses show that
DPT should be rejected by the principle of null hypothesis
Counter-argument by Defense
* Russett’s counter-argument to Spiro
- Calls Spiro’s random model for including all dyads
“total ignorance” because most dyads (e.g. Ghana and Burma)
in Spiro’s data are politically irrelevant
- Finland fighting against the Allies in WWI counts as war against
four or five democracies in each year of 1941-1944 (counts 17
times) although no casualties were officially recorded
- Overall, Spiro’s operational method is inconsistent and illogical
DPT on Trial
* Verdict - A hung jury (nobody wins)
- Layne’s process tracing approach on four “near miss” cases
may undermine DPT to a certain degree, but is not sufficient
to disprove it
- Spiro’s probability testing for zero significance is based on
different conceptualization and operation of original IVs
- Russett’s counter-arguments are twisted
- Ideological biases between liberals & realists resulting
in divisiveness over the correctness of methodology