Owen, John. “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace”. International Security, Vol.19, No.2 (1994): 87-125.

Owen, John. “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace”. International Security, Vol.19, No.2 (1994): 87-125.

• The 'democratic peace' theory is considered an axiom in international relations, constituting both a major challenge to the realist school of IR theory and a core element of American foreign policy, including during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations (87).
• Theories attempting to explain democratic peace are generally either structural or normative. Structural theories explains democratic peace through reference to institutional constrains within democratic systems, while normative theories argue that norms intrinsic to democracies prevent wars between democracies (90).
• The democratic peace theory is exposed to multiple challenge, the first being the definition of 'democracy' and 'war'; under certain definitions, democracies have been at war on several occasions. Secondly, even if the claim was true, this can be explained by the statistically small number of democracies rather than any special property of democracies. Thirdly, the claim does not have a theoretical reason why democracies would not go to war against each other (87-88).
• The author contests previous explanations of democratic peace theory, which he finds to use inappropriate dummy variables and do not appropriately examine which mechanisms by which democracies avoid going to war with each other. Closer examination of proposed structural constrains in democracies demonstrate that they are rarely the factors preventing wars (91).
• The author argues that democracies as a whole are not less likely to go to war with each other, only that liberal democracies will not go to war against fellow liberal democracies because of traits intrinsic to liberalism (88).
• The author defines 'liberal democracies' as countries where citizens have leverage over the decision to go to war, and the majority of citizens support liberal policies such as freedom of speech and regular competitive elections (89, 102). 
• The author argues that in these liberal democracies, citizens will seek peace to enjoy personal prosperity. They will only declare war on non-democracies or illiberal government because they believe that these governments have goals other than peaceful prosperity. Since liberals believe that other liberals only seek peace, however, they will never advocate war against a fellow liberal democracy (89).
• Illiberal democracies do not share the peace which exists within and between liberal democracies. For example, war is still possible between the Balkan republics because the peoples of the Balkans do not view themselves as rational and self-interested individuals, but as members of religious and ethnic communities (98).
• Perception of other states is very important to the argument of liberal democratic peace, since this is ultimately determines whether liberal democracies will consider going to war. The actual level and character of democracy in Great Britain in 1812 does not matter, for instance, because the United States did not consider it to be a liberal democracy (90, 96-97, 102).
• Liberal is a universalist ideology which claims that all humans, regardless of culture, are driven by self-interest. It holds that the best way to allow everyone to maximize their self-interest is to construct a system where only actions which infringe on the freedom of others are prohibited. For this freedom to exist, liberalism holds that people must be enlightened of their interests and that political systems must allow for individuals to express their true interests, the only system capable of doing this being a democratic republic (93-95).
• Liberalism primarily distinguishes between states by whether they are liberal democracies or other types of government. Liberalism opposes war against fellow liberal democracies since it assumes that, as liberal states, they will rationally seek peace to enhance self-interested well-being. Liberalism views illiberal states are dangerous and irrational since it assumes they may pursue goals other than rational self-interest and are thus unpredictable and potentially belligerent. The assumption that illiberal states are a latent threat means that liberal democracies will sometimes declare war on illiberal states to transform them into liberal democracies and thus neutralize a potential threat (95-96).
• To preserve a legal system which does restrict any freedom unnecessarily, liberalism encourages democratic structures such as freedom of speech, regular and competitive elections, and public consultation prior to war. These liberal democratic institutions mean that even when illiberal politicians are elected, they cannot declare war on liberal democracies because liberal public opinion, orchestrated through liberal democratic institutions, will stop them (99-101).
• The author tests their theory of liberal democratic peace by examining American actions and perceptions of their enemies during the tensions with Britain between 1794 and 1796, the Quasi-War with France in the late 1790s, the War of 1812 against Britain, the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain during the mid-1840s, the Mexican-American War in 1845, tensions with Britain during the American Civil War, the Virginius Affair with Spain in 1873, the Baltimore Crisis with Chile in 1891, the Venezuela Crisis with Britain in 1895, the Spanish-American War in 1898, tensions with Mexico during the Mexican Civil War, and the First World War with Germany beginning in 1916 (89, 104).
• In 1798, France and the United States began to fight war became known as the Quasi-War, played out in a number of naval battles in the Caribbean. The conflict by the USA was initiated in response to the seizure of American ships by the French and the XYZ Affair, in which the French government tried to extort thousands of dollars from US envoys in Paris. These actions were in turn in retaliation for the American signing of the Jay Treaty, in which they agreed to respect the British embargo on France (105).
• The author considers the United States of the 1790s to be a liberal democracy, albeit one with suffrage restricted to White landowning men. Moreover, the Democratic-Republic Party of the era believed that France was a fellow liberal democratic republic, despite its obvious material flaws as a democracy (105).
• The Democratic-Republicans in the US trusted France on the basis of it being a republic and distrusted Britain on account of it being a monarchy, and believed that good relations should exist with France as a result of republican unity. The Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, protested against any attempts to bring the US to war against France, including blocking President Adams in Congress (106-107).
• The United States ultimately decided not to declare an official war against France on the basis of strong opposition to this idea by the Democratic-Republic party. This opposition came from an intense belief that republics should not fight each other (107).
• With the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803, Britain and France began to again seize American shipping and Britain began to impress American sailors into service in the Royal Navy. These tensions led to the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain (108).
• Very few politicians in Britain considered Britain to be democratic in 1812 and essentially no Americans considered Britain to be a liberal democracy. The Democratic-Republicans in particular believed that Britain was essentially opposed to liberal interests, while holding that Napoleonic France continued to support essentially republican causes and interests (108-109).
• Both President Jefferson and President Madison preferred to avoid war with Great Britain, but the Democratic-Republic press and many younger members of the party advocated for war with Britain. Ultimately the US did declare war on Britain, entirely out of a belief that Britain, and not France, posed an inherent threat to liberal democracy (109-110).
• Tensions existed between the United States and Great Britain during the American Civil War, culminating during the Trent Affair of 1861, when the US captured two Confederate diplomats from a British ship. The Lincoln administration only backed down from war with Britain because of the ongoing Civil War, and tension remained heated until 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation brought British public opinion down overwhelmingly on the side of the Union (110-111).
• The author considers both the United States and Great Britain to be liberal democracies during this time period, but Americans did not generally consider Britain to be a democracy because it still a monarchy. Britain considered the United States to be a liberal democracy (110-111).
• Liberals in Britain considered the Union a natural ally on the basis of its liberal democratic nature, considering the Confederacy potentially belligerent because it was illiberal. The Emancipation Proclamation convinced British Liberals that the Union was a liberal democracy, deserving of their sympathy and support (111-112).
• In 1863, the British Cabinet was considering making a joint demand with France of peaceful settlement between the Union and the Confederacy. Many senior politicians supported the Confederacy's right to secession, wanted to reopen cotton supplies from the Confederacy, and considered a divided America to be in Britain's interests (112-113). These plans were only scrapped later than year due to the enormous shift in public opinion towards the Union (113-114).
• In 1895, the President Cleveland decided to assert American power in the Western hemisphere by demanding that Britain and Venezuela submit their border dispute over British Guyana to American arbitration. Britain refused, and the United States Congress voted to create an arbitration commission anyway and enforce its decision by any means necessary. The crisis was peacefully resolved by 1896 when Britain accepted American arbitration (114).
• Both the United States and Great Britain were liberal democracies during this time period, and both states considered the other to be a fellow liberal democracy. American opinions of Britain improved following the Third Reform Act in 1884, and Britain saw the USA as fully liberal following the abolition of slavery in 1863. Their relations also benefited during the 1890s from a shared belief in Anglo-Saxon cultural supremacy (114-115).
• American public opinion during the crisis was supportive of the British position because they believed that Britain's liberal democratic nature made it a positive force in the world, while Venezuela was considered an illiberal despotism undeserving of American support (116). The press advocated against war (117).
• British public opinion was overwhelmingly opposed to war with the United States and encouraged the government to submit to American arbitration (116-117).
• Neither President Cleveland, nor Prime Minister Salisbury, nor Secretary of State Richard Orley was swayed by the public outcry against war. Ultimately war was only avoided by the decision of the British Cabinet on 11 January 1896 to outvote Prime Minister Salisbury to accept American arbitration (118).
• The author argues that this decision was influenced by the fact that the USA was a liberal democracy. Tensions with Germany over the Boer War meant that Britain was forced to choose between antagonism with the US in the Americas antagonism with Germany in Africa, and Britain choose to focus on Africa because it recognized the USA, but not Germany, as a fellow liberal democracy (118-119).
• Realist IR scholars make several claims against democracy peace theory. They claim that liberal democracies would not make threats towards one another if democratic peace theory was true, but this does not invalidate the theory. The theory only discusses war, not tension. This is because liberal democracies can have illiberal leaders who cause tensions, but the pressure of a liberal public prevents war from actually breaking out (119-120).
• Realists claim that if liberal democratic peace theory was true, then all citizens would oppose war with other liberal democracies. This is false on two accounts: first, it assumes that all citizens are liberal, whereas only liberal citizens would oppose such a war, the illiberal citizens might still support it; second, what matters is that liberal democracies recognize each other as such, 'objective' measures of liberal democracy are unimportant (120).
• Realists assert that 'democracy' and 'despotism' are meaningless and charged terms that liberal democratic governments will use to justify war in any instance when power politics demands it. The continued support for France by Democratic-Republicans during the Quasi-War, and public support for Britain during the Venezuela Crisis, demonstrate that perceptions of liberal democracy do not necessarily change with realpolitik interests (120).
• Realists hold that when power politics and liberal interests conflict, states will always side with power politics. The fact that Britain did not attack the USA in 1861, and that the USA did not officially declare war on France in 1798 shows that liberal beliefs have overruled realpolitik concerns in liberal democracies in the past (121).
• The author proposes a synthesis of ideas from the realist and liberal schools of IR, suggesting that, as long as threat and national interest in realist theory are defined acknowledging that these terms are determined by liberal beliefs that fellow liberal politics do not constitute threats, then both theories can support liberal democratic peace theory (122-123).
• Liberal democratic peace theory, in its assertions that international relations are socially constructed by the perceptions of states, also jives with the constructivist school of IR theory (123).
• Liberalism does not bring about perpetual peace, precisely because many groups are opposed to liberalism. When liberalism fails to deliver economic prosperity, it can collapse into illiberal forms of government. Even when successful at bringing material well-being, liberalism destroys traditional ways of life through radical individualism, creating many conservative enemies of liberalism (125).