The debates on war and democracy

Continuation of the topic: War. Society. Democracy

Abstract

Since the 1970s, scholars have begun to pay special attention to the questions of whether democracy guarantees peace, whether freedom should be sacrificed in the name of security during war, how sustainable peace is possible, and what threats war poses to democracy. In the same period, influenced by the legacy of Immanuel Kant and David Hume, the democratic peace hypothesis began to be developed. This article discusses the theoretical debate concerning this hypothesis, as well as the question of whether the type of political regime affects the state's success in war. An examining of the theoretical debates has shown that the proponents of the democratic peace hypothesis have not been able to provide convincing evidence of a direct link between the type of political regime and the willingness to initiate war or maintain peace. At the same time, the debate disproves another common belief, that of the military weakness of democracies.

The article notes that the prevalent theoretical approach to studying the issue of war and democracy is based on an eschatological idea of the future democratic world. In contrast to this view, Gunther Anders’ idea of an “apocalypse without a Kingdom” opens up a new perspective for understanding war and democracy, which is that the destruction that war brings is not followed by the construction of a new world. In this case, the main task is not to achieve democracy as a result of war, but to preserve democracy during war.