Contending Theories Of Democratic Peace

After the World War II, democractic peace theory has become one of the maintopics within or around the American academia, it also has great influence on theAmerican governments, and we can also see it underpin the Democracy Enlargementor the China Threat Theory. Hence, if we want to response to the challenge of theDemocracy Enlargement or the China Threat Theory and clear the essence of theforeign policy, we need to draw our attention back to the democracy peace theory. Inthis paper I comb the theoretical pedigree of democratic peace theory, and analyse itslogic and empirical mistakes. First, basing on previous studies, this paper divide theirresearches to three dimensions: normative studies, institutional logics, alternativelogics, then explain how this three analysis work. Second, through the theoretical,historical and methodological analysis to show the flaws of the democratic peacetheory. Last, this paper draw the conclusion that democracies do not reliablyexternalize their domestic norms of conflict resolution and democracy do not alwaysmeans peace. However, the ambiguity of its relevant research leave operating spacesfor the American foreign policy, which maybe why it be used as the theory bases ofthe American foreign policy, also derive the the Democracy Enlargement or the ChinaThreat Theory from it.