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Today’s Topics Domestic Politics

Today’s Topics Domestic Politics. General characteristics of domestic politics approaches. A detailed example: the democratic peace argument. Domestic Politics Approaches. Domestic Politics Approaches. See particular values or political structure of a state as determining how the state acts.

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Today’s Topics Domestic Politics

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  1. Today’s TopicsDomestic Politics • General characteristics of domestic politics approaches. • A detailed example: the democratic peace argument.

  2. Domestic PoliticsApproaches

  3. Domestic Politics Approaches • See particular values or political structure of a state as determining how the state acts. • State still seen as a holistic entity and main actor.

  4. My conceptual map of domestic politics approaches DecisionmakingTheories Domestic politics Organizational theory Bureaucratic Politics Psychological theories

  5. An alternative conceptual map of domestic politics approaches Domestic Politics Decisionmaking theories Arguments about holistic domestic ideology or structure Organizational theory Bureaucratic Politics Psychological theories

  6. Domestic Politics Approaches • Shared characteristics: • Ontology: Individual states with different characteristics. • Causal argument: Domestic structures or values/ beliefs  different foreign policies.

  7. Domestic Politics Approaches • States can vary in terms of: • Political structures: Regime type, institutional arrangement. • E.g. Mastanduno: Checks and balances in US system  slow and weak foreign policymaking.

  8. Domestic Politics Approaches • States can vary in terms of: • Values, beliefs, ideology. • E.g. Hartz, Weisband: Lockean liberal ideology leads US to be either highly interventionist or highly isolationist. • E.g. Huntington: Clash of civilizations. • E.g. “X” (Kennan): Soviet Marxism and expansionism.

  9. The Democratic Peace:Essence of the Argument • Basic hypothesis: democracies do not go to war with one another. • Some dispute over what the key factor is: • Democracy? – elected government. • Liberalism? – individual freedoms. • Capitalism? – private commercial interests.

  10. The Democratic Peace:Essence of the Argument • Michael Doyle: focuses on liberalism. • Looks to political theory: does liberalism make states more or less war-prone?

  11. The Democratic Peace:Essence of the Argument • Less war-prone: Schumpeter, Kant. • Schumpeter: democratic capitalist states will be less warlike because citizens will be opposed to war and expansionism. • Kant: liberal and peaceful relations will only occur among liberal states – war between liberal and illiberal states will continue to exist. • Liberal states will go to war only to promote “liberal” ideals.

  12. The Democratic Peace:Essence of the Argument • Proposed causal logics: Doyle, Kant: • Liberal goals: Democratic states’ desire that wars should only be fought for the cause of peace and freedom.

  13. The Democratic Peace:Essence of the Argument • Proposed causal logics: Russett: • “Cultural/ Normative Model”: Democratic leaders follow norms of peaceful conflict resolution; feel no such obligation with nondemocratic states. • “Structural/ Institutional Model”: Domestic institutional factors constrain democracies from going to war. • E.g. Fearon – “audience costs”

  14. Controversies/ Counterarguments • Pattern of democratic peace doesn’t prove causal link to democracy. • Can explain pattern by random chance (Spiro). • Causal logic of DP argument is weak.

  15. Controversies/ Counterarguments • Empirical record: there have been conflicts between democracies. • DP proponents have fudged data and been too sneaky in defining democracy and war. • Several examples even using proposed definitions: • WWII: Finland vs. Western Allies. • War of 1812: US vs. Britain. • 1981: Peru vs. Ecuador.

  16. Controversies/ Counterarguments • Apparent relationship spurious: pattern caused by other factors. • Geographic distance: countries side by side more likely to go to war than those far apart. • Necessary alliances against common enemies for strategic reasons, regardless of democratic norms.

  17. Controversies/ Counterarguments • Democratization may not lead to peace in short-medium term (Mansfield & Snyder). • Regimes in transition more warprone than stable democracies or authoritarian regimes. • Reason: democratization process plagued by nationalism and weak domestic institutions.

  18. Responses of Democratic Peace Proponents • Virtual absence of war among democracies is statistically significant. • Only very small set of pairs of states capable of going to war at any time, including most democracies. • So absence of war in overall history is significant.

  19. Responses of Democratic Peace Proponents • Defend definitions of democracy as careful, consistent, and reasonable. • Apparent “exceptions” or “iffy cases” extremely rare among wars. • Even if we include cases such as Finland in WWII, these are very rare exceptions.

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