著者

藤原 帰一

出版者

JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

no.125, pp.147-161,L18, 2000

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Much has been made of the claim that democracies do not fight each other. This claim met more skeptical eyes outside the United States, if only because the argument shared an annoying similarity with another argument once shared by supporters of communist parties: communists do not fight each other. So much for wishful thinking and self-deceit.<br>Peace, after all, has been observed among autocracies as well as by democracies; that does not mean, however, that regime-types do not matter. Regime-types, with distinctive characters in their decision making process, may cast influence over political decisions in international relations, even when they fail to dictate black-and-white outcomes such as the absence of war. If both autocracies and democracies may sustain 'peace' at given points, then, how are they different?<br>This leads to the question of this paper: can we distinguish significant patterns of behavior between autocratic peace and democratic peace? In this paper, I make an attempt to answer this question by comparing two most salient examples of autocratic peace, the Congress of Vienna and ASEAN. The former is important because it provided a model of balance of power to the realist school, while actually sustained by the threat of domestic upheaval; the latter is interesting because, among regimes that were undemocratic to say the least, a certain status quo has been somehow maintained.<br>Differences between early 19th century Europe and late 20th century Southeast Asia should be only too apparent. The Congress of Vienna and ASEAN, however, do share some institutional characteristics. Both were formed under the specter of revolution, the revival of the French revolution and the spillover of the Chinese revolution respectively. It was the fear of domestic challenges to political power, rather than the simple fear of overseas aggression, that held both regimes intact.<br>Both were sustained by a group of regional elites who were under little influence from domestic interests or public opinions. In Vienna, it was the Kings and the Nobles of each country who were all part of an extended family due to centuries of inter-marriage: an international society was more real than civil societies in the days of Vienna. ASEAN leaders lacked such kin relationship, but were all bound by secular interests that stemmed from a common agenda, that is, a non-communist and authoritarian path to state-formation.<br>Both regimes aimed at policy coordination of secular interests, disregarding transcendent norms or beliefs. Vienna aimed for the Concert of Europe with little religious beliefs or legal institutions; ASEAN, composed of Islamic, Buddhist, and Catholic societies, worked on a harmony of secular interests devoid of religion or political ideology. And both regimes imposed minimum constraints on the policy pursuit of individual states, non-intervention as the golden rule.<br>In spite of the lack of institutional norms and sanctions, or any clear and present foe to ally against, both regimes successfully preserved peace in the region for over three decades. An impressive achievement, but challenges emanated from within.<br>The Congress of Vienna ended with the revolutions of 1848 and the flight of Metternich. ASEAN nations have gone through a wave of democratic revolutions that shattered authoritarian rule in the Philippines (1986), Thailand (1992), and Indonesia (1998). The paper claims that such domestic changes have put the more secular and elitist policy coordination of ASEAN in limbo at the moment, with ominous signs for the future.