Democratic Peace

I feel compelled to write a little something tonight about the Democratic Peace Theory.

In my personal musings over "Societal Evolution" (my own theory, in production, likely to become my future University Masters thesis), I have a stage of "the country" called "Hegemonic Pax". Hopefully, one day all three of you reading this will know more about these stages (if I ever get around to writing it, and by golly, I WILL!).

"Hegemonic Pax" follows directly and inextricably (as far as I can tell) from its previous stage, called "Full Democratisation".

Tonight, in spite of my limited research resources, and in efforts to avoid the easy-come approach of looking at Wikipedia alone, I have sought the internet for other sources.
Again, I am not at Uni again yet, but the Internet has its own unique way of providing sources that range from credible, con-artist, all the way to outlandish.

Tonight I found an online essay that I would, upon first glance, class somewhere towards the outlandish end of the spectrum.

This guy, whom I will name only so you can form your own opinion: see this site here: type this into Google and take the first hit: "The Myth of Democratic Peace".

I haven't bothered to read it through all the way yet, but from the first few paragraphs, and the old TOMAC analysis of a source (which I learnt in high school History class - didn't you??)
I can give you this preliminary assessment:

Type: website, online essay

Origin: self-published (ie not vetted or edited by anyone of particular import)

Motivation: to get his idea out, to challenge the Democratic Peace theory, and hopefully start a new wave of political paradigmatic thought (.....we all feel like that sometimes....)

Audience: whoever will read it. or whoever happens upon it after a Google search.

((I'll be honest, I have forgotten what the C in TOMAC stands for.... this does not bode well... and Google isn't telling me either. That does not bode well for the internet at large! AAAAAAAH!)
Maybe the C stands for Credibility? in that case, for this essay, the credibiltiy is LOW on the outset.

Anyway, let me explain that preliminary assessment:

The author, whoever he is, calls the USA the "quintessential" democracy more than once in the opening paragraphs.
The USA is NOT the 'quintessential' democracy. Reasons::

1) Ancient Athens was the quintessential democracy, with all (free, male, of-age) citizens having a vote, and the population small enough to get them all in the same area to call out at each other.

2) An Athenian-style Direct Democracy is not possible in the modern age, with sheer population size.

3) The USA's electoral system is so opaque that many, many people are disenfranchised, usually by accident, every year, PLUS voting is not compulsory. A 'quintessential' democracy would have compulsory voting, and all votes accounted for. Would it not?

4) This particular essay was written in 2002, between the Sept.11 attacks in 2001, and the full swing of the war in Afghanistan in 2003. We all knew, even in 2002, that George Bush Jnr. really did steal his election win in the 2000 Presidential election. And if he stole it, it is not a democracy, is it? Let alone a quintessential one!

Also, this essay has hinted at 'dubious examples' of democracies going to war. It has explicitly mentioned India and Pakistan going to nuclear war as a possiblilty, and eluded to this eventuality being a counter-argument to the Democratic Peace Theory.

This is simply wrong.

As far as I know, unless they had ana election in the last year which I missed totally, Pakistan has been through a slew of leaders over the last decade, and NONE of them were democratically elected. The tradition in Pakistan had been to quite literally stab your predecessor in the back. More recently, it has been figurative, but certainly never democratic.

India is claimed to be "the world's largest democracy", by virtue of having over a billion people, and having a parliamentary, Westminster-inspired governmental system.
.......however:
I recently worked the Federal election in Australia (which was only JUST decided three days ago, two weeks after I worked at the polling place!).
I have witnessed first-hand the amount of paperwork and bureaucratic sorting, counting, etc. etc. that has to go on to make it all legitimate.
Put simply, India has OVER a BILLION people! No parliamentary government of that size could be called remotely democratic, because no matter how big the House of Representatives room is, the ration of Representatives to People will be too large to have any voice heard properly. The paperwork in India is already notorious, so imagine how bad, and HORRIFICALLY UNENDING it would be to hold an election that was transparent, accountable, and true.

India and Pakistan, and their ceaseless border dispute over Kashmir, and their religious disputes too, are not democratic. But maybe if they really were democratic, they would be at real peace!

And just to throw one in from left-field here: we all know that Iran is not democratic, but they hold fake elections every so often anyway.
Despite the fact that the Ayatollah has supreme authority over everything in Iran, you'd only need to look as far as the fact that Iran is defined as an "Islamic" Republic. The religious underpinning of the state's definition renders it immune to peace. The same goes for Ireland and Northern Ireland, and any other religiously-defined state and its disputes.

So, so far, this paper seems to be presenting nothing of any political merit to denounce democratic peace.
For all you peace-mongers out there, this is a GOOD thing. It means that World Peace is theoretically possible, as improbable as it may be.
I will give you a warning though: should Democracy provide Peace, it will not last. I'm sure I've written something on "Dramatism" or "catastrophising" in this blog before. If not, ask me, and I can give you solid reasons why even at the best of times, humans need something to spice up their day.
Peace, in short, would be too boring. Itchy feet, itchy trigger-fingers. You ARE aware that the USA went from Clinton's Pax directly into Bush's War, aren't you? It was no accident, and it was not entirely dependent on the events of September 11.

I shall, though, read the whole essay, when I get the time. He mentions something about the USA's democratic processes directly bringing on the September 11 attacks in 2001. I'd love to know if this has ANY reasoning behind it, or if it is just another baseless, emotionally-charged assumption. there could be a very good reason no-one else has read this essay.

And in a final note for tonight, tomorrow is September 11 here in Australia. It is only symbolic here, because it was on the morning of Wednesday, September 12, 2001, that I awoke to a changed world.
Nine years.
And what have we, as a world, accomplished in 9 years to fix.... anything...?

Ponder that as you ponder burning any books tomorrow. I wish I could write smoething eloquent about that.

From Tom.