The Democratic Peace and Civil Society as Constraints on Major Power Warfare

Abstract

Considers the question of whether democratic peace & civil society indicate the decline of major interstate war. Rosecrance's 1987 trading state theory is addressed & refined into a more straightforwardly evolutionary case for ongoing shifts in war/peace & trade/development. Next it is shown that if the democratic peace/civil society arguments are on target, major interstate war should disappear as soon as metamorphoses identified with democratization & civil society have fully emerged across all societies & political systems, & that these changes are irreversible. On the other hand, if the slightly altered trading state theory is correct, system type & social metamorphoses are bound up in a web of shifts occurring in military, political, & economic areas that do imply major war is ebbing for reasons other than changes in type of regime. But as long as such warfare remains possible, one must also recognize that while major interstate conflict has decreased in incidence, it has at the same time grown increasingly deadlier & more global in scope & scale. Tables, References. K. Coddon