There are two kinds of liberal peace theory if we are to talk about democratic peace. The first concerns with how regime type may affect peace; the other discusses how liberal trade may affect the prospect of peace. I would like to introduce almost all aspect of democratic peace theory in this article.
Democratic peace is not an invention. It is a discovery. Perhaps the most important discovery in contemporary history. The liberal peace theory is always there in the thoughts of Kant, Rousseau, and Wilson. The main assumption of the theory is that democratic countries will not fight each other. The world will be a more peaceful place if it is full of democratic countries.
In late 1960s and early 1970s. IR scholar collected enough data to employ statistical test on this assumption. Surprisingly, they do found evidence that democratic countries do not fight against each other. From then on, IR scholars try to explain why this phenomena exists. Because hard evidence is so clear, and the classic thoughts do not provide a good answer to this behavior, scholars begin to present variety of reasons to explain it. There are two category of explanation.
The first is the monadic nature of democratic peace. It is argued that democratic countries are prone to peace because they are constrained by domestic politics. The public does not support the aggression for pure expansion. People are more likely to support war only if the country is being threatened or attacked. So democratic leaders who want to raise campaign for world dominance rarely get approval from the public. Democratic countries are also more peaceful because they value peace and stability. Again people do not like war; conflict disrupt their daily life, take away their family. Democratic countries prefer to resolve difference peacefully. They do not prone to use force to resolve a territorial dispute or religious difference. This suggests that if democratic countries are going to use force, the leaders must have ensured that people fully support the war. So a fighting democratic country will be more united, and therefore more chances to win. The monadic democratic peace argues that the peaceful nature is born in democratic countries. They are generally more peaceful than authoritarian countries.
On the other hand, there is dyadic democratic peace, which argues that war is less frequent between two democratic countries. Democratic countries share the same political structure, political beliefs, political traditions, and ideology. They have similar institutions that would generate similar needs, which leads to similar interests. So they are more likely to be friends in international system. They are potential allies because they can understand each other better. They usually face similar dilemma when making important foreign policy decision. And they can trust each other because their regime is similar. They may belong to the same international institutions because of common interest. There are many opportunities that make them friends rather than enemies.
The above mentioned explanations focus on the nature of democratic regimes. They behave more peacefully because democratic countries have certain qualities. But is it all because of regime type? It doesn't seem appropriate to suggest domestic political institution is the only reason for war and peace. Scholars explore another line of liberal tradition and construct another explanation base on liberal trade.
The liberal economic democratic peace is rather simple. Adam Smith told us trade is good. Trade will increase a country's wealth. More importantly, it increases the wealth of people. War and conflict usually disrupt trade, even worse, it may interrupt trade relations with foreign country even after the arm conflict. General public does not prefer war because they want to promote profit from trade. A stable, friendly relationship with foreign countries is more beneficial to them. In democratic states, leaders have to follow people's wishes. Therefore, democratic states tend not to participate in conflict. The interdependence followed by trade relationship further decreases democratic state's willingness to use force. Democratic states tend to use non-violent ways to resolve the dispute. To the extreme, one may argue that democratic peace is actually capitalist peace. It is just that democratic states usually prefer trade and they usually do trade with other countries so they are less prone to use force.
There are certainly more literature discuss more specifically about democratic peace. The debate about whether it is regime type or liberal trade that causes democratic peace is still going on. I should introduce more interesting works in other articles.
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