Between the Theory and Practice of Democratic Peace
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117811404449 |
| Subject Matter | Roundtable |
International Relations
25(2) 147–150
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117811404449
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Roundtable: Between the
Theory and Practice of
Democratic Peace
Introduction
Christopher Hobson
The stated aim of the 2010 International Studies Association Convention in New Orleans
was to examine the relationship between theory and policy, in order ‘to assess the current
state of the divide between scholars and practitioners’.1 This roundtable sought to address
the issue in relation to democratic peace (DP) scholarship, a prominent strand of interna-
tional relations (IR) theory that has seemingly narrowed this gap between academics and
policymakers.
In the last three decades a flourishing research program has swiftly developed around
the core dyadic DP finding: namely, that modern democracies have rarely, if ever,
fought one another. One major conclusion quickly drawn from this body of work was
that it potentially offered a strong foundation to guide the foreign policy of the United
States and other liberal democracies in the post-Cold War era. Indeed, it was not long
before references to the peacefulness of democracies could be found in the public pro-
nouncements of American presidents, United Nations secretaries-general and a wide
range of other prominent international figures. There was a simultaneous expansion and
embedding of democracy promotion practices within international politics,2 which held
out the possibility of being able to broaden and deepen the existing democratic zone of
peace. In this regard, DP research appeared to be a particularly successful case of how
IR scholars could have a direct and positive impact on the policy world. Any early cel-
ebrations were distinctly premature, however, as ideas related to DP soon emerged as a
central justification – and potential motivation – in the ‘freedom agenda’ of the Bush
administration, which manifested itself most explicitly in the coercive democratization
of Iraq. Rather than being a ‘force for peace’, DP scholarship became implicated in a
deeply divisive and costly war. While none of this per se disproved the vast majority of
Corresponding author:
Christopher Hobson
Email: hobson@unu.edu
148 International Relations 25(2)
DP work, which has been probabilistic in nature and emphasized the much more robust
dyadic finding, it has raised important questions about the political consequences of the
DP research program, and whether theorists are responsible for the way their scholar-
ship was appropriated and employed by the Bush administration and the neoconserva-
tive movement.3
Examining the role DP findings may have played in the 2003 Iraq War, and the related
issues that arise, offers an important case study for considering the more general relation-
ship between the theory and practice of international relations, as well as more specific
concerns about how the DP research program has developed and presently operates
within academia and policymaking. The roundtable contributors have all been involved
in the existing debate on these questions; here they seek to refine, extend and further
develop their arguments. While the tone is broadly critical, there has been a conscious
attempt to incorporate perspectives from different theoretical traditions and a range of
academic settings. Despite these diverse starting points, a number of common questions
and themes can be found across the papers:
1. How much of an influence (direct or otherwise) has DP research had on the for-
mation of United States foreign policy and other international actors? In particu-
lar, did DP findings play a role in motivating and/or justifying the decision by the
United States to invade Iraq in 2003?
2. If it is the case that DP scholarship did play a role in the Iraq War, are DP scholars
at all responsible for the manner in which their findings were used? Did the Bush
administration and its neoconservative backers hijack DP scholarship for its own
ends – ends that were at odds with DP work? Or is it that DP theorists were not
simply innocent bystanders, but active participants in this process, and thus partly
culpable?
3. How should DP scholars respond to the current state of affairs? Should they
remain in the academic realm or venture into the political sphere? Is there a need
to rethink or change the manner in which DP is studied and discussed?
In exploring these questions, Tony Smith opens the roundtable in provocative fashion,
strongly arguing that ‘the utility of DP theory in the study of international relations is …
easily outweighed by its flaws in construction and what have turned out to be its destruc-
tive policy consequences’. Building on the powerful claims of his recent book, A Pact
with the Devil, Smith proposes that DP scholarship played an important role in giving
shape to the imperial foreign policy that defined the George W. Bush presidency. In sharp
contrast, John Owen sees DP scholarship as operating within, and partly emerging from,
America’s liberal foreign policy tradition. The United States has a long history of regard-
ing republics, and later democracies, as more peaceful, and non-liberal regimes as more
warlike and dangerous. For Owen, responsibility for the Iraq War lies much more with
this deeply embedded, and Janus-faced, liberal tradition, than the recent social scientific
claim. In reflecting on the role of DP in United States academia and foreign policy, Anna
Geis extends her focus to consider how it operates within the different context of
Germany. Geis suggests that in America there has been a tendency to focus on the posi-
tive aspects of ‘democratic distinctiveness’, which has made it particularly ‘seductive’ to
Hobson 149
policymakers. In contrast, the political and intellectual history of Germany has helped to
foster a much more uncertain and cautious appreciation of democracy. In this regard,
American DP scholarship could benefit from adopting a more humble and self-reflexive
approach to considering democracy and DP. In my contribution, I argue that the way DP
was researched and presented to policymakers left it vulnerable to political actors to
utilize in pursuing their own ends. Even if the coercive democratization of Iraq went
against the spirit and normative underpinnings of most DP scholarship, I suggest that this
is not enough to absolve DP theorists of all responsibility, as they should have been more
aware of the potential uses and consequences of their findings. Concluding the roundta-
ble, Piki Ish-Shalom reaches a different judgment, proposing that DP scholars should not
be praised or blamed for the real world consequences of their work. Once it leaves the
academic realm and enters into political discourse and policymaking, scholarship trans-
mogrifies into something that theorists can no longer control. For Ish-Shalom, scholars
still have a responsibility to leave the ivory tower and be engaged with the political
world, not primarily through engaging with policymakers, but by being ‘theoretician
citizens’ who foster more informed public deliberation.
To date, most DP scholars have been reticent in explicitly addressing the way their
work interacts with politics. While the contributors differ over whether the social scien-
tific research program is partly responsible or culpable for the way its findings have been
employed in the political realm, a common thread through much of the roundtable is the
suggestion that DP scholars need to consider more directly the relationship between the-
ory and practice, and to be more reflective about the way DP claims operate in the politi-
cal sphere. In this regard, one of the main aims of this roundtable is to provoke further
discussion on the theory and practice of DP, as well as what role scholars can, and should,
play in these processes.
Notes
1 ‘2010 ISA Convention Call for Papers’, www.isanet.org/neworleans2010/call-for-papers.
html.
2 Michael McFaul, ‘Democracy Promotion as a World Value’, Washington Quarterly, 28(1),
2004–5, pp. 147–63.
3 These issues have been considered in Michael Desch, ‘America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The
Ideological Origins of Overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy’, International Security, 32(3),
2007–8, pp. 7–43; Anna Geis and Wolfgang Wagner, ‘How Far Is it from Königsberg to
Kandahar? Democratic Peace and Democratic Violence in International Relations’, Review
of International Studies, forthcoming; Anna Geis, Lothar Brock and Harald Müller (eds),
Democratic Wars: Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (Houndmills: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006); Christopher Hobson, ‘Democracy as Civilisation’, Global Society, 22(1),
2008, pp. 7–95; Christopher Hobson, ‘Towards a Critical Theory of Democratic Peace’,
Review of International Studies, forthcoming; Piki Ish-Shalom, ‘Theory as a Hermeneutical
Mechanism: The Democratic Peace and the Politics of Democratization’, European Journal
of International Relations, 12(4), 2006, pp. 565–98; Piki Ish-Shalom, ‘The Civilization of
Clashes: Misapplying the Democratic Peace in the Middle East’, Political Science Quar-
terly, 12, 2007–8, pp. 533–54; Piki Ish-Shalom, ‘Theorization, Harm, and the Democratic
Imperative: Lessons from the Politicization of the Democratic-Peace Thesis’, International
Studies Review, 10, 2008, pp. 680–92; Piki Ish-Shalom, ‘The Rhetorical Capital of Theories:
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