AS.190.209 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Totalitarianism, Arab Spring, Autocracy
4 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Challenge the theory of realism and question its view on international politics. It"s an important question for three fundamental reasons. The democratic peace argument says you have to see whether the country is a democracy, and if it is one, it is going to behave in a fundamentally different way than non-democracies. If the democratic peace hypothesis is true, third image realism is in doubt. What you have then is a focus on waltz" second image, rather than his third. Us has a pragmatic interest in promoting democracy around the world because it spreads peace. Typically, the us likes peaceful countries; it is a status quo country that promotes peace and stability around the world. This is a core tenet in neoconservatism that the us should go on crusades to spread democratic forms of government throughout the world led in part to the intervention in iraq. Finally, the question is important because democracy is spreading.
