POL_S 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Kargil War, Spiral Model, Nuclear Triad
Document Summary
System in which citizens have the ability to remove the leader. Maybe also: free, fair elections with multiple candidates, parties, division of power/constraints on executive, independent judiciary, widespread suffrage, press freedom, constitution, clear defined rights for citizens. Democracies fight as many wars as non-democracies. Democracies fight smaller disputes against other democracies. But democracies don"t fight full-scale wars against other. Many argue that there have been literally zero wars between democracies democracies. Structural model: constitutional limits: democratic leaders face constraints re-election, legislature, wars tend to be unpopular, at least in the long-run, policymaking in democracies transparent, so less chance of intentions being misjudged. Normative model: conflicts within democracies resolved peacefully, for example through court system, perhaps leaders take this idea into foreign policy, democracies may be more likely to use peaceful methods of conflict resolution. Theories don"t really explain what is special about pairs of democracies. Democratic countries have more in common than regime type capitalism, region, culture.
