Deconstructing the "Democratic Peace": How a Research Agenda Boomeranged

Scholars of international studies thought that finally an extraordinary research finding would bring scholars together in a common pursuit for researcher that would lighten a pathway toward a peaceful world: If only a world of democracies could be established, international relations would be based on diplomacy, not war. But they abandoned basic rules of scientific and systematic research by failing to define what they meant by "democracy," and next sought a critical variable explaining why democracies were presumably so peaceful toward one another, unaware of paradigmatic possibilities. They ignored deviant cases and normative implications. Then came the Iraq War of 2003, when "democratic peace" research was used as a justification for unlawful aggression. Their research boomeranged. The book traces the development of the theory--from the first empirical findings, the botched and contradictory research designs, failure to consider causal implications, pseudotheoretical explanations, and implicit implications for policy. The book concludes that excellent research conducted within the framework of the delusionary social constructionist concept of "democratic peace" has fallen like Humpty Dumpty and can only be salvaged by developing paradigmatic theory about peace and war and then retrofitting the research therein.