Talk:Democratic peace theory/Archive 8

message: Septentrionalis has put up numerous templates disputing neutrality and factual accuracy on this article. However, he does not follow policy and make constructive explanations for this. Wikipedia:NPOV dispute states: "If you add the above code to an article which seems to be biased to you, but there is no prior discussion of the bias, you need to at least leave a note on the article's talk page describing what you consider unacceptable about the article. The note should address the problem with enough specificity to allow constructive discussion toward a resolution, such as identifying specific passages, elements, or phrasing that are problematic." So, what is incorrect? What is missing? Ultramarine 21:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed tags 

message: I am planning a new article on this. See the preliminary version here: User:Salix_alba/History_of conflict_between_democracies. Is there anything missing or incorrect? In particular, I would like to hear Septentrionalis objections, if any. It would not be good faith if he immediately lists it for deletion if he does not state his objections now and try to improve the article.Ultramarine 19:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do think it would be good to make it as a seperate article, but I don't know how to get round the POV problem, perceived or otherwise. Maybe a dash of Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy might help. --Salix alba (talk) 20:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I and Massimamanno have added many more details for the pro democrat war arguments, so I hope this is mostly solved.Ultramarine 20:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the admission that the section is advocacy. Septentrionalis 01:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? I have certainly not stated that.Ultramarine 01:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It is substantially improved by me and Massimamanno. If you are acting in good faith, please state what is wrong or missing so that it can corrected.Ultramarine 02:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If Ultramarine were editing in good faith, he would never have written that piece of advocacy in the first place; he would have started a blog. Septentrionalis 02:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I again note that you refuse to make any constructive contributions, claiming problems but not explaining why.Ultramarine 02:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New list of of possible wars between liberal democracies 

message: The following may be helpfull since the classification has disappeared from the text. Unfortunately, Ultramarine alternates between 
*affirming the wide support for the democratic peace, which is true; and 
*claiming that the form of Rummel, Ray and Weart is the only DPT, and therefore that those who disagree with that theory oppose the democratic peace, even when, as with Maoz, they strongly support it. 
**Response: Incorrect. I certainly agree that for example Maoz support the DPT as a strong statistical tendency, even when he also states that the Spanish-American War is an exception without giving any explanation for this.Ultramarine 15:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Classification of theories

message: I insist that the bit about the Kosovo war stays in.  Even if you disagree, Peter Singer is the most famous moral philosopher in the world, and his take on democratic peace theory must be represented here.  There is also no expert on Milosevic's Serbia that I'm aware of who believes that the regime was anything approaching a dictatorship, as Rumsfeld ignorantly called it on the death of Slobo.  "Partly free" is sometimes used as a description, but it was no less free than Turkey, Ireland, South Korea, etc. have been, and less corrupt than Italy or India.  The Kosovo War is THE biggest problem for the theory.  This isn't represented in the article, probably because the conflict is recent and most theorists haven't written about it yet.  Singer has done, and he's mentioned that his Princeton colleague Wenar agrees with him.  By the way, where is this subarticle?  I clicked through all the stuff at the top, and couldn't find anything on Kosovo.
Ultramarine, could you please explain to me what this subarticle where Kosovo is mentioned is.  It isn't mentioned anywhere on the pages at the top.  I am going to fight for inclusion of Kosovo, because it seems clear to me that the case was relevent to this theory.  Epa101 20:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please put material about specific historical casees in the appropriate subarticle: List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory. I have already put your material there. This article is linked to at the start of the "Possible exceptions to no wars" section and at the start of the "Critcisms and counter-criticisms section". Ultramarine 20:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok.  I'll take on the discussion from there now.  Just one thing: it might be worth mentioning Singer and Kosovo in the section of possible exceptions to the theory.  Singer is a big enough name to justify its inclusion, even if people widely disagree with him. Epa101 17:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Serbia is not really a good exception, for example Polity IV gives it a very low score for democracy. Singer is philosopher, not a historian or a political scientist. Ultramarine 17:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We could just write "although he is not a historian or a political scientist,...."   I'm going to start the long task of going through the evidence given against the claim.  Must say from the outset though that giving the regime 0 out of 10 does seem a little extreme.  I personally can't see what kind of ruthless dictator it is who has to negotiate a coalition with his old arch-enemies to form a government. Epa101 19:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would not give a score of 0 on scale of of 0 to 10, but it the Polity scale if often used, so it is a significant view. I would not classify Yugoslavia as a democracy regardless. You may find Human Rights Watch's section on Serbia interesting, in particular the yearly reports: .Ultramarine 19:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Here is one interesting report: .Ultramarine 19:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the comparison with Berlusconi's Italy, in Freedom House's "freedom of the press" reports Serbia&Montenegro mantains a ranking over 75, or "not free" during all the period 1994-99, while Italy reaches a lowest ranking of 35, "partly free" in the worst year of Berlusconi's term. The scale is from 0 to 100, with 0 being completely free. Said that, I don't think Freedom House ratings are always immune from criticism; defending Berlusconi could not be farther from my intentions; and also I personally don't think Milosevic has been a monster dictator "new Hitler" as he is sometimes portraited; but I don't really thik the two situations are really comparable, in view of the reality of facts. TV channels suffered a dire situation during Berlusconi's cabinet, and were under political control or pressure, to different degrees, but honestly print and radio press remained free. I believe the statement is unsupported and should be removed. Massimamanno 00:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

text: For example, you can compare what Human Rights Watch says about Italy and Yugoslavia during these years.Ultramarine 09:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know I'm taking a while to review the case that the Slobo regime was an autocracy, but that's only because there's a lot of material on it, and I don't want to comment until I've read it all.  I will do it though, as I feel quite strongly that the situation at least poses problems for democratic peace theory.  I know that this can't be used as evidence, but the main opposition to Slobo was neo-fascist groups like the Serbian National Renewal Movement and groups such as the Serbian Radical Party, which were more supportive of the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs.  It seems to me that, if Serbia wasn't democratic under Slobo, then a democratic Serbia would have been an awful lot more aggressive.  However, I accept that this doesn't count as academic evidence, so I shall proceed with examining the anti-Slobo arguments.  Epa101 09:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Update: the big 80-odd page document has been unable to load for a few days now.  Odd seeing as it worked fine before.  Epa101 17:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: With the human rights reports, I accept that Milosevic's Yugoslavia was an unstable place where political killings did take place.  However, the reports don't seem much worse than for India http://www.hrw.org/worldreport/Asia-06.htm#P563_147545  and India is always considered to be a liberal democracy.  Another thing is that I find it odd how groups such as Freedom House always presume that an assasination of a journalist by an "unknown" assasin must have been a government act.  It could've been, but there were a lot of criminal gangs in Serbia, and many of them didn't take too kindly to journalists insulting their country.  On Kosovo, Milosevic himself claims that all of the armymen involved in ethnic clensing were arrested and sentenced to lengthy jail times.  I don't know if anyone would have the resources to verify that?  Probably not.   Epa101 18:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: India did not have the many problems with manipulated elections and controlled press that Serbia had. Please again take a look at Ultramarine 18:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I could download it now. Try right-clicking on the link and downloading it to your computer. Then you have if forever.Ultramarine 18:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Your argument regarding most of the opposition being exteme nationalists needs a source. But it is an interesting argument. I have added counter-argument.Ultramarine 09:38, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: You are probably right that such a document may have bias. It is an unfortunate human tendency.Ultramarine 09:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok.  I've posted a bit of info on the opposition, and responded to your point about nationalism.  I suppose that it depends on how the word is defined.  Milosevic was an old-fashioned Communist rather than a radical.  In a way, Communism was quite nationalistic, although it always preached peace and unity amongst races.  Many of his speeches contain anti-racist rhetoric.  The Serbian Renewal Movement was very racist.  That is the main difference.  Epa101 12:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: It is not the same Singer. Lets keep the discussion about specific cases to the article for that.Ultramarine 16:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see.  I always presume that a political/ethical article that says "Singer" means Peter.  Wrong in this case though.  Epa101 11:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Kosovo must be in

message: I've finished reading it all, and I can see that there were still big problems in Serbia with inconsistent rulings on elections and manipulation in some cases, and that the bias in state media was excessive.  I accept that this could disqualify it as a "democracy"; all that I could say in defence of my earlier position is repeat the point that the government did accept the verdict of international observers when results were called into dispute.  One problem with the page on list of possible exceptions to the theory is that it has a long list of things that Serbia is accused of, yet I don't remember reading them all in the paper.  It's very long, and I may have forgotten, but I don't remember reading about massive double voting, organised planting of already prepared voting ballots into the polling boxes, forging of electoral records and election board records.  
I must criticise a lot of things in the paper however.  First of all, you have to remember that the main Serbian opposition for most of the Milosevic years was composed of neo-fascists and extreme nationalists.  Some of the emotive sentences in the paper take on rather a different tone when you consider this.  There are parts of the paper when information provided is very selective, such as concerning the 13th March, 1991 protests.  Those protestors were complaining that state media had compared them to Franjo Tudjman; they were very anti-Croat and nationalistic.  Also, the army was not deployed until the risk to public safety had become high; the paper gives the reader an image of them coming out straight away.  Even Amnesty International supports laws that restrict the freedom of racist and neo-fascist groups; a statistic such as that 90% of convictions under a law were members of the opposition may not necessarily be a cause for concern if these convictions were for those who were peddling racial hatred.  
When it talks about the opposition never being consulted on election processes, I must point out that this never happened in Britain or America neither.  The electoral systems in those countries are blatantly biased towards establishment parties, yet no-one considers it to be an erosion of democracy that minor parties are not consulted.  In Northern Ireland, the process was for years manipulated to minimise the participation of Catholics.  The Law on Information that is often referenced was said by Slobo to have been "literally copied from the laws on information in some Western countries".  I'm not sure which he was referring to exactly, but it's not hard to think of examples: South Korea's National Security Law is a famous one, and America's 1947 National Security Act basically empowers the C.I.A. to censor whatever they want to.
:Your argument regarding most of the opposition being exteme nationalists needs a source. But it is an interesting argument. I have added counter-argument.Ultramarine 09:38, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are probably right that such a document may have bias. It is an unfortunate human tendency.Ultramarine 09:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok.  I've posted a bit of info on the opposition, and responded to your point about nationalism.  I suppose that it depends on how the word is defined.  Milosevic was an old-fashioned Communist rather than a radical.  In a way, Communism was quite nationalistic, although it always preached peace and unity amongst races.  Many of his speeches contain anti-racist rhetoric.  The Serbian Renewal Movement was very racist.  That is the main difference.  Epa101 12:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Izobre document

message: I didn't notice this before, but Singer is already mentioned in the article regarding definitions of democracy.  Although I've now abandoned arguing the democratic Serbia case, would anyone object to me adding Singer's expressed opinions on Kosovo [and Rwanda] to this section?  I think we need an update on his views since the citation from the 1970s. Epa101 16:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not the same Singer. Lets keep the discussion about specific cases to the article for that.Ultramarine 16:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see.  I always presume that a political/ethical article that says "Singer" means Peter.  Wrong in this case though.  Epa101 11:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Singer

message: Most studies simply look at who is involved in conflicts without discussing who initiated them. I find this study regarding conflict initiation by Stam and Reiter (2003) very interesting: . We should include something about this.Ultramarine 14:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So far I have stayed away from studies about conflict initiation which prove or disprove anything, because I find statistics on this point to be particularly unreliable. In many (most?) wars both partecipants will claim that the other side was the initiator. I believe this general objection is in the literature, in Rummel if I recall correctly though I don't have it at hand now. However, if this debate is to be included, I think we should probably start by discussing it in general in the main article. Massimamanno 14:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are of course right that who initiated the conflict is a very sensitive subject. Still, this article has been followed by several articles who discusses how authoritarian regimes differ regarding conflict initiation. This may bring important insights into which institutions affect peacefulness: .Ultramarine 14:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that for example this more recent article argues that democracies are more likely to initiate wars against non democracies than autocracies are. And Gleditsch and Hegre, and Rummel,  separately argue that studies on conflict initiation are of limited value. It's ok for me to include this debate, with the appropriate warnings about its potential weakness and not preventing readability of the main criticisms.Massimamanno 15:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bennett in his 2006 study states, from p. 3 "The findings also corroborate Reiter and Stam’s (2003) finding that autocratic states are more likely to initiate conflicts with democratic states than vice versa."Ultramarine 15:08, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: these are two different non incompatible statements. The first argues that directed dyad democracy->autocracy is less likely than autocracy->democracy. The second argues that democracy->non democracy is more likely than non democracy->non democracy, that is, democracies attack non democracies more fequently than non democracies  do to each other. Massimamanno 15:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Regarding "Evaluating the Monadic Democratic Peace", I think it states something different. First, however, note that they define democracy as >= 5 on the polity. Nondemocrayc is defined as lower than that, so they do not study the most extreme pairs. More importantly, note exactly what they state "However, initiation is more likely in a mixed dyad than in a nondemocratic dyad: the probability that the democracy initiates versus the autocracy is increased by 32%, and the probability that the non-democracy initiates versus the democracy is increased by 80%. Thus, contrary to the expectations of the monadic democratic peace argument, democracies are more likely to initiate disputes versus non-democracies than non-democracies are." That is, they do not find support for the monadic theory since democracies initiate more frequently in a mixed dyad than nondemocracies do in a nondemocratic dyad. But nondemocracies initiate even more frequently in a mixed dyad as compared to initiation in a nondemocratic dyad, if I read it correctly.Ultramarine 15:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's essentially what I stated above. Democracies attack nondemocracies more frequently than nondemocracies attack nondemocracies, while nondemocracies attack demoracies more frequently than vice versa, should be about 48% more by elementary math. Massimamanno 15:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then it seems that the studies really agree or state somewhat different things.Ultramarine 15:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is that this study should be actually mentioned in the debate about monadic peace, because it finds a somewhat reverse monadic effect. General criticisms such as Gleditsch Hegre and Rummel's should also. And there are probably other studies about conflict initiation proving or disproving different facts. My initial argument was that, if included, studies about conflict initiation should probably have its own section where controversies about this point are explained. Then, some of them may, or may not, be added to the various sections. Up to now, conflict initiation has been largely ignored in the article.Massimamanno 16:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: It's a misrepresentation of Stam and Reiter, at least judging from its abstract. They consider full autocracies, not "nondemocracies"; in particular, their results seem to be particularly relevant for personalistic dictatorships and less so for fully autocratic but different states such as one party states. Also, Quackenbush and Rudy should be included on this point as an alternate view, such as "(they), while confirming Stam and Reiter's results, find that democracies initiate wars against nondemocracies more frequently than nondemocracies do to each other". But you may start writing, I may add other relevant sources.Massimamanno 16:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflict initiation 

message: Where exactly do they say that "every war between democracies includes one which is less than 5 years old"? This seems to be in contradiction with the fact that they cite the Kargil war as a war between democracies (at least electoral democracies). Also, when agreeing with the "no wars" statement of DPT they use the term "mature". Please do not re-write "well-estabilished", because otherwise the reader might assume that they agree with the 3 years rule explained above(which is not). Massimamanno 03:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good points. Ultramarine 13:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mansfield and Snyder

message: It is very confusing as to what you mean.  GBYork 01:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Different researchers have used different defintions. The most common is probably using the Polity project  which scores nations on democracy for each year since 1800. There is a detailed wikipedia article on Freedom in the World 2006 and for many nations it and Polity agree. It only scores nations since 1972. Ultramarine 02:08, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How are you using the word democratic here? 

message: I leave to you the decision if including or not the paragraph on Fishing disputes. I initially wrote it, but then it did not seem to me really important. Massimamanno 03:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good.Ultramarine 07:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fishing disputes 

message: I think the article would be improved by some pictures. Any suggestions? I have previously tried pictures of parliamentary buildings of early democracies, but they seem to offend nationalists from other early democracies.Ultramarine 05:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures 

message: Weede argues that in order to promote peace and democracy the best strategy is opening markets and offering economic help. I do not really understand what you mean by "the same can be said about every other alternative explanation".
The theories exposed agree that free trade and democracy both have an effect. They may disagree on which one is more important. None of those stated claims "free trade alone". Cobdenism may be eventually added in a different paragraph (but claim that it lost influence will still need to be referenced)Massimamanno 11:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you are right.Ultramarine 12:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trade and Democracy 

message: First of all, "many" does not mean "most". Many means many, most means most. Many can imply a significant minority or simply a number that is not qualified as majority or minority but simply as large. Furthermore, the sentence states "have looked for different explanations, connections and statistical variables". This includes really a lot of people. I will include "or complementary", since the text also discusses complementary explanations, and it sholud be more than enough.Massimamanno 11:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And they have done so both as a rebuttal to democratic peace theories and as substantiation; for example, Gleditisch's work on distance is done in support of the democratic peace. He finds mutual democracy and distance the two explanatory factors. I would like to see some reason for "many" to  mean "most"; this is special pleading.  Septentrionalis 02:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Massimamanno made some changes a few days ago, as he stated above, which I found good, so I do not think there is any remaning problem.Ultramarine 02:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many or most 

message: I have a problem with the statement that "no early author" considered democratic peace. Lenin in his 1916 "The Peace Programme" [] quite clearly polemizes the "democratic peace program", meant as the possibility that democratic nations might grant long lasting peace. The debate here is mainly internal and targeted towards Kautsky (an early marxist social-democrat) and its "ultra-imperialism" argument (mentioned for example here []) that the dominant nations might permanently ally together to pursue common goals. Also, the present text mentions Wilson's appeal to democratic peace. I will mention the debate as an early marxist criticism but it seems to me strange that the concept was mentioned by democratic leaders and criticized by marxist thinkers without being theoretically defended by any liberalist authors. Could it be because liberalist authors defended cobdenidsm instead?
:No early author before Kant (1795). I think many have criticzed the idea after him. All of this was mainly political and philosphical discussions with no real research before the 1960s. Ultramarine 15:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kant looks like early enough to me. I would propose a text such as ... is a relatvely recent development. Although the philosophical idea has circulated since ---, it was not scientifically evaluated until ---. Or something to that effect Massimamanno 15:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Something like that sounds good.Ultramarine 15:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Regarding Cobdenidsm, I do not know. It may not have been very important outside Britain.Ultramarine 17:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Except for Wilson, I do not know if the idea ever has been influential except recently. Wilson's idealism was discredited by the failures of WWI to create stable democracies and also by many failures in Central and Latin America where the US intervened to hold free elections before WWII. These nations returned to dictatorship as soon as the marines left, see Weart for a description. These failures may have contributed to Realism and the support of dictatorships against Communism during the Cold War.Ultramarine 17:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Richard Cobden was extremely influential; his free-trade treaty with France helped avert the Anglo-French criais of 1860. We should alao include, rather than Lenin, his sources: J. A. Hobson and Norman Angell. (All of these are precursors to the modern "Kantian" peace; arguing that modern war is not in the interest of a commercial country and that representative governments will, or should, act accordingly. Septentrionalis 02:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While Lenin mentioned "a democratic peace", J. A. Hobson and Norman Angell did not discuss a democratic peace. I cannot see that Lenin cites them. We could include them if there is a reference for that later democratic peace researchers have cited them.Ultramarine 13:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Early authors

message: Lots of large changes recently. Please state remaining, if any, problems with neutrality so that they can be corrected. Otherwise I suggest removing the template.Ultramarine 13:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The same regarding the confusing or unclear template.Ultramarine 21:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed Neutrality and Confusing templates 

message: Since there seems to be no disputes I suggest archiving the long talk. Any objections?Ultramarine 07:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving