Posted on 01/01/2006 10:15:01 AM PST by InvisibleChurch
I'd heard somewhere that a country that has a democratically elected govt has never attacked another country with a democratically elected govt. Is this so? Or does this all depend on what the meaning of "democratically elected" is?
WWI - probably; WWII - maybe.
I think it all depends on what 'democratically elected' means to whoever is doing the speaking or the listening.
Saddam was 'democratically elected,' for example. Allied forces declared war on him and ousted him from office.
It's just a catchphrase.
Well . . .
We declared war on Great Britain in 1812.
For that matter, the Indian Nations (Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole and Chickasaw) declared war on the United States in 1861 -- and at the time all had democratically elected governments. In at least two of those cases (Choctaw and Cherokee) the declaration followed a plebicite on the issue which was wone by the hawks.
Maybe "western nation" might be a better term. What do you think?
GB was a monarchy
Depends on what the meaning of "is" is, dontcha know.
Just off the top of my head, I think Canada was a colony but with some democratically elected local leaders I think back in 1812, and we attacked them.
I think it's just a slogan.
Of 116 major wars of 438 countries between 1789 and 1941 not one involved democracies on both sides, although the studies author did get a bit twisty in their reasoning for the War of 1812 and the Civil War IMO.
I suggest reading "Power Kills" by R. J. Rummel.
It doesn't answer your question, but I know that the New York Times and the Democratic Party have decared war on the USA.
Yea, I raised our attacking Canada in the war of 1812, too.
But Great Britain was a Monarchy at that point
Interesting question. I think that the idea is that true democracies where the people have some say in things political and are at the same time free to pursue their own lives and visions without government interference mostly don't seek to go to war with similar societies. But there are few such countries.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.CLOCK.HTM
What is the democratic peace?
It is the web of factual propositions that:
Democracies do not make war on each other.
The more two nations are democratic, the less their mutual violence.
Democracies have the least foreign violence.
Democracies have, by far, the least internal violence.
Modern democracies have virtually no democide (genocide and mass murder)
Putting all this together, democracy is a method of nonviolence. And therefore, the democratic peace.
Sometimes it does. :-)
How about the American Civil War? Were those not two democracies?
By 1812 Britain was a Constitutional monarchy, in which the power to declare war was vested in the Parliment. For that matter it still is. It WAS a democratic nation in 1812 in the sense that it was a democratic nation in 1914 and in 2005
The last king that believed Britain was a monarchy had the government disagree with him to the point where he lost his head over the issue.
That's more believable, somehow.
IMO, yes. The studies author argued that the Confederacy had not actually achieved independence with succession, hence was excluded. I do not agree with that reasoning.
Depends on how you define it.
I'm a grad student, and I have a professor who argues that, in his words 'Stable liberal democracies haven't ever fought each other', but it basically comes down to how you define stable liberal democracies. (and that's old school liberal, not Chuck Schumer liberal, for those who aren't well read.)
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