Faber and Gowa: Politics and Peace

Faber, H. & Gowa, J., 1995. Politics and Peace. International Security, 20(2), 123-146.

“First, we find that there is no statistically significant relationship between democracy and war before 1914…Our analysis shows that it is only after 1945 that the probability of war or serious disputes is significantly lower between democratic states than between members of other pairs of states” (124).

“the democratic peace literature advances two explanations for the distinctive behavior of democracies. One is based on norms, the other on checks and balances. In this section, we argue that neither provides a compelling explanation of the peace that is said to prevail between democracies” (126).

“The evidence we analyzed suggests that the democratic peace is of relatively recent origin. Indeed, it coincides with the Cold War. Whether the post-1945 result is the product of common polities is, at best, unclear. The onset of the Cold War precipitated strong common interests among a relatively large number of democratic states” (145).