Thomas Friedman had once famously said that no two countries that have McDonalds have ever gone to war against each. But that was perhaps before the Kargil War. Democracy does not always translate into peace
The notion of a certain kind of Government being able to promote peace is, in the least, a very tantalising one. Little wonder then that policy makers in recent times, especially in the more deeply democratic Western world, have been particularly fascinated by the proposition that democracies do not fight one another. On the surface, this seems to provide a one-stop solution to global conflict, implying that a kind of “perpetual peace”, as described by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his 1795 landmark essay, ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’, may prevail if there were only democracies in the world.
However, since such an idea becomes oft-abused to legitimise actions against non-democratic nations — think of the Iraq war or even the aerial campaign against Libya — it is imperative to critically analyse such a statement and acknowledge the fact that a number of qualifications need to be taken into consideration before one can celebrate the inherent virtues of democratic governance.
First on the list is the matter of definitions. What is democracy? What is peace? Is the absence of war an indication of peace? What is war? What about other forms of violence and conflict? However, there are no consistent and universal definitions of these phenomena — no, not even within academia. Mostly, both political scientists and policy-makers just devise their own set of requirements to suit their research designs or strategic compulsions.
In fact, as Ido Oren describes in his seminal work, the term ‘democracy’ is highly subjective and over the years, has changed significantly to refer essentially to other members of the ‘in-group’. In other words, for American policy makers for instance, democratic nations at any given time are those nations with whom the US has friendly relations at that time.
Similarly, there are problems with understanding the concept of peace. The democratic peace literature has a realist take on the matter — meaning, peace is the absence of war. This definition thus excludes all other forms of violence, such as economic war which can be just as destructive, military interventions, covert operations, and even civil wars. Consequently, it provides for with only half the information and a false impression. For instance, India and Pakistan may not be engaged in ‘war’ right now, but relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours are surely not peaceful.
Also, it is interesting to note that while democracies may be relatively less prone to fighting one another, they show no such tendencies towards non-democracies (think of the war in Afghanistan or even the kind of defensive position that the US has taken against autocratic China) — although some believe that while at war, they are less severely violent. Thus it is clearly evident that the idea of monadic peace — that democracies simply by themselves are more peaceful in nature — is a myth.
Interestingly, it may also be mentioned that in some cases even autocratic dyads — a set of two autocratic nations — are more peaceful in their foreign relations than would be expected. Think of Russia and China and how the countries have not only maintained cordial relations with each other but have also teamed up on the global forum to present an intimidating force. This further negates the assumption that there is something about democratic regimes in particular that makes them more peaceful towards each other — since it may be said that similar regime types are overall less prone to go to war with each other.
Another gaping hole in the democratic peace argument is the equally vague idea of an established democracy versus a weak democracy. Neither of these terms is well-defined and both are very fluid and can easily include or exclude a vast number of nations
A study of how the democratic peace proposition finds reflection in South Asia brings out the above point better. Unlike the West, South Asia suffers from chronic instability, extreme poverty and underdevelopment. Yet, it shares the western ideal of economic liberalisation and since the 1990s, it has been a largely democratic region wherein India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have all had some form of democratic Government, for the most part. In other words, all these countries have had more than one political party or candidate, elections have been held here in which the citizens have participated and through which, they have elected their leaders and finally, citizens have some basic political and civil rights.
However, it is also an established fact that, though elections may be held in all these countries, some, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, do not always provide their citizens with the necessary constitutional, civil and political rights, therefore, taking away from it crucial aspects of democratic governance, as Kant would imagine.
An important assumption of the democratic peace proposition is that democracies would share their democratic norms and values with other democracies, and this in turn would be a determining factor in preventing war. In South Asia, however, this has not been the case. Neighbouring democracies have not been able to participate in sharing similar norms but have instead allowed their relations to be clouded by mistrust and suspicion which came about because of their violent and bloody historical past. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh believe that India has expansionist motives, while India is suspicious of both for brewing anti-India sentiment. Will democratic peace succeed in such an environment?
Two other factors that are believed to constrain democracies from going to war include the system of checks and balances that makes it significantly difficult for a small group of executive members to make an unpopular move, and also the fact that the Government is answerable to its people. However, what happens when the people don’t really care about foreign policy decisions — quite like in the West, foreign affairs does not figure high on the list of electoral priorities for South Asians either.
At the same time, foreign policy decisions are also increasingly made by a small group of Ministers or leaders, like members of a kitchen cabinet. Good examples of this situation are the tenures of Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi, in India; the UNP Government in Sri Lanka as it negotiated the Indo-Sri Lankan Accords of 1987 and the complicated role of the military in Pakistani foreign and domestic affairs. Therefore, given the fact that democratic institutions do not necessarily work well in these countries, does South Asia have a chance at democratic peace?
Another area of interest with regard to the democratic peace theory is economic interdependence. Proponents of the theory argue that democracies that have economic ties with one another are less prone to fight each other since that would result in mutual trade loss.
In fact, Thomas Friedman had once famously said that no two countries that have McDonalds have ever warred against each other. But that was before the Kargil War.
(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on August 9, 2012.)
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