Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace

The invasion of Iraq has been justified, ex post , as for the purpose of promoting the democratic peace. It does not, however, appear to have been a principal goal ex ante . Most democratic peace theorists, moreover, do not endorse democratic regime change by great-power external military intervention. Success is difficult to achieve (usually at high cost), and the conditions in Iraq were not promising even had the occupation been carried out more competently. Greater success in democratization has been achieved by UN peacekeeping operations, and by various regional international organizations using a variety of peaceful measures to ensure free elections, constrain authoritarian leaders, and empower democratic forces. International organizations, notably those whose membership is largely composed of democracies, are especially likely to succeed in promoting democracy.     

Critical Periods and Regime Type: Integrating Power Cycle Theory with the Democratic Peace Hypothesis

The critical question whether or not detente is a prologue to peace between the superpowers is seldom confronted with scientific rigour. The authors explore the hidden developmental set of assumptions which are built into the mainstream western view of the relations between deterence and detente and proceed to extrapolate these assumptions mathematically further. The results of the exercise suggest that detente will eventually lead to a stable peace but not before an indeterminate (probably long drawn out) process of rhythmical oscillation between several periods of detente and several periods of cold war.