Search

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of the democratic peace (DP) thesis to a rapidly changing global security environment and, more specifically, to examine the motivation of the United States, the most prominent democratic power, to use force for the promotion of peace through the spread of democracy. In this paper, we distinguish between traditionally accepted instrumental, normative, and institutional use-of-force motivators that apply to democracies and non-democracies alike, but we also add a discussion of contextual use-of-force motivators which are unique to democracies. The basic assumption underlying the DP argument is that democratic states are less prone to wage wars than non-democratic states. But, if democracy makes states more peaceful, why do democratic states still use force? Illustrating each motivator in light of contemporary U.S. national security decisions shows that the DP thesis can provide valuable insight into the reasons why democracies may continue to use force and, in the extreme, wage war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If, as proponents of "national security liberalism" claim, promoting democracy serves America’s security interests, then why does the United States sometimes support authoritarian regimes? I argue that during the Cold War, the prevalence of nationalism and of socialism (communist and democratic) in the Third World led Third World democratic elites to be open to cooperation with communists for the sake of national development. Washington’s top priority being containment of communism, however, meant that it could not tolerate such cooperation. Thus Washington and social democrats were at loggerheads, and Washington cooperated instead with anti-communist authoritarians. This situation changed in the 1980s as both varieties of socialism had failed vis-a-vis capitalism in country after country. Third World democrats abandoned both socialism and their communist countrymen; Washington was now willing to support them over its old tyrannical friends as a way to contain communism. The striking case of Reagan’s abandonment of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 illustrates this process. I conclude with implications for U.S. support of authoritarianism in the Muslim world today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]