Williams, Michael. "The Discipline of the Democratic Peace: Kant, Liberalism and the Social Construction of Security Communities". European Journal of International Relations, Vol.7, No.4 (2001): 525-553.

Williams, Michael. "The Discipline of the Democratic Peace: Kant, Liberalism and the Social Construction of Security Communities". European Journal of International Relations, Vol.7, No.4 (2001): 525-553.

• If the 'democratic peace' theory is true, that liberal democracies will never go to war with each other, then there must exist a mechanism by which liberal democracies recognize other liberal democracies (527). This process is subjective to the state's definition of liberal democracy rather than an empirical standard (528).
• When interacting in the international arena, leaders in liberal democracies are likely to references their values as justification for foreign policy actions. Therefore, liberal democratic states identify each other through similarities in the norms of governance (528-529).
• The idea that liberal democracies are readily identifiable in terms of values and cultural norms raises more difficult questions, like which similarities matter. Why can states look over parliamentary-presidential differences, socialist-capitalist differences, and massive cultural divides? (529).
• Dr. Ido Oren suggests that the definition of liberal democracy is constantly in flux, as changing domestic and international conditions change a state's perception of similarity. In particular, Dr. Oren claims that the dominant conception of liberal democracy comes from a hegemonic power within the world system, like the USA (529-530).
• A key element of the process by which liberal states recognize each other is through common bonds of recognition and identity. First a state would identify other states which self-identify as liberal democracies. Then mutual acceptance by these states of the demands and power relations of that moral supremacy create a common identity upon which recognition and common security are built (538).
• The philosophy of Immanuel Kant, whose work is one of the main foundations of liberal theory, outlines three different kinds of respect: reverence-respect, teleological respect, and liberal respect.
• Reverence-respect involves an individual respected because their actions embody a higher moral law, regardless of the connection of those actions to actual laws. Respecting vigilante justice is an example of reverence-respect (533).
• Teleological respect is a basic level of respect given to those individuals recognized as human by their potential to act in accordance with moral laws. Conception of another's moral character is based off of teleological respect, represented by the difference between their action and potential (533-534).
• Liberal respect is a respect for negative forms of freedom regardless of an individual's moral character. It is the right to be left alone in one's own affairs, regardless of immorality, and represents a tolerance for different lifestyles (534). 
• Kant recognizes that the idea of virtue, embodied in the higher moral laws, is subjective and constructed. The criteria for different kinds of respect are therefore based on subjective definitions of virtue. The levels of respect defined in terms of virtue also constitute power relations between individuals (535).
• The tolerance expressed by liberal moral communities is limited, as based primarily on teleological respect and liberal respect of difference. This prevents a moral community from becoming exclusive, but it does imply varying levels of respect for different individuals and a power dynamic whereby non-interference is not a right but a privilege of liberal mercy (536).
• "Non-liberal communities are thus always subject to being branded as irresponsible threats, to being excluded from liberal relations of community and respect, and potentially to being subject to coercion by liberals if their forms of life are deemed a threat to liberal structures" (536).
• Even if they are not compelled to change, non-liberal states outside of a 'pacific federation' of liberal democracies are still viewed as potential threats to the liberal order by their existential contravention of liberal morality and virtue. Therefore, they are always at risk of being upgraded from potential threat to active threat (536).
• The impulse to join a liberal community and encourage moral behavior is not entirely intellectual, but also contains components of self-interest and emotion. The collective identity which reinforces a moral community is bolstered by the moral actions of others, as reflection upon those actions confirms one's own self-image of morality and induces pride (540).
• Conversely, the immorality or illiberalism of other state provides the background for a reinforcement of both vigilance of liberal norms and reinforced community based on contempt for the outside world of illiberalism (541-542).
• The philosophy of liberalism emerged largely in contrast and opposition to the irrational and immoral system of absolutist monarchy which preceded it. Likewise, liberal communities of states are built on 'others' constructed as immoral and irrational. For the contemporary liberal order based around NATO, these others are the violence of WWII and the barbarian expansionism of of the Warsaw Pact (540-541).
• The strength of the influence that liberal communities exert is based on their ability to both include and exclude states simultaneously. By technically allowing membership to all states, they create expectations of certain behavioral norms. When those norms are violated, punishments are enacted in a way that places the blame on offending state for breaking the rules of a 'universal' community (542, 545).
• The construction of liberal communities as both moral and secure, combined with the power relations between those communities and the outside, leads to some troubling behaviors of liberal democracies. Their moral sense of morality leads to broad caricatures of the 'other' as evil, as well as extending the implications of democratic peace to assume that the existence of non-liberal states raises the specter of war (544).