Citation

Starr H. J. Peace Res. 1992; 29(2): 207-213.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0022343392029002007

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The growing literature on the relationship between democracy and war has focused on two questions-Whether democracies are more pacific than other types of government, and why democracies do not seem to go to war against each other. In the spirit of Lakatosian cumulativeness - looking for explanations with excess empirical content - this commentary supports one explanation of the 'why democracies do not fight democracies' question. The model supported is an expected utility formulation by Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman based on the logical relationships between states which are 'doves' and 'non-doves'. The same explanation for democracy-to-democracy peace provided by the Bueno de Mesquita-Lalman analytics, based on the ability to 'separate' states into doves and non-doves, can be used to explain the linkages between integration and the Deutschian concept of 'security community'.