Peaceful transitions and democracy

Abstract

While there has been extensive interest in the role of democracy in reducing interstate violence, the role of democracy in reaching higher levels of peace has received much less attention. Since many countries have less than amicable relations, it is necessary to consider how the quality of peace can be improved. The quality of peace becomes particularly relevant when assessing relations of countries with a bellicose past. In order to capture improvement in relations this article relies upon a framework that captures the various levels of peace that countries experience. The study maintains that democracy contributes to former belligerents reaching the highest levels of peace but that it is not helpful at the lower levels especially if only one side is a democracy. The article tests arguments on a data set that captures the transitions from one level of peace to another for all former belligerents since 1816 and relies upon event history analysis. The results for peace are not the opposite of what is found for war. The findings demonstrate that democracy plays a substantial role in peaceful transitions at all levels. However, while joint democracy is important for reaching the highest levels of peace, democracy can hamper the progress of relations at the lowest levels of peace.

Border settlement and the movement toward and from negative peace

“…Violent, hostile episodes almost disappear entirely when we move into the middle of the continuum: negative peace (Galtung, 1969; see also, inter alia , Kupchan, 2010 on “reciprocal restraint,” and Bayer, 2010 on “cold peace”). Dyads at negative peace possess a number of characteristics.…”

“…The same definitional issue does not affect studying negative peace; states at negative peace may possess unsettled borders, and many do. Second, most conceptualizations of peace types require states to pass through a negative peace-like period before attaining either warm peace or a security community, and negative and positive peace relationships seemingly have different causal factors (Bayer, 2010;Goertz et al, 2016;Kupchan, 2010). It therefore makes sense to study negative peace as a first step.…”

Negotiating justice: Ceasefires, peace agreements, and post-conflict justice

“…The last group of control variables accounts for statelevel characteristics that may influence the willingness and ability of officials to implement post-conflict justice. Democracies are often viewed as more willing to resolve political disputes and controversies through less violent and less retributive means while also imposing constraints on the executive that are often absent in nondemocracies (Mitchell, 2002;Bayer, 2010). To capture facets of democracy, I account for each conflict-state's regime type using the Polity index, which is a 21-point scale ranging from -10 (stable autocracy) to 10 (stable democracy) (Marshall, Gurr & Jaggers, 2018).…”

Regional order and peaceful change: Security communities as a via media in international relations theory

“…Some proponents of the Democratic Peace theory have thus linked their explanations directly to the Deutschian concept of security community by arguing that through processes of social learning and mutual recognition as liberal democracies, these states develop a collective democratic identity that plays a constitutive and disciplining role in the formation of 'democratic pluralistic security communities' (Bayer, 2010;Harrison, 2010;Risse-Kappen, 1995;Starr, 1992Starr, , 1997Vasquez, 1995;Williams, 2001). Based on these assumptions, some of these authors have argued that democracy is essentially 'the basic requirement for integrated political security communities as defined by Deutsch' (Eberwein, 1995: 349; for a similar argument see also Risse-Kappen, 1996: 395;Starr, 1992: 210;Williams, 2001: 527).…”