DISADVANTAGE/DEMOCRACY PROMOTION

IMPACT: DEMOCRACY PREVENTS WARS

THE LONGER NATIONS ARE DEMOCRATIC, THE LESS LIKELY THEY ARE TO WAGE WAR

Larry Diamond, Hoover Inst, Stanford Univ., 1999; DEVELOPING DEMOCRACY: TOWARD CONSOLIDATION // acs P. 5

In fact, the longer that democracies endure (and presumably consolidate these norms), the less likely it is there will be violent conflict between them. United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali observed that "a culture of democracy is fundamentally a culture of peace." More generally, the relative openness of democracies to the free flow of information, and their valuing of law and constitutionalism, logically make them much more likely than authoritarian regimes to honor their obligations under international laws and treaties. The secretiveness, repression, and dubious legitimacy of authoritarian regimes make them "more likely to incite hostilities against other States in order to justify their suppression of internal dissent or forge a basis for national unity."

A REVERSING WAVE OF ANTI-DEMOCRATIC CHANGES RISKS FUTURE WARS

Larry Diamond, Hoover Inst, Stanford Univ., 1999; DEVELOPING DEMOCRACY:

TOWARD CONSOLIDATION // acs P. 5

Reverse waves threaten not only political freedom and human rights but also world peace. The first reverse wave gave rise to the expansionist fascist regimes that brought on World War H. The second reverse wave spread during the peak of the Cold War and fed a number of regional conflicts and civil wars, in which the major world powers became directly or indirectly involved. Although regimes in transition may be prone to international conflict, and democratic regimes have a long history of war and conquest against nondemocracies, no two countries that have established liberal democracy have ever gone to war against one another. Bruce Russett notes that democracies "rarely fight each other even at low levels of lethal violence" and that they are much less likely to let their disputes with one another escalate. 16 This, he argues persuasively, is not only because of the institutional restraints on democracies' decisions to go to war but even more so because of democratic normative restraints on the use of force to resolve disputes.

THE MORE DEMOCRACY THE LESS WAR WE HAVE

Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, December, 1995; Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, http://www.carnegie.org//sub/pubs/deadly/diam_rpt.html // acs

The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IS A POWERFUL CONFLICT PREVENTION MEASURE

David A. Hamburg, Carnegie Commission, December, 1995; Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, Foreward

http://www.carnegie.org//sub/pubs/deadly/diam_rpt.html// acs

The building of democratic institutions would be one of the greatest conflict prevention measures that could be taken, especially if one thinks in terms of both political and economic democratic structures.