著者

北村 治

出版者

JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

no.150, pp.52-65,L9, 2007

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It is often mentioned that democracies do not, or are very unlikely to, make war against other democracies. This "democratic peace" theory has become a commonplace not only in international political thought but also in the mindsets of American presidents and diplomats. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, for example, have referred to this international ethical cycle: promoting democracy would make world peace. The idea of democratic peace was advocated by Kant. Kant thought that a majority of the people would never vote to go to war under the republican (democratic) governments because they were cautious of war.<br>However, the road to democracy may involve war. Democratic peace increasingly seems to be linked to war. It is obvious that democracies are peaceful towards each other but in general they are as war-prone as any other regime type. The theory of democratic peace, therefore, remains fragmentary as long as it fails to account for the practice of war on the part of democracies. At the dark side of democratic peace, "democratic war" occurs. According to Harald Müller, "democratic war" means the resort to the use of force by democracies in order to promote democracy for peace.<br>In the history of international political thought, some thinkers acknowledge that democracies tend to be war-prone. Alexis de Tocqueville, for example, pointed out that democracy in America was likely to go to war. It is true that America foreign policy contains this Tocqueville's legacy. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has justified wars and military interventions to export democracy to non-democratic states. Moreover, in order to prevent transnational terrorism, American foreign policy supports. "war against terrorism" under the just war tradition. For American foreign policy, "war against terrorism" is a just war. Promoting democracy is strongly related to combating against terrorism. Moral justification of war is one of the most important things for American foreign policy after the Cold War.<br>There was same logic behind the justification of the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003. Moreover, the United States' invasion of Iraq was justified in part as a preventive war for making democratic peace. American "democratic wars" are developed by the universalistic (Kantian-Wilsonian) principles of democratic peace. However, attempts to make democratic peace by using external force would have failed eventually. Without regard to humanitarian purpose or not, it is obvious that democracy in America is more war-prone rather than the reverse.