what was a conflict where there is hope for a peaceful resolution but troops are mobilizing for action.

Democratic political processes regulate

competition among groups with conflicting

preferences. Although much of the

competition occurs peacefully within

existing political institutions, democratic

practices can also facilitate the resolution of

intense conflict when the political system is

challenged from within by groups fighting

against the established government, and

when it is challenged from without and on the

brink of interstate war. This chapter provides

an overview of the scholarly literature

linking democracy to peace and conflict

resolution, including pertinent theoretical

propositions and the balance of evidence

generated by empirical researchers. The

promise of peace associated with civil liberty,

political openness, and the foreign policies

of democratic states has long figured into the

writings of moral and political philosophers,

perhaps most notably in Immanuel Kant's

essay Perpetual Peace, published in 1795.

But the burgeoning academic literature in

recent decades is largely the product of

social scientific research, much (but not

all) of which is built upon the analysis of

large quantitative data sets. Our primary

focus, then, is what social science, and in

particular political science, tells us about

the relationship between democracy, conflict

resolution, and peace between and within

states.

The realist school of thought in international

relations, which greatly influenced both

scholarship and policymaking during the

cold war, maintains that state behavior is

primarily driven by the balance of power

among rivals in the international system

(Morgenthau 1948; Waltz 1979; Mearsheimer

2001). Realists assume that states resemble

unitary rational actors in pursuit of a single

overriding objective: survival and security in

an anarchic system. The strenuous demands

of the international system lead all states

to behave in a similar fashion regard-

less of their particular political institutions,

economic structure, ideological orientation.

For further reading

Democracy and Conflict

Resolution by David Kinsella and David L. Rousseau