POL214Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Contiguity, Spurious Relationship, Gross Domestic Product
Document Summary
Democratic states are in general about as conflict- and war-prone as non-democracies, but democracies have rarely clashed with one another in violent conflict. The normative model suggests that democracies do not fight each other because norms of compromise and cooperation prevent their conflicts of interest from escalating into violent clashes. Assumption1 states, to the extent possible, externalize the norms of behaviour that are developed within and characterize their domestic political processes and institutions. Different norms of domestic political conduct will be expressed in terms of different patterns of international behavior. Democratic regimes are based on political norms that emphasize regulated political competition through peaceful means. Winning does not require elimination of the opponent. Democratic regimes: expectation that conflicts can be settled peacefully, by compromise, lowers the relative benefit to be achieved from violence. Assumption 2 the anarchic nature of international politics implies that a clash between democratic and nondemocratic norms is dominated by the latter, rather than by the form.
