[Dean's World] Rudy Rummel: Still More Evidence For No War Between Democracies

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Rudy Rummel:
Still More Evidence For No War Between Democracies
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1144352818.shtml


   Still, No Wars Between Democracies [1][Z.JOY.JPG] [Z.FREE.GIF]

   This morning I came across two blogs ([2]here, and [3]here) that
   relied on [4]Matthew White's page to dismiss the democratic peace.
   Since White continues to have influence on the democratic peace
   debate, I am revising and reposting my [5]July 13, 2005 blog on his
   statistics.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Thanks to Dean Esmay for referring me to [6]Matthew White's page that
   raises questions about the democratic peace. I know of White's useful
   [7]Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century , and have used his
   statistics in my own research. He is careful, thoughtful, and
   systematic in what he presents, so when he questions the democratic
   peace, he has to be answered.

   First, he presents the pros and cons about the various possible
   exceptions to the democratic peace. Keep in mind that the democratic
   peace, among other propositions, says that democracies don't make war
   on each other. So, a true negative example thunders against this. Many
   have been proposed such exceptions, such as the War of 1812, the Boar
   War, WWI and Germany, democratic Finland being allied with Hitler in
   WWII, and the American Civil War. The sheer number of these exceptions
   and the weight of all the pros that White provides gives the
   impression that there has to be something to at least one or more of
   them. I have not studied them all, but those I have spent some time on
   in my own research, such as Germany in WWI, the case of Finland, the
   Boar War, and the Civil War simply cannot be treated as true
   exceptions. Others who have investigated these possible exceptions, in
   addition to the rest of them on White's list, agree. In particular, I
   point you to Bruce Russett's Grasping the Democratic Peace, James Lee
   Ray's Democracy and International Conflict, and Spencer R. Weart's,
   Never At War. Russett and Ray are political scientists, Weart is an
   historian. See also my democratic peace [8]bibliography and my [9]Q &
   A, which answers questions about some of these supposed exceptions
   (use the search command to find them).

   After going through the exceptions, White concludes that the
   democratic peace depends on the definition of democracy and war.
   Researchers know this, of course, and have done different things about
   it. One is to collect their own data according to very clear,
   replicable criteria, while others have used data on democracy and war
   that have a wide reputation for their validity. Two sources especially
   have been important. One is the statistics on war collected by Melvin
   Small and J. David Singer, such as their data on wars [10]from 1816 to
   1992. I have used this in my research (see the table in the upper
   right [11]here) as have hundreds of others. I should say that Small
   and Singer do not accept the democratic peace, which makes their
   classification of wars and democracies since 1816 particularly
   important. For democracy, in addition to the Small and Singer
   classification, which I am one of the few to use, there is the very
   popular and respected [12]Polity data, which provides a scale for
   measuring the degree to which a country is democratic or autocratic.
   For an additional data set used in replicating the democratic peace,
   [13]go here.

   What is noteworthy about all these different data on democracy and war
   whose definitions or criteria slightly differ, is that those using
   them have come out with the same conclusions: there is a democratic
   peace. Replications have well established this to the point that
   students of international relations say it is the best-tested
   proposition in the field and almost has the status of a law.

   Now, Mathew White lists 39 wars 1945-1999, and says that six "might
   have been between democracies," which means they might not have been,
   but still he makes much of it in calculating the probability of this
   happening by chance. Rather than deal with his "might have been," I'm
   going to actually collect data from two sources on democracy and
   international violence between countries. The source I will use for
   violence is compiled by Monty G. Marshall on [14]"Major Episodes of
   Political Violence 1946-2004;" for democracy, I will use Freedom's
   House's "All Country Ratings from 1972-2003" (Sorry, I can't find it
   on their stupidly remodeled website). Freedom House is not a proponent
   of the democratic peace (I don't recall them ever mentioning it), so
   we can treat their data as independent of this proposition. Similarly
   with Marshall, who along with Ted Gurr, is the author of the Peace and
   Conflict Survey 2005 that I referred to in my [15]last blog for
   ignoring the democratic peace.

   From Marshall's data, I'll include as violence any that is indicated
   in his data as "international." This is a hard test, since it includes
   violence short of war. From Freedom House, I will use their Free (F)
   rating of a country for a year as defining a liberal democracy in
   terms of civil liberties and political rights.

   First, how many liberal democracies are there versus the total number
   of countries. For five years spans after 1972 and ending with 2003
   (year, number of liberal democracies, total number of countries):

     1972, 43, 148
     1975, 39, 158
     1980, 50, 162
     1985, 55, 166
     1990, 64, 165
     1995, 75, 191
     2000, 85, 192
     2003, 87, 192

   Now, for the classification of violence between types of regimes (F =
   free, PF = partly free, NF = not free, where F-F = between free
   countries, etc.)

     F-F = 0
     F-PF = 6
     F-NF = 11
     PF-PF = 5
     PF-NF= 4
     NF-NF= 20

   So, between which countries is there the least violence? Between
   liberal democracies. Which countries are the most violent towards each
   other? Nondemocracies. All as precisely predicted by the democratic
   peace.

   A note on statistical tests. Think of this subjectively. Here you have
   all these liberal democracies for each of thirty-one years, and none
   of them have violence between them. This is not a matter of just five
   or ten democracies, but by the end of the 1990s, there are over
   eighty. This number is not my reckoning, but that of Freedom House.
   And by Marshall's data, in spite of so many democracies, none had
   violence between them vs. 20 cases of violence between the nonfree
   ones during these years.

   Now, some people don't like subjective statistics, so lets calculate
   the probability. There are 46 cases of international violence, and six
   alternative ways that could occur (e.g., F-F, or PF-PF). Let the
   number 1 stand for the F-F alternative, and the other five numbers for
   each of the others. Throw a six-numbered die 46 times, and what is the
   probability that it will never come up with a 1? The probability that
   it will not come up a 1 in one throw is 5/6. So, the probability of no
   1 in 46 throws is 5/6 to the 46th power (assuming each case of
   violence is independent), which is a probability of happening by
   chance of 8.02E-36, or about the probability of one being hit by a
   meteor.

   Obviously, there has to be something more than chance here. And what
   is that something? Surprise. It is two countries having democratic
   governments. That is, the democratic peace.

                            [BAR.RED.BLACK.GIF]

                                Link of Note

  [16]"DOES DEMOCRACY CAUSE PEACE?" By James Lee Ray. In Annual. Review of
                      Political Science 1998. 1:27-46.

                                  ABSTRACT

     The idea that democratic states have not fought and are not likely
     to fight interstate wars against each other runs counter to the
     realist and neorealist theoretical traditions that have dominated
     the field of international politics. Since the mid-1970s, the
     generation of new data and the development of superior analytical
     techniques have enabled evaluators of the idea to generate
     impressive empirical evidence in favor of the democratic peace
     proposition, which is reinforced by substantial theoretical
     elaboration. Some critics argue that common interests during the
     Cold War have been primarily responsible for peace among
     democracies, but both statistical evidence and intuitive arguments
     cast doubt on that contention. It has also been argued that
     transitions to democracy can make states war-prone, but that
     criticism too has been responded to persuasively. The diverse
     empirical evidence and developing theoretical bases that support
     the democratic peace proposition warrant confidence in its
     validity.

   RJR: It is Ray that should be referenced on the democratic peace, and
   not Mathew White. But, that is too much to expect out of the
   isolationist libertarian crowd.

                            [BAR.RED.BLACK.GIF]

                            [17]Democratic Peace
                         Books/articles/statistics

References

   1. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NH.HTM
   2. http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/joshua/34110/
   3. http://rougholboy.com/?p=176
   4. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm
   5. http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/07/still-no-wars-between-democracies.html
   6. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm
   7. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm
   8. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/BIBLIO.HTML
   9. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/QA.V2.HTML
  10. http://webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/cocoon/DDI/SAMPLES/09905.xml?part=2
  11. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MIRACLE.HTM
  12. http://dss.ucsd.edu/~kgledits/Polity.html
  13. http://www.prio.no/cwp/vanhanen/
  14. http://members.aol.com/CSPmgm/warlist.htm
  15. http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/07/willful-blindness.html
  16. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ray.htm
  17. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MIRACLE.HTM