Building an Internal Security Community: The Democratic Peace and the Politics of Extradition in Western Europe
| Date | 01 November 2003 |
| Author | Wolfgang Wagner |
| Published date | 01 November 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00223433030406005 |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
695
Introduction
Research on the so-called Democratic Peace
has, by and large, focused on the proposition
that democracies do not wage war against
each other. In concentrating on this
undoubtedly important aspect of state
behavior, democratic peace research has lost
sight of the larger picture of the complex
relationship between democracy (or regime
type more broadly) and security policy.1This
© 2003 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 40, no. 6, 2003, pp. 695–712
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
[0022-3433(200311)40:6; 695–712; 038288]
Building an Internal Security Community: The
Democratic Peace and the Politics of Extradition
in Western Europe*
WOLFGANG WAGNER
Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
This article extends democratic peace research, which has predominantly focused on the absence of war,
to the field of internal security cooperation. It argues that the mechanisms suggested by democratic
peace research (responsiveness of democratic leaders to public demands, democratic norms and culture,
and institutional constraints) can also be applied to the field of internal security cooperation: demo-
cratic leaders can be expected to respond to citizens’ demands for enhanced internal security and to
strive towards international cooperation in internal security. Moreover, democracies tend to form
security communities and to define their security in common terms, which also encourages mutual
assistance on issues of internal security. At the same time, however, democratic leaders’ ability to engage
in international cooperation is circumscribed by domestic institutions that safeguard individual rights.
In sum, the mechanisms suggested by democratic peace research can capture both the incentives and
difficulties of international cooperation on internal security among democratic states. The case of extra-
dition politics, which impacts both on the internal security of states and on standards of individual
rights (such as fair trial), serves to illustrate this point: since there is no general obligation for states to
extradite fugitives, extradition has traditionally been based on a series of bilateral treaties. Starting in
the 1950s, the members of the Council of Europe, all of which are liberal democracies, have negoti-
ated multilateral conventions designed to facilitate extradition among them. The high level of inter-
dependence and trust among the members of the European Union has led to more far-reaching
agreements, culminating in a European arrest warrant, which effectively overcomes remaining barriers
to extradition. In congruence to the democratic peace perspective, requests from non-democratic states
to become part of that regime have been turned down.
* The author would like to thank Susi Alegre, Rainer
Baumann, Monika Bösche, Michael Bothe, Christian
Büger, Matthias Dembinski, Frank Gadinger, Nils Petter
Gleditsch, Andreas Hasenclever, Benjamin Herborth,
Cordelia Koch, Philip Liste, Thomas Ljunquist, Sabine
Mannitz, Berthold Meyer, Thomas Nielebock, Thomas
Vogel, Simone Wisotzki, and two anonymous referees for
helpful comments on previous drafts of this article. He is
also indebted to Frank Gadinger and Tobias Semmet for
valuable assistance in assembling the material for this study.
The author can be reached at wwagner@hsfk.de.
1‘Security’ has been one of the most contested concepts in
international relations (for a good overview, see Buzan,
Wæver & de Wilde, 1998: 1–8; Müller, 2002b: 369).
Though scholars concur that the concept of security refers
to the absence of existential threats, they disagree on two
issues. First, the state has been challenged as the sole subject
of security. Instead, individuals, social groups, and
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is unfortunate for two reasons: first, the
study of further aspects of the relationship
between democracy and security policy
yields additional data that may help to
specify the mechanisms at work when demo-
cratic states cooperate on security issues.
Second, the analysis of further aspects of
democracies’ security policies may benefit
from being incorporated into the larger
research program on the democratic peace
because an established and well-specified set
of hypotheses linking regime type and state
action is already available.
This article aims to analyze cooperation
among Western European liberal democra-
cies on issues of internal security2from the
perspective of the democratic peace. It
outlines how democracy and peace have been
connected in democratic peace research, and
argues that these mechanisms also apply to
other instances of state behavior. Then, it
further specifies a democratic peace perspec-
tive on issues of internal security cooper-
ation, in particular. The politics of
extradition among Western European liberal
democracies serves as an illustration. Finally,
the benefits of bringing together democratic
peace research and the analysis of internal
security cooperation are summed up.
Mechanisms of the Democratic
Peace
In developing an explanation for the absence
of war among democracies, democratic peace
research has suggested a set of interconnected
mechanisms3that can be expected to apply
to democratic states’ security policies more
broadly.
Most prominent is the mechanism,
already suggested by Immanuel Kant, that a
democratic system of rule makes leaders
especially responsive to the preferences of the
people. Because citizens are assumed to prefer
not to risk their lives in battlefield, leaders of
democratic states ‘typically experience high
political costs from fighting wars – always
from losing them, and often despite winning
them’ (Russett & Oneal, 2001: 54). Critics
have objected that leaders may shift the costs
of war to a minority in society and thus
circumvent the pacifist preferences of the
public. A democracy, however, ensures a high
degree of responsiveness even if leaders are
assumed to be only interested in meeting the
minimum requirement for staying in office,
that is, the support of the winning coalition:
in autocracies, winning coalitions may be
small. As a result, it may be possible for
leaders to ensure their support by distribut-
ing private benefits instead of public goods.
However, as a winning coalition increases,
‘each member’s share of private goods
decreases. This makes public policy benefits
loom larger in the overall utility assessment of
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 40 / number 6 / november 2003
696
mankind have been suggested as equally appropriate
subjects. Second, there has been disagreement on what
constitutes an ‘existential’ threat, particularly whether it is
sufficient to focus on physical security or whether
economic, environmental, or social security must be taken
into account as well. For the purpose of an extension of
democratic peace research to internal security, as proposed
here, no extension to the economic, environmental, or
societal dimensions of security is required. It will be neces-
sary, however, to include individuals as subjects of security.
2Whereas ‘external security’ refers to threats originating
from outside a state’s territory, usually from another state
or alliance of states, ‘internal security’ refers to threats orig-
inating from within a state or society, for example from ter-
rorist or criminal organizations (Lutz, 1998: 670). Because
a threat to internal security originates in the very society
that is to be protected, the strategies for the maintenance
of internal security differ from those deemed necessary for
external security. As a consequence, almost all states have
charged separate institutions with the provision of external
and internal security respectively. Whereas the military is
held responsible for defending a state’s territory against an
outside attack, the police and law enforcement agencies are
in charge of preventing the emergence of threats from
within a state. However, as borders have become increas-
ingly open, the distinction between external and internal
security has been increasingly blurred.
3Among democratic peace researchers, the respective
validity of different mechanisms has been the subject of
considerable dispute. This debate has focused on the
respective merits of ‘institutional constraints’ and ‘demo-
cratic norms’. However, though these mechanisms are
distinct, they need not be treated as mutually exclusive. In
contrast, both mechanisms are ‘really complementary:
culture influences the creation and evolution of political
institutions, and institutions shape culture’ (Russett &
Oneal, 2001: 53).
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