Editing Democratic peace theory (section)

===Limited consequences===
The peacefulness may have various limitations and qualifiers and may not actually mean very much in the real world.

Democratic peace researchers do in general not count as wars conflicts which do not kill a thousand on the battlefield; thus they exclude for example the bloodless [[Cod Wars]]. However, research has also found a peacefulness between democracies when looking at lesser conflicts.

Liberal democracies have less of these wars than other states after 1945. This might be related to changes in the perception of non-European peoples, as embodied in the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]].{{sfn|Ravlo|Gleditsch|2000}}

Related to this is the human rights violations committed against [[Indigenous peoples|native people]], sometimes by liberal democracies. One response is that many of the worst crimes were committed by non-democracies, like in the European colonies before the nineteenth century, in King [[Leopold II of Belgium]]'s privately owned [[Congo Free State]], and in [[Joseph Stalin]]'s [[Soviet Union]]. The United Kingdom abolished slavery in British territory in 1833, immediately after the [[Reform Act 1832]] had significantly enlarged the franchise. (Of course, the abolition of the slave trade had been enacted in 1807; and many DPT supporters would deny that the UK was a liberal democracy in 1833 when examining interstate wars.)

Hermann and Kegley Jr. argue that interventions between democracies are more likely to happen than projected by an expected model.{{sfn|Hermann|Kegley, Jr.|1995}} They further argue that democracies are more likely to intervene in other liberal states than against countries that are non-democracies.{{sfn|Hermann|Kegley, Jr.|1996}} Finally, they argue that these interventions between democracies have been increasing over time and that the world can expect more of these interventions in the future.{{sfn|Hermann|Kegley, Jr.|1995}}{{sfn|Hermann|Kegley, Jr.|1996}}{{sfn|Hermann|Kegley, Jr.1997}} The methodology used has been criticized and more recent studies have found opposing results.{{sfn|Gleditsch|Christiansen|Hegre|2004}}

Rummel argues that the continuing increase in democracy worldwide will soon lead to an end to wars and [[democide]], possibly around or even before the middle of this century.{{sfn|Democratic Peace Clock|n.d.}} The fall of [[Communism]] and the increase in the number of democratic states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in total warfare, interstate wars, [[ethnic]] wars, [[revolutionary]] wars, and the number of [[refugees]] and [[displaced person]]s.{{sfn|Center for Systemic Peace|2006}} One report claims that the two main causes of this decline in warfare are the end of the Cold War itself and [[decolonization]]; but also claims that the three Kantian factors have contributed materially.{{sfn|''Human Security Report 2005''}}