Wait... What? Normally, I admire Professor Mearsheimer's expertise, but did he just say that Germany in WWI was democratic? His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II. would have been very angry at that time hearing that only 100 years later political scientists will have forgotten his MONARCHY! Greetings from Berlin ;)
@@FreddieGamingHD More democratic than Germany thats for sure. But yes: King being head of state = Not fully democratic. Easy answer. Doesnt matter whether absolute or constitutional monarchy. Just not fully democratic
@@dariop.3893 This is very disingenuous. You are just stupidly asserting that King therefore no democracy. Also one could argue that today's Monarchies are actually better democracies.
I'm not sure he is correct. The power is afforded to the citizens and is vastly distributed. Regular people tend to be against war as it yields a lot of damage over various sectors. This limits politicians abilities to unilaterally go to war. Also, it's clear he is a realist and would naturally be opposed to this.
If that was true - that people in general oppose war and can restrict warlike policies - why has the US and its allies spend the last 20 years in continuous conflicts all over the world? Statistically speaking, democracies go to war as much as other states. They just don't war against each other.
What you're saying is partially correct, but it's not a theoretical point of view - it's an assumption that is not based on the structure of the international system. There is no structural reason why two democracies can't go to war against each other if they really believed it was a rational calculation - that is to say, if one believed that the other one was a critical threat. But I think democracies have more difficulty in going to war against each other partly because of the reason you state; the power to go to war is often (but not always) distributed away from the hands of the Executive branch. For example, some democracies require a parliamentary vote in order to authorise a use of force. Secondly, because democracies have a larger degree of transparency in their decision-making process, then this allows potential adversaries to better understand intentions. We are all capable of watching US Congressional debates live on the internet as well as debates in the UK Parliament or Bundestag, so we can more easily see if there is serious talk of war. Both of these reasons provide a level of relative transparency, which gives opponents a degree of predictability with democracies than compared to places like China or North Korea.
@@DarkNog The power to go to war being held away from the executive branch may in some cases prevent a a state from going to war ( e.g. the UK vote regarding Syria) but has no bearing on whether that state would go to war with a democracy, unless one assumes that a legislature would be reluctant to war against other democracies, there is however no convincing reason why this would be the case and the historical evidence lends no credence either. I can't think of a single historical instance where a legislature opposed it's government in waging war against another democracy, this being in instances where the legislature itself didn't declare war. Even the parties in the Reichstag (such as the Social Democrats) who opposed war in 1914, after war was declared became committed flag wavers and supported the government. The idea that democracies have greater relative transparency in decision making in comparison to non-democracies is generally true, however the key word there is relative. Being more transparent doesn't make you either significantly more transparent or transparent full stop, the same way I can be taller than you by 0.01mm and still technically be taller than you. All governments though naturally conceal as much as possible from the public eye, their goings on and thought processes, keeping things behind closed doors as much as possible, this becoming especially true when in comes to foreign policy and international relations. It is also ultimately irrelevant since one of the key truths about IR any undergrad learns on day one of any IR course is that a) you can never know the true intentions of another state and b) that you can't predict the future, circumstances change as do the intentions, thought processes and desires of a state. It also doesn't rule out the fact that you (you being a democracy) may want to attack them anyway, regardless of whether they have any intention of attacking you. It doesn't aid predictability either, though having said that, the west/US has acted predictably in the sense that over the past 25 years it has sought to invade, bomb or overthrow anyone it gets the opportunity to invade bomb or overthrow.
It doesn't limit shit. US went to war against Iraq and Vietnam despite MASSIVE push-back and protest. The opinion of the people doesn't matter at all. If the national interest is too great, countries go to war.
Lol. There’s no theory? There’s multiple explanations for the observation of democratic peace. One of the most prominent is Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1997 institutional explanation for democratic peace.
There is no convincing theory. Each proposed mechanism for democratic peace has never been shown to be in consistent operation, especially when one examines the contingent implications that each mechanism should have on the wider political system.
Not to mention the American Civil War-which in reality, should be called The War of Southern Succession.
Wait... What? Normally, I admire Professor Mearsheimer's expertise, but did he just say that Germany in WWI was democratic? His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II. would have been very angry at that time hearing that only 100 years later political scientists will have forgotten his MONARCHY! Greetings from Berlin ;)
By that logic Britain wasn’t a democracy
@@FreddieGamingHD More democratic than Germany thats for sure. But yes: King being head of state = Not fully democratic. Easy answer. Doesnt matter whether absolute or constitutional monarchy. Just not fully democratic
@@dariop.3893 This is very disingenuous. You are just stupidly asserting that King therefore no democracy. Also one could argue that today's Monarchies are actually better democracies.
@@FreddieGamingHDTo be fair Great-Britain was not.
It had Absolute Male Suffrage already.
read about him in IR geat to see him DPT preseented in 1990
A democratic Egypt would very hostile to Israel.
I'm not sure he is correct. The power is afforded to the citizens and is vastly distributed. Regular people tend to be against war as it yields a lot of damage over various sectors. This limits politicians abilities to unilaterally go to war. Also, it's clear he is a realist and would naturally be opposed to this.
If that was true - that people in general oppose war and can restrict warlike policies - why has the US and its allies spend the last 20 years in continuous conflicts all over the world? Statistically speaking, democracies go to war as much as other states. They just don't war against each other.
What you're saying is partially correct, but it's not a theoretical point of view - it's an assumption that is not based on the structure of the international system. There is no structural reason why two democracies can't go to war against each other if they really believed it was a rational calculation - that is to say, if one believed that the other one was a critical threat.
But I think democracies have more difficulty in going to war against each other partly because of the reason you state; the power to go to war is often (but not always) distributed away from the hands of the Executive branch. For example, some democracies require a parliamentary vote in order to authorise a use of force. Secondly, because democracies have a larger degree of transparency in their decision-making process, then this allows potential adversaries to better understand intentions. We are all capable of watching US Congressional debates live on the internet as well as debates in the UK Parliament or Bundestag, so we can more easily see if there is serious talk of war. Both of these reasons provide a level of relative transparency, which gives opponents a degree of predictability with democracies than compared to places like China or North Korea.
@@DarkNog The power to go to war being held away from the executive branch may in some cases prevent a a state from going to war ( e.g. the UK vote regarding Syria) but has no bearing on whether that state would go to war with a democracy, unless one assumes that a legislature would be reluctant to war against other democracies, there is however no convincing reason why this would be the case and the historical evidence lends no credence either. I can't think of a single historical instance where a legislature opposed it's government in waging war against another democracy, this being in instances where the legislature itself didn't declare war. Even the parties in the Reichstag (such as the Social Democrats) who opposed war in 1914, after war was declared became committed flag wavers and supported the government.
The idea that democracies have greater relative transparency in decision making in comparison to non-democracies is generally true, however the key word there is relative. Being more transparent doesn't make you either significantly more transparent or transparent full stop, the same way I can be taller than you by 0.01mm and still technically be taller than you. All governments though naturally conceal as much as possible from the public eye, their goings on and thought processes, keeping things behind closed doors as much as possible, this becoming especially true when in comes to foreign policy and international relations. It is also ultimately irrelevant since one of the key truths about IR any undergrad learns on day one of any IR course is that a) you can never know the true intentions of another state and b) that you can't predict the future, circumstances change as do the intentions, thought processes and desires of a state. It also doesn't rule out the fact that you (you being a democracy) may want to attack them anyway, regardless of whether they have any intention of attacking you. It doesn't aid predictability either, though having said that, the west/US has acted predictably in the sense that over the past 25 years it has sought to invade, bomb or overthrow anyone it gets the opportunity to invade bomb or overthrow.
USA is democracy and look at the number of wars and attacks that it had after cold war. and no body even American people was against those wars.
It doesn't limit shit. US went to war against Iraq and Vietnam despite MASSIVE push-back and protest. The opinion of the people doesn't matter at all. If the national interest is too great, countries go to war.
Lol. There’s no theory? There’s multiple explanations for the observation of democratic peace. One of the most prominent is Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1997 institutional explanation for democratic peace.
There is no convincing theory. Each proposed mechanism for democratic peace has never been shown to be in consistent operation, especially when one examines the contingent implications that each mechanism should have on the wider political system.
@@hamr6015 lol care to give an example?
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