Suchergebnisse

To explain the strong finding that democracies rarely fight other democracies, analysts typically focus on some attribute of regime type. This linkage may be spurious, at least in part. The emergence and persistence of the first wave of liberal republics and democracies were greatly facilitated by the prior resolution of regional primacy questions. Because early democracies did not engage fully in competitions for regional primacy and territorial expansion, they were less likely to attack other states, democracies or otherwise, in their home regions. Nonexpansionist foreign policies also discouraged the domestic concentration of economic and political power, which in turn facilitated democratization processes. Four historical cases illustrate how regional primacy issues preceded the development of democracy and either undermined or facilitated democratization processes in major powers that have been especially important to the annals of war participation. Further research on whether peace antecedes democracy or the other way around appears warranted.

Der Zusammenhang, daß demokratische Staaten in geringerem Maße geneigt sind militärische Konflikte mit anderen Staaten zu führen, wurde in den letzten Jahres häufiger untersucht und großteils für richtig befunden. Dabei richtete sich das Augenmerk jedoch fast ausschließlich auf die Herrschaftsform der sich im Konflikt befindlichen Staaten. Anhand von vier historischen Beispielen - Skandinavien, das revolutionäre Frankreich, Nordamerika des 19. Jahrhunderts und Japan zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts - wird gezeigt, daß vor allem auch der Umstand entscheidend ist, inwieweit regionale Vormacht ein expanives Streben beeinflußt und wiederum Rückwirkungen auf die politische und wirtschaftliche Machtballung eines Staates hat. (SWP-Krh)

Argues that the creation of zones of peace is related to geopolitics rather than to type of political regime.

The largely unanticipated end of the cold war and the consequent difficulties in explaining its demise underline the need to understand better the phenomenon of rivalries in world politics. There is, however, much more at stake than the history of the Soviet-American relationship because a respectable proportion of international conflict is embedded within the contexts of specific dyadic feuds with specific pasts and futures. To ignore these contexts may seriously distort the entire analytic undertaking of international relations. This article makes a case for identifying rivalries in terms of decision maker perceptions as opposed to the number of disputes over some period of time in which states engage. A second argument is that predominately positional and predominately spatial rivalries should be differentiated as two basic types. Finally, a third argument is advanced for categorizing positional rivalries with respect to their geopolitical milieu: dyadic, regional, global, and global-regional.

Leadership long-cycle analyses emphasize the global political economy, sea power, and the cyclical rise and fall of maritime powers. Ludwig Dehio's interpretation of European international politics stressed regional politics, land power, and the cyclical rise and fall of continental powers. Since neither framework totally ignores what the other accentuates, a merger of the two perspectives is quite feasible and results in improved explanatory power. As an illustration, several of Dehio's generalizations about the nature and timing of regional power concentration are tested for the period 1494–1945. The outcome suggests that peaks of regional and global power concentration alternate. Global reconcentration is stimulated, at least in part, by the threat posed by a rising regional challenger.