POL 3 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Democratic Peace Theory, Hegemony, Dependency Theory
Document Summary
Democratic peace theory: democracies rarely (if ever) go to war with other democracies. Several reasons: democracies share norms of compromise and cooperation, democracies have transparent decision-making processes and face audience costs -> commitments to negotiated agreements can be more credible. Commercial peace theory: states that are more interdependent are less likely to go to war. War interrupts trade and blocks profits -> costly. More trade/investment -> less likely to go to war. Institutions can foster interdependence between states -> peace. But: states left out of institutions might feel threatened by the connections forged between states within them, potentially adding to the possibility of conflict: questions about terms: They act in states" best interest and weigh costs & benefits. The linkage of 2+ issues: actions on issue a effects actions of issue b. Leaders of states (anyone who holds political office) Unipolar = 1 big power (the hegemon ) Hegemonic stability theorists = unipolar most stable.
