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Democratic peace theory
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===Economic factors=== {{Main|Capitalist peace}} [[Image:World GDP Capita 1-2003 A.D.png|thumb|right|upright=1.35|World [[GDP]]/capita 1β2003 AD. The increase in the number of democratic nations has occurred at the same time as the increase in economic wealth.]] The capitalist peace, or capitalist peace theory, posits that according to given criteria for economic development (capitalism), developed economies have not engaged in war with each other, and rarely enter into low-level disputes. These theories have been proposed as an explanation for democratic peace by accounting for both democracy and the peace among democratic nations. The exact nature of the causality depends upon both the proposed variable and the measure of the indicator for the concept used. A majority of researchers on the determinants of democracy agree that economic development is a primary factor which allows the formation of a stable and healthy democracy.{{sfn|Hegre|2003}}{{sfn|Weede|2004}} Thus, some researchers have argued that economic development also plays a factor in the establishment of peace. Mousseau argues that a culture of contracting in advanced market-oriented economies may cause both democracy and peace. These studies indicate that democracy, alone, is an unlikely cause of the democratic peace. A low level of market-oriented economic development may hinder development of liberal institutions and values.{{sfn|Mousseau|2000}}{{sfn|Mousseau|2002}}{{sfn|Mousseau|2003}}{{sfn|Mousseau|2005}} Hegre and Souva confirmed these expectations.{{sfn|Hegre|2000}}{{sfn|Souva|2004}} Mousseau finds that democracy is a significant factor only when both democracies have levels of economic development well above the global median. In fact, the poorest 21% of the democracies studied, and the poorest 4β5% of current democracies, are significantly {{em|more}} likely than other kinds of countries to fight each other.{{sfn|Mousseau|2005}} Mousseau, Hegre, and Oneal confirm that if at least one of the democracies involved has a very low level of economic development, democracy is ineffective in preventing war; however, they find that when also controlling for trade, 91% of all the democratic pairs had high enough development for the pacifying effect of democracy to be important during the 1885β1992 period and all in 1992.{{sfn|Mousseau|Hegre|Oneal|2003}} The difference in results of these two studies may be due to sampling: Mousseau's 2005 study observed only neighboring states where poor countries actually can fight each other. In fact, fully 89% of militarized conflicts between less developed countries from 1920 and 2000 were among directly contiguous neighbors.{{sfn|Mousseau|2005|pp=68β69}} He argues that it is not likely that the results can be explained by trade: Because developed states have large economies, they do not have high levels of trade interdependence.{{sfn|Mousseau|2005|loc=p. 70 and footnote 5}}{{sfn|Mousseau|Hegre|Oneal|2003|p=283}} In fact, the correlation of developed democracy with trade interdependence is a scant 0.06 (Pearson's ''r'' β considered substantively no correlation by statisticians.{{sfn|Mousseau|2005|p=77}}){{Synthesis inline|date=January 2021}} Both [[World War]]s were fought between countries which can be considered economically developed. Mousseau argues that both Germany and Japan β like the USSR during the Cold War and Saudi Arabia today β had state-managed economies and thus lacked his market norms.{{sfn|Mousseau|2002β2003|p=29}} Hegre finds that democracy is correlated with civil peace only for developed countries, and for countries with high levels of literacy. Conversely, the risk of civil war decreases with development only for democratic countries.{{sfn|Hegre|2003}} Gartzke argues that [[economic freedom]] (a quite different concept from Mousseau's market norms) or financial dependence explains the developed democratic peace, and these countries may be weak on these dimensions too.{{sfn|Gartzke|2005}}{{sfn|Gartzke|2007}}{{sfn|Gwartney|Lawson|Gartzke|2005}} Rummel criticizes Gartzke's methodology and argues that his results are invalid.{{sfn|Rummel|2005}} Allan Dafoe, John R. Oneal, and Bruce Russett have challenged Gartzke and Mousseau's research.{{sfn|Dafoe|Oneal|Russett|2013}} Several studies find that democracy, more [[trade]] causing greater economic [[interdependence]], and membership in more [[intergovernmental organizations]] reduce the risk of war. This is often called the Kantian peace theory since it is similar to Kant's earlier theory about a perpetual peace; it is often also called "liberal peace" theory, especially when one focuses on the effects of trade and democracy. (The theory that [[free trade]] can cause peace is quite old and referred to as [[Cobdenism]].) Many researchers agree that these variables positively affect each other but each has a separate pacifying effect. For example, in countries exchanging a substantial amount of trade, economic interest groups may exist that oppose a reciprocal disruptive war, but in democracy such groups may have more power, and the political leaders be more likely to accept their requests.{{sfn|Russett|Oneal|2001}}{{sfn|Lagazio|Russett|2004}}{{sfn|Oneal|Russett|2004}} Weede argues that the pacifying effect of free trade and economic interdependence may be more important than that of democracy, because the former affects peace both directly and indirectly, by producing economic development and ultimately, democracy.{{sfn|Weede|2004}} Weede also lists some other authors supporting this view. However, some recent studies find no effect from trade but only from democracy.{{sfn|Goenner|2004}}{{sfn|Kim|Rousseau|2005}} None of the authors listed argues that free trade alone causes peace. Even so, the issue of whether free trade or democracy is more important in maintaining peace may have potentially significant practical consequences, for example on evaluating the effectiveness of applying economic sanctions and restrictions to autocratic countries. It was Michael Doyle who reintroduced Kant's three articles into democratic peace theory. He argued that a pacific union of liberal states has been growing for the past two centuries. He denies that a pair of states will be peaceful simply because they are both liberal democracies; if that were enough, liberal states would not be aggressive towards weak non-liberal states (as the history of American relations with Mexico shows they are). Rather, liberal democracy is a necessary condition for international organization and hospitality (which are Kant's other two articles)βand all three are sufficient to produce peace.<ref name="Doyle 1983"/>{{sfn|Doyle|1997}} Other Kantians have not repeated Doyle's argument that all three in the triad must be present, instead stating that all three reduce the risk of war. [[Immanuel Wallerstein]] has argued that it is the global capitalist system that creates shared interests among the dominant parties, thus inhibiting potentially harmful belligerence.{{sfn|Satana|2010|p=231}} [[Toni Negri]] and [[Michael Hardt]] take a similar stance, arguing that the intertwined network of interests in the global capitalism leads to the decline of individual [[Nation-state|nation states]], and the rise of a global [[Empire (Negri and Hardt book)|''Empire'']] which has no outside, and no external enemies. As a result, they write, "The era of imperialist, interimperialist, and anti-imperialist wars is over. (...) we have entered the era of minor and internal conflicts. Every imperial war is a civil war, a police action".{{sfn|Hardt|Negri|2000}}
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