The Influence of Democracy on International Peace
The Influence of Democracy on International Peace
This brief is part of the Democracy Action Lab's "The Case for Democracy" series, which curates academic scholarship on democracy’s impacts across various domains of governance and development. Drawing from an exhaustive review of the literature, this analysis presents selected works that encompass significant findings and illustrate how the academic conversation has unfolded.
Democracies rarely, if ever, engage in war with one another. The resulting democratic peace theory has been a catalyst for investments in democracy promotion as a means of securing peace. Yet, the conclusion that democracy, and not alternative factors, is the main underlying driver of peace has required extensive research faced with fundamental empirical challenges. The most sophisticated statistical analysis supports the conclusion that democratic governance is a primary determinant of peaceful relations between similarly-democratic states. Scholars also offer theory and evidence on the specific mechanisms that make war less likely between democratic states, although this question remains unsettled.