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Abstract
Democratic Peace Theory rests on several assumptions. Structural variants assume that, in all states, the public is more peaceful than its leaders and that, in democratic states, institutional checks and balances restrain bellicose leaders. Normative variants assume that democratic peoples and their leaders share norms encouraging the peaceful resolution of disputes with other democracies and respect for the wishes of other free peoples. These assumptions are challenged, however, by the experience of post-conflict peacemaking by democratic states. When negotiating peace, public opinion tends to be more bellicose than its leaders, even when the former enemy has become either democratic or quasi-democratic. This paper examines the post-war peace processes between France and the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949–1954 and between Israel and the Palestinian Authority since 1992. It argues that the logic of democratic peace theory might apply to states with no past history of war, but not to states which have recently been to war.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank John MacMillan, Galia Press-Bar Nathan, Matthew Rendall, Bruce Russett, and Wolfgang Wagner for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. He also wishes to acknowledge Martin P. Bergeron and Sébastien Mainville for their research assistance.
Notes
1. I use the term “peacemaking” here in its traditional sense, that is, to denote efforts by parties to a conflict to negotiate a post-conflict settlement and normalize bilateral relations. I do not use it in the more modern sense to denote third-party intervention into a conflict to impose stability.
2. After World War I, the Versailles peace settlement was imposed on Germany prior to the entrenchment of the Weimar Republic. A questionable case would be peace talks between India and Pakistan, under the short-lived government of Omar Sharif. Since Sharif's government did not enjoy broad-based popular legitimacy and was replaced shortly therafter by a military coup, it is not an ideal test case. Since Argentina underwent a democratization process after the Falkland Islands War, that is potentially another case, but given the islands' geographical distance and minimal value for Great Britain, it is unlikely that the public involvement in a post-war settlement would be high enough to warrant our attention. In most other wars involving democratic states, peace treaties were typically negotiated and signed before any meaningful democratization occurred in the opponent's society. The only possible cases I can identify of peacemaking negotiations between democracies and democratizing entities, therefore, are the settlement between the Three Powers and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) after World War II, the United States and Japan after World War II, and Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the 1990s. I investigate two of these cases in this paper, selecting one case involving a democratizing state actor (the FRG) and one involving a non-state actor (the PA) for variance.
3. I do not examine the attitudes of the democratizing state/entity for two reasons. To begin with, the public opinion data for France in the immediate aftermath of World War II and Israel in the 1990s is more reliable than it was for postwar Germany and the Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, it is precisely the change of attitudes of the public (or lack thereof) of the mature democracy that we need to investigate, for the implication of democratic peace theory is that the democratization of the enemy should lead to a pacification of public attitudes toward it. Conversely, the newly-democratizing population (rather than the state) should not necessarily change its attitudes toward the former enemy, which in these cases always was democratic.
4. CitationRussett and Maoz (1993) argue that the normative explanation is the most powerful explanation of the democratic peace.
5. Of course, this argument ignores the fact that non-democratic leaders, too, must concern themselves with holding power and, therefore, do not wish to provoke a revolution by embarking on a costly war (cf. Ripsman, nd). Thus, for example, the examples of Czar Nicholas of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany—both of whom were toppled from power as a result of their entry into a long an unsuccessful World War I—should inspire even non-democratic leaders to avoid costly wars.
6. CitationRussett (1993:15–20), for one, justifies his classification for each of these cases, although in some cases his justifications are very weak. For example, he dismisses the 1967 war between Lebanon and Israel because Lebanese involvement was very low. More shockingly, he dismisses the War of 1812 merely “because it precedes the beginning date—1815—of the best-known compilation of all wars” and because it antedated the British Reform Act of 1832, despite the fact that most classifications of democracy consider Great Britain a democracy before 1832.
7. For an excellent book which examines both near misses and potential misclassifications, see CitationElman (1997).
8. In a similar vein, CitationGartzke (1998) suggests that democracies have not gone to war in the past because they have shared common interests and, therefore, had few key issues in dispute. Nothing would preclude their use of force in the event of a dispute between them in the future though.
9. Since empirical tests of liberal institutionalism have yielded poor results, CitationJon Pevehouse and Bruce Russett (2005) contend that it is international institutions comprised largely of democracies that foster peace and stability. Therefore, it is possible that liberal institutionalism might be epiphenomenal of regime type.
10. This discussion relies upon CitationRipsman, 2002. See also CitationMorgan and Campbell (1991), CitationPeterson (1995), and CitationElman (2000).
11. On the policy implications of democratic peace theory, see CitationMuravchik (1991), CitationDiamond (1992), and CitationRussett (1993:124–138).
12. I thank Bruce Russett for bringing this to my attention.
13. CitationLevy (1994:452), for example, contends that “the idea that democracies almost never go to war with each other is now commonplace” and that “[t]he skeptics are in retreat.” And both CitationRay (2003) and CitationChernoff (2004) have judged that the democratic peace program is a progressive research agenda.
14. CitationGates, Knudsen, and Moses (1996) provide empirical examples of democratic publics being more bellicose than their leaders.
15. For greater depth on the post-war settlement with western Germany, see CitationRipsman, 2002: chap. 4.
16. On the de Gaulle thesis, see War Memoirs, vol. III, pp. 239–240; Meeting between de Gaulle and Truman, Aug. 22, 1945, de Gaulle, War Memoirs, vol. V, pp. 283–287; Memorandum by the French delegation to the CFM, Sept. 13, 1945, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1945, III, pp. 869–871.
17. As CitationGimbel (1976) argues, the primary purpose of the Marshall Plan was to overcome French resistance to German recovery by giving France a stake in German economic revival. The Truman Administration deliberately linked economic assistance to France with German participation in the plan. French leaders, including successive foreign ministers Georges Bidault and the relatively pro-German Robert Schuman, were quickly persuaded by the American strategy that France had a strong interest in German economic and political recovery, even if there was some inherent danger involved. See, for example, US Ambassador to Paris Caffery to Secretary of State Marshall, July 18, 1947, FRUS, 1947, II, p. 996; Caffery to Marshall, May 25, 1948, FRUS, 1948, vol. II, p. 281; CitationPoidevin (1986:186–190, 208).
18. For the proceedings of the London conference on Germany and the agreement reached to establish the Federal Republic of Germany, see FRUS, 1948, II, pp. 75–145, 191–317.
19. Schuman concluded early on, for example, that industrial dismantling was detrimental to the Western economies and risked inflaming German nationalism. Thus, he personally had no objection to scaling it back and raising production ceilings (CitationPoidevin, 1986:212; Auriol, Journal, 1949:173).
20. A July 1954 poll conducted by L'Institut Français d'Opinion Publique, for example, revealed that 66% of decided French respondents viewed German rearmament as a danger in any form, while 28% believed it could be allowed only with adequate safeguards. In addition, 64% of decided French respondents expressed the belief that “the German people deeply love war.” See CitationStoetzel (1957:84, 98).
21. Caffery to Lovett, FRUS, 1948, II, p. 479.
22. Sir Gladwyne Jebb to Minister of State Kenneth Younger, Sept. 16, 1950, DBPO, III, p. 63. The day before, French Ambassador to London René Massigli told British Prime Minister Clement Attlee that “the French Government would not be able to accept any mention in a public communiqué of the principle of German rearmament. As to the principle itself, their attitude was not entirely negative.” p. 63, note 2. See also “Réarmement Allemand,” MAE Note, Sept. 10, 1950, MAE, EUR 1944–1960, Allemagne, 185, 284–285.
23. See Jebb to Younger, Sept. 23, 1950, DBPO, ser. II, vol. III, pp. 67–68, 89–97; Papers of Dean Acheson, Harry S Truman Pesidential Library, Princeton Seminars, Oct. 10–11, 1953, Reel 6, track 2, p. 7.
24. As I indicate elsewhere (CitationRipsman, 2005), after the transition to peace has occurred, the population can be socialized to accept the settlement over time, but this does not occur overnight.
25. While the PLO did not initiate the intifada, which started as a response to a traffic accident in which a collision with an Israeli vehicle killed four Palestinians from Gaza, it soon gained control of it and directed it from Tunis (CitationHunter, 1993:58–71).
26. For the text of the 1993 Oslo Agreement and its annexes, see CitationMakovsky (1996:205–218). On Israeli public opposition to negotiations with the PLO, see December 1990 and December 1992 public opinion polls reported in Xinhua General Overseas News Service, January 1, 1993, from Lexis/Nexis (L/N).
27. See the documents in CitationMakovsky (1996: 205–218).
28. “Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” September 28, 1995, reproduced in http://www.acpr.org.il/resources/oslo2.html.
30. See, for example, The Middle East Times, http://www.metimes.com/issue99-50/reg/arafat_losing_creditibility.htm, which highlights Arafat's use of coercion against his political opponents and “Arafat Critics Defiant Despite More Arrests in Crackdown,” November 29, 1999, http://europe.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9911/29/arafat.opposition/. Significantly, in August 1998, High profile PA Minister Hanan Ashrawi (as well as lower profile Abdel Jawad Saleh) resigned from Arafat's Cabinet because of PA corruption. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9808/06/ashrawi.02/. For a systematic treatment of PA corruption, see CitationAburish (1998). On the repeated postponement of the second Palestinian election, which was supposed to take place by the end of 2000, but did not occur until after Arafat's death in 2004, see “Palestinian Elections Postponed,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2599293.stm.
35. http://www.tau.ac.il/peace/p_9610.html. This was the same percentage as supported the Oslo Agreement in May 1999 when Barak took office. See http://www.tau.ac.il/peace/p_9905.html.
38. 40% of decided respondents responded affirmatively; 40% responded negatively. http://www.tau.ac.il/peace/p_9610.html.
41. CitationDoron (1998), for example, argued that “Oslo has replaced a bad Israeli occupation with the much worse regime of a reformed (?) terrorist organization that does not seem to care for or tolerate true democracy, ignores human and civil rights and exploits and impoverishes its people by establishing an inefficient statist economy rife with nepotism and corruption.” See also CitationHornik (1997).
42. See, for example, “Terrorism as Bargaining Chip,” Jerusalem Post, January 28, 1996, p. 6, from Lexis/Nexis; “Certification of a Fraud,” Jerusalem Post, April 5, 1996, p. 4, from Lexis/Nexis.
43. The highest reading they received was just below 50% in 1996, but in the early years of Oslo optimism only about 35% viewed a Palestinian state as “acceptable” (Shamir and CitationShamir, 2000:190).
44. The Hebron Agreement was a continuation of the Oslo process, requiring Israel to withdraw its troops from Hebron and rural areas of the West Bank in three stages. It prompted CitationLeisenberg (1997) to conclude that Netanyahu was “governing left after running to the right.” On the widespread opposition to the agreement within the Cabinet and the rightwing as a whole, see “Sparks Fly as Parliament Debates Hebron Pact,” January 16, 1997, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9701/16/hebron.debate/; CitationSchmemann (1997). The Wye River Memorandum reaffirmed Israel's commitment to military redeployment and the pursuit of final status negotiations in return for a renewed Palestinian commitment to fight terrorism and remove anti-Israel provisions from the Palestinian National Charter. See the text of the agreement at http://www.netanyahu.org/texofwyerivm.html. This agreement prompted the rightwing Moledet party, formerly supporters of Netanyahu's government, to initiate a vote of no confidence in Netanyahu. “Netanyahu Survives No Confidence Vote,” October 26, 1998, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9810/26/mideast.03/.
“Terrorism as Bargaining Chip,” Jerusalem Post, 28 January (from Lexis/Nexis).
“Certification of a Fraud,” Jerusalem Post, 5 April 5 (from Lexis/Nexis).