Term Paper

Words: 2435
Pages: 10

Question 1: The only way that peace can be maintained between the United States and a rising China is the democratization of the latter.” Do you agree or disagree with this assertion? Explain.

Introduction

I agree that the only way that peace can be maintained between the United States and the United States and a rising China is the democratization of the latter. In this essay, I would provide the two underlying explanations of democracy peace theory along with the statistical regression analysis and empirical evidences. According to democratic peace theory, democracies rarely fight against each other. It is substantiated with Bruce Russett’s plausible empirical study of war between democracies during the period of year 1816 to 1992.
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The characteristic of democratic norms namely, human rights, free and fair electoral process as well as democratic structures, an elected parliamentary or presidential system have profound consequences for the way leaders govern their citizen. 8 Since war is a costly affair, leaders of democracies would typically encounter high political domestic cost from fighting a war -- always from losing them and sometimes despite winning the wars, thus trying to avoid the prospects of war at all cost.9 Consequently, leaders who do not serve the interests of most of the citizens will be held accountable, punished and voted out of office. These domestic political costs of war make the use of force less attractive to democratic-elected leaders. As such, leaders of democracies and the citizens in general benefit from avoiding conflict.

High transparency of democracies for instances free movement of information along with shared democratic norms and procedures, leads leaders to explore peaceful foreign policy for examples successful negotiation with potential aggressors (e.g. other democracies in particular) who will otherwise pay significant costs should negotiation fail. In this process, conflict will be de-escalated and war can be