Athens 8 June 2006

The Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation and the Scholars Association of the Foundation in collaboration with the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy and the Hellenic Company of Political Science organized a lecture by Professor Mr. Bruce Russett on “Thucidides and Democratic Peace Theory”.

Summary Event Report

The Onassis Foundation and its Scholars’ Association, in cooperation with the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and the Hellenic Political Science Association hosted an enlightening lecture on ‘Thucydides and Democratic Peace Theory’, where Greek academics and representatives of the political sphere had the opportunity to confer with Professor Bruce Russett on the impact of power and political systems on war behaviour.

Addressing the audience, Professor Russett claimed that his paper could also have been entitled ‘Thucydides, Kant and Democratic Theory’, since peace may not be perpetual, as Kant suggested, but the existence of international trade, organizations and law inhibits democratic states from fighting with each other. In Russett’s ‘Triangulated Peace’, three variables are recognized as promoting peace: consolidated democracy, advanced and interdependent economy and international organizations.

The lecture’s axis was a comparison between ancient Greece and contemporary international relations on politics and the degree of democratization. Although it is hard to find evidence of democratic peace in Thucydides’ volume, it appears that Greek states, radical democracies at the time (though lacking the qualities we recognize today in democracies), were somewhat less likely to fight each other than exterior enemies. The lecture’s purpose was to answer why democratic peace was not as evident in ancient Greece as one would have expected, thus enabling the drawing of some conclusions with reference to contemporary politics as well.

A common typology for contemporary politics considers the following as factors determining the degree to which a state is more or less democratic: competitiveness of political participation; openness and competitiveness of executive improvement and the level of institutionalized constraints on the executive sector. Even so, the notion that ‘democracies never fight each other’ cannot be seriously advocated. Nowadays, there is near consensus that over the past few centuries, democracies have rarely fought one another; less severe battles have and will continue to take place but the more democratic states are the less frequent and violent their disputes will be.

In judging how pacifist a democracy is, when dealing with an adversary with less democratic values, one should look at which side starts or escalates a dispute to full-scale war; in this case, evidence suggests that democracies are less likely to initiate or escalate tension. This does not, however, explain why imperial powers claim the right to intervene in certain cases in order to prevent military action. Therefore, the following theoretical points are necessary in order to understand the expansionist ambitions of some democracies:
-Big powers, irrelevant of their regime, always tend to intervene because of the widespread interests they need to protect and of the intervention capabilities they possess.
-Democracies are generally more successful in wars than autocracies.
-When initiating a conflict, democracies are more likely to win because they will probably choose their means and forces more prudently.
-Finally, democracies are more likely to fight an effective war, since they can deploy a better-motivated and educated battle force, which can take initiatives when needed.

Democracies are also more capable of mobilizing resources from their economies to war than oligarchies are. In a democratic society, the population knows that if the war is won, its sacrifices are most likely to be rewarded, something that is rarely the case in an autocracy. However, acknowledging that democracies can mobilize forces and resources better than autocracies provides incentives for expansion, since it raises the chances of winning, therefore becoming the root to the problem of ‘democratic imperialism’.

To answer why democratic peace theory was not particularly evident in ancient Greece, one can turn to the normative or cultural explanation. This advocates that citizens and leaders of democratic states have a cultural aversion to violence and prefer solving any conflicts by peaceful means. Yet, when engaged in a dispute with an autocracy, which they expect to react aggressively, democratic states too become more assertive. It appears that although common cultural norms may generally enhance friendly relations and ties of affinity among democratic states, low degree of institutionalization in the Greek city-states provided weak restraints to state behaviour.

According to the institutional or structural theory, the crucial components of peace are open political competition and regular, free elections with the participation of a wide electorate. Elections provide an opportunity to oust war-seeking leaders from office, while also allowing a wise political opponent an electoral retaliation. This forms the basis of the ‘theory of strategic interaction’: a democratic leader will avoid going to war with another democracy, knowing that she can mobilize resources and forces just as well. An autocratic leader, however, facing no fear of electoral defeat, will be less sceptical about going to war.

It is thus not surprising that democratic peace was not very evident in ancient Greece. A narrow electorate composed of men only; lack of institutional constraints in the form of separation of powers and of regular, representative, free elections; slavery; few pacifist voices rising among the population, are some of the reasons why Greeks often opted for war. Nowadays, modernity can play an important role in strengthening democracy; it significantly promotes democratic institutions and the second are undoubtedly a cause of peace among modern states.

Closing the lecture, there was a discussion with academics, MPs, ambassadors and scientists of various backgrounds on the role leaders play in the promotion of peace, concluding that their most valuable contribution to the international system is the creation of institutions to restrain those less prudent. Moreover, the significance of all three components of the ‘triangle’ in preserving peace was highlighted, since economic cooperation, democratization and institutionalization walk hand-in-hand in many cases. The issue of whether democracies can be scourged by civil wars was also discussed. Democratic states are less likely to face such conflicts but, if they do, they will be less aggressive than autocratic states. On the Cyprus issue, Professor Russett suggested that this provides an example of the extent to which institutions can help de-escalate a crisis and promote peace. Finally, the standpoint that democracies have better chances of winning a war than autocracies was challenged with reference to World War I, since, to some participants at the lecture, it was correlation of powers and not the choice of a certain political system that made the difference in the end.