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This list is a fine resource - congratulations to the people who put it together. - Pepper 150.203.227.130 11:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Are images necessary? I would avoid advertisement... this page is at high risk of being voted for deletion.Furthermore, they make the first table less readable Massimamanno
I have found an interesting review of Weart's book: [1]. Ultramarine 18:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
There has been some opposing sources to Weart's statement than 1/50 could vote. The Polyarchy Data Set seems to support him. It states that 0.1% of the population voted in Peru and 2.5% voted in Chile. It gives several sources. Ultramarine 09:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding casualties, Correlates of War not including civilian deaths is a debated issue, since in modern wars it is estimated that about 75% casualties are civilians. Also, it is an ongoing event and a provisionary count. I insist that the number stays, with the appropriate specification, as I wrote it. You can insert the number of "battle" deaths in the rebuttal section Massimamanno 15:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The current conflict isn't a war between sovereign states, it's a (lawful or unlawful, that's another discussion) military operation between a sovereign state and a militia. Lebanon's army is not involved in combat (except collateral damage). I don't see this article arguing that Hezbollah is a liberal democracy... Wouter Lievens 13:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Should the Falklands War of 1982 be included in this list as well?
The following is a quotation from this site: Chilean coup of 1973 1973 President Salvador Allende was democratically elected. The United States tried to undermine Salvador Allende's regime but was not directly involved in the coup d'etat. Chile was perceived as turning into a Communist dictatorship.[2] p. 227-228. Less than 1000 battle deaths in the coup.
This one is taken from the article about the Chilean coup of 1973: The worst violence occurred in the first few months after the coup, with the number of suspected leftists killed or "disappeared" soon reaching into the thousands.
Frankly, I am not an expert, but I never came across numbers of death below 1000, so could it be reviewed?
Should be moved to "List of possible exceptions to the democratic peace theory". Objections? Ultramarine 08:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
The Contra war between the USA (by proxy) and Nicaragua in the 1980s needs to be added to this list. Whatever people say about the Sandinistas they had massive popular support and did hold democratic elections. If the older wars involving barely-democratic countries merit involvement on this list there is absoloutely no reason why the contra war does not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dancloney ( talk • contribs) 14:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC).
Arguing British and Irish constitutional theory over the events of 1919-1922 is always messy, but have any of the authors cited noted that:
a) The 1918 general election was for a single, UK wide parliament and it was only Sinn Fein candidates who declared it to be the opportunity to elect a breakaway parliament
b) International practice tends to regard plebiscites not election results as a means for self-determination (for one thing it can get some clarity as to the precise area that would self-determine - the "mandate in all Ireland" vs "mandate in Northern Ireland" argument is basically "who gets to determine who gets to self-determine?!") - the Sinn Fein victory in this context would be a mandate to negotiate an independence settlement, not a legal act of separation in and of itself. See The Irish Election of 1918 And even if the election is a legitimate tool for independence, it turns the Irish election into an act of self-determination, not a choice of government for running the resultant state. So would the Irish Republic have qualified as a democracy?
Indeed in general can any war of separatism be considered to be between two democracies? Usually at least one does not recognise the legimitacy of the other's proclaimed government. Timrollpickering 01:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Would it be worth mentioning some of the wars between the Italian Republics, such as the Venetian-Genoese War, War of Chioggia, etc? They could be summarised together, as the major objection that the states were essentially oligarchies would apply to each war. Warofdreams talk 02:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Page numbers belong inside the reference tags, not outside them as is the case numerous times in this article. This is an annoying thing to fix, but it will be necessary if this article can be considered for featured list status. Shalom ( Hello • Peace) 16:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
how was the trail of tears a war? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.104.199 ( talk) 19:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
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BetacommandBot ( talk) 23:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Image:Ballots and Bullets.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot ( talk) 06:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Doesn't the war between Georgia and Russia count as an exception to this theory. Richardkselby ( talk) 23:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Sophistry runs rampant in the analysis of several posited wars between democracies, with ad-hoc limits placed to make a country "not a democracy" based on the proportion of adults voting or its pre war years of existence, or making a war "not a war" due to limited battle deaths. The requirement of number of battle deaths, the duration of the democracy before the war, and the proportion of adults voting stated to exclude particular wars seem to come from the ad-hoc desire to exclude certain cases. As for the 2/3 of adults voting, does this mean the U.S was not a democracy before women got the right to vote after World War 1? A better standard would be whether reliable sources now or at the time of the conflict considered the country to be a "democracy" by the standards of the day. Edison ( talk) 17:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Weren't Egypt and Istrael democracies in 1973? 24.160.242.185 ( talk) 05:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
This is an excellent article. The nature of the theory makes the debate focus on cases (see e.g. Tony Blair at Jon Stewart). It provides arguments for and against and is therefore NPOV. Jacob Lundberg ( talk) 23:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
This edit was labelled "typo" but it seems more like a revert to me. It should be examined closer. Jacob Lundberg ( talk) 00:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Should the article revolve entirely around their definition of liberal democracy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.70.177 ( talk) 18:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
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Its not clear to me what is meant by the "dubious-discuss" templates in the intro. The first line of the article on democratic peace theory is "The democratic peace theory (or liberal peace theory[1] or simply the democratic peace) holds that democracies — usually, liberal democracies — never go to war with one another." This is pretty much clear from the name of the theory. So why is it dubious? The statement doesn't seem dubious at all. Can someone explain what they meant with these templates? If not, I am inclined to delete them as unjustified clutter. Locke9k ( talk) 14:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Per the discussion on the AFD, a massive rework of this page is necessary. The page has been moved to List of wars between democracies, and the content needs to be adjusted accordingly. The major issue raised in the AFD was that a lot of this probably constitutes original research in the form of unpublished synthesis. It is also possibly open to charged of nonencyclopedic cross-categorization, so the usefulness of this categorization needs to be well established. In order to improved this article, several things are necessary from my perspective.
I have started work on this stuff, but its a big project, so any assistance would be helpful. Just getting the stuff out of the table is fairly lengthy. Thanks - Locke9k ( talk) 19:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
There are several items in this list that are essentially coups in a democratic nation, that were supported by other democratic nation (the US). I am skeptical as to whether these belong here as they don't seem to meet the definition of war. Any opinions? Locke9k ( talk) 16:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree. especially since this article revolves around democratic-peace theory. democracies find alternatives to direct war. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
In order to avoid issues over the proper definition of 'war', what would people think about another rename of this page to "List of military conflicts between democracies". This might short circuit a lot of the debate associated with the democratic peace theory that might cause problems here. Opinions? Locke9k ( talk) 16:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
The new, current name of this article ( List of wars between democracies) is POV in itself, since many (the majority) of the cases described are clearly wars involved non-democratic nations. The older title ( List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory) and the former, table-based format, were much more NPOV.-- MaGioZal ( talk) 05:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The only purpose of this article is to challenge the Democratic peace theory (which claims that "democracies" to not make war on each other) by providing a list of exceptions. A better title, therefore, would be Objections to the democratic peace theory or - more strongly - Counterexamples to the democratic peace theory. At issue is whether the list of counterexamples really does disprove the theory.
Of course, it all depends on the Definitions of democracy and democratic, as well as on how big " war" must be. Rummel has tinkered with his definition of "democracy" and "war" in such a way the list of wars between democracies is empty. His idea of democracy requires maturity and/or experience, so that simply having been democratically elected is nowhere near enough. His requirements are stringent and extensive:
He also defines "war" for this purpose as any conflict in which 1,000 or more people were killed. -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 19:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
This whole subject is like wrestling with smoke: But isn't part of the point of this theory that if people have a choice they choose against war? So isn't it relevant that the republic had a citizen army? That it was only citizens (who did vote) that were required to serve in the army (and provide their own armour)? Moonraker12 ( talk) 11:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I have posted the 'technical' template, because many of the discussions are written in a very clipped and advanced way that seems to presuppose a lot of outside knowledge on the part of the reader. It would be very helpful for the discussion of some of these wars to be rewritten in a brief way that is accessible to the normal person. Locke9k ( talk) 06:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
It would be helpful if the discussion of each war was approached in a parallel way, where possible and appropriate. To me, here is the ideal approach. Open the section with a (referenced) statement as to the overall strength of the argument for inclusion in this list. Is it a fringe case or is there a strong body of argument suggesting inclusion? Second, give a brief overview of the nature of the war. Who were the participants, when did it occur, what was it about, any other pertinent details. Very succinct. Third, give a summary of the main arguments for an against inclusion. The key is for all of this to be well referenced, since by its nature every item in the list is contentious. The objective here is for the discussion of each list item to consist of a coherent discussion of the war, rather that the fragmented approach offered right now. Unfortunately due to my lack of knowledge on the subject I am not the ideal person for this, but I will make as much headway as a I can. Unless someone else proposes a superior organizational approach to this one (and by all means, please do so) I'd propose that we try to edit most sections into this format as soon as the references are found to do so. Expert help would be appreciated. Thanks - Locke9k ( talk) 06:48, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Colonel Warden - I have reverted your intro edits because they present a serious POV problem. As I mention in the rename discussion above, there is a significant debate within the field as to whether this list should contain any items. It is very important in the intro to make this clear so as to avoid endorsement of a particular position. I agree that the intro is presently somewhat awkward, but we need to fix it in a way that continues to make clear what inclusion in the list actually signifies. Locke9k ( talk) 22:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
The war between Armenia and Afghanistan in the early 1990s needs to be added to this list. James Lee Ray, a proponent of democratic peace theory, seemed to view this war as the biggest threat to the theory. Unfortunately, I know nothing about the conflict except what is on page 123 of this book, so I can't write anything decent. Epa101 ( talk) 19:14, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
This is described as a conflict between various armed groups within Lebanon and the state of Israel. Why has this been included? Alastairward ( talk) 15:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I have never heard of an occupation being called a war. to be a war there has to be fighting, right? and to be between democracies, it has to be between two states, right? not government vs. private nationals. the Ruhr Occupation should be removed, or we are missing several other occupations. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
they aren't wars, that could be a whole other list. besides it has no bearing on the theory, unless someone important is arguing that a governments' near miss/war ratio is evidence for or against the theory. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
the source cited may be of questionable validity, but it states the Iran was a Constitutional Monarchy, not a parliamentary democracy, I don't think it should be here cause it isn't a war, but this is another issue. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 06:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
A civil war within a democracy is not a war between two democracies. And besides, the examples are not very democratic.
How is the American civil war a war between two democracies? And how can the confederation be claimed to be a democracy? It was only months old, there had been no elections, and no democratic basis for the attack that started the civil war. And of course most people had no right to vote anyway.
The Paris commune was a reaction to the defeat of France in the war with Prussia. A war between two military empires. France became a republic during that war when Napoleon III was captured, and the government in the newly formed republic that was in power during the Paris commune was a provisional government.
The Irish war of independence is equally weird. Here it is one part of a country that wants to be independent, but are not allowed. How is that democratic in the first place, it rather disproves the case that Britain was democratic during this time. And even then it's a sort of civil war, not a war between two democracies, but within one. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 08:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I think the article should be renamed "List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory". The current title makes a strong statement: that all the wars in the list were between democracies. That's not what the article is really about: the whole discussion revolves around democratic peace theory, and those who believe in that theory believe that all the articles in the list were (for whatever reason) not wars between democracies. The current title seems to impy that democratic peace theory is wrong, although I'm sure that's not the intention. Any thoughts on this? Epa101 ( talk) 20:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
@Alastairward. It should be renamed because its current name leads to too much original research and too much synthesising material to come to a novel opinion, neither of which is not allowed on Wikipedia. The academic interest in wars between democracy is (as far as I know) entirely confined to the question of democratic peace theory: renaming it to something that includes DPT in the title will keep the article in line with the academic discussions rather than the latest Freedom House/Polity IV reports. The material that should be removed is everything that does not include at least one academic reference (e.g. South Ossetia). Epa101 ( talk) 18:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Its says Ecuadorian President had an autocratic regime, yet I can find little about it. The war is not mentioned in the wiki's of either nation's article. apparently it is a minor war, where the sources tend to be biased. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 23:26, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
The 21st century entries are all without supporting cites, by which I mean, no source that specifically mentions them as wars between democracies. The editors who added those conflicts may well be correct, but we just don't know that and can't without a more appropriate source. I would like to remove them for that reason, but would like other views. Alastairward ( talk) 23:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, is it? Everything seems to cite opinions of democracy that is or isn't active in a country at a certain time, but little to say whether or not something is a "war between democracies". Alastairward ( talk) 18:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Fought in 1920, with about 1000 estimated battle deaths.[8] In both states, elections had been held with universal suffrage. In the polity scale, Poland receives a +8 rating in combined democracy/autocracy, while Lithuania receives a 7 in democracy and a +4 in combined democracy/autocracy.
Ecuador receives a rating of +9 in the polity scale of combined democracy/autocracy, while Peru receives a +7, meaning that both countries are classified as democratic, and Ecuador even as "very democratic". [1]
the reference [8] leads to some page about Irish elections? Is it possible there is some data on how Poland and Lithuania scored in polity scale back in 1920? or are these some modern numbers - making them quite irrelevant? In either case, wherever this was taken from must be sourced. The other claim about ecuador and peru gives similar numbers, but quite explicitly sources it to modern, rather than relevant 1981 data. I'll remove the entire paragraph until it is. Aryah ( talk) 01:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering why Ireland was inlcuded, if it was still a part of the United Kingdom until it's independence after the aptly named Irish War of Independence? Alastairward ( talk) 00:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Most scholars of the democratic peace have ignored the Irish War of Independence; Bruce Russell is like James Lee Ray and Rummel in this regard. I would say that it was more akin to the 1948 Israeli war than to the American Civil War. As you say, the Confederacy never gained international recognition, but Ireland was like Israel in that it did gain such recognition. Russell says, "the authenticity of Israel's leadership was hardly in question" even though an election had not been held. It seems to me that the Irish leadership was even more authentic since they had been elected. Even if we do apply strict definitions of "government", this war remains a big problem for democratic peace theory. If democracy is so peaceful, why did the Irish want to leave democratic Britain? If the people fighting on both sides believed in democratic values, this was still a war between democrats, government or not. Why have people fought in democratic Northern Ireland for so long as to whether they want to be ruled from democratic London or from democratic Dublin? Spencer Weart is the only one who has addressed the issue; he does so on page 312 of Never at War. My criticism of his work here is that he blurs the Irish War of Independence with the subsequent Irish Civil War. He says that the Irish army had a great deal of influence over the politicans as if this makes Ireland less democratic, but that seems typical of most modern democracies.
I can see what you mean when you say that this article is short on definitions. I suspect there is a lot of original research in the article, although I must admit that I find it useful in its present state. Epa101 ( talk) 16:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I think most civil wars and wars of independence do not qualify as democratic governments, mainly because of their illegal nature. However, when an already established local government starts war with the central democratic government, you do have one democracy fighting another. The American Revolution was fought between a democracy and a monarchy. How democratic the colonies was is not relevant, because you need two democracies to make this list.
the question still remains in this case; was the irish war of independence started by the democratic government and does democratic mean in ideals or in action. I think the article addresses that but could address it more. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
The title implies that there have been a number of wars between democracies, which contradicts Rummel's Democratic peace theory. As such, the title presents a point of view. In my opinion, this violates our neutrality policy.
I'd prefer that we either:
There are three scholars who hold that there have been no wars between democracies; many more hold there have been some (the following quotation from DPT, despite its apologetic tone, accurately lists some of them - it is quite incomplete, but should be unpacked here); several scholars have argued that DPT has enough exceptions to not be interesting.
The citations can be found in DPT's bibliography; here, and probably there, full footnotes may be more useful than Harvard style. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:47, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
The treatment of Rome is particularly deplorable. The Italian allies were, for most of Roman history, no more part of the Roman state than the other NATO countries are of the US; after the Social War, they were fully parts of the Roman Republic. The sentence on the Senate is simply silly: one got to be a Senator in Rome by being elected to public office. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
I have restored this list from massive vandalism by an anon. Almost all of these I have seen mentioned as exceptions to the democratic peace; and my knowledge of the literature and current comment is not complete. The Venezuela crisis of 1895 and the Ruhr crisis of 1923 should be mentioned with Fashoda. (Most of these have been mentioned by authors supporting the democratic peace; most authors who support it do not belong to the doctrinaire fringe which holds that there can be no exceptions, however marginal.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
There is an extensive literature on the democratic peace other than Rummel, which is ignored here. (I have read your talk page - and one member of your "consensus" doesn't seem to have read Rummel, who is perfectly willing to include constitutional monarchies as democracies if they enfranchise two-thirds of their adult male citizens - without doing so, he would have even fewer democracies, excluding Britain and Canada and Sweden.)
All of the literature supporting the democratic peace, with two exceptions that I know of, argues that the democratic peace is a very strong correlation. Very strong correlation is a better argument (Spiro's paper, which should still be in the references of the main DPT article, argues that the claims of zero are not statistically significant, because they acknowledge so few warring pairs and so few democracies that it is not surprising that there is no overlap); but every one of them acknowledges marginal exceptions.
Thus for example, Dean Bobst, in the very first paper on the subject, calls the Boer War a war between democracies; Singer and Small acknowledged two marginal exceptions; Bruce Russert, in his theory of the gradual emergence of the liberal peace, counts numerous exceptions in Greek history - but then Greek democracies didn't conduct their internal politics peaceably either. Gleditsch finds the democratic peace much stronger, and perhaps more explainable, if one considers only formally declared wars; but then the Finnish-UK war of 1940 shows up as a lone exception; which doesn't weaken his theory - for it is so obviously marginal.
Which cases turned up as the handful of exceptions depends, obviously, on what standards of war and democracy you use. There are several policy sets on war; there are many, many definitions of democracy. What is important, and also worth saying, is there are normally only a handful.
And so on. It was useful to have a list of these cases; it was also useful to have a list of the cases (the First Balkan War, the Spanish-American war, the Venezuela crisis, and so on) cited by the skeptics of DPT. The article you edit war for is unbalanced, incomplete (in that it does not even mention the question of multiple definition), and lacking due weight on, say, Russert or Debating the Democratic Peace. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
I see several ways to go here.
Or we can acknowledge that having a list of wars between democracies is a bit of a nonsense list, and that the existance of this article in itself is POV-pushing, and that it should be renamed or merged into Democratic peace theory. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 19:18, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
I find the tags on the first two paragraphs of the lead peculiar. As this diff shows, 90% of the first paragraph and all of the second paragraph are exactly as they were a week ago; if they didn't need tags then, what requires citation now?
This is particularly true of the second paragraph, which is a description of this article, not of anything exterior to it:
I await the customary explanation of these tags on this talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:11, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Really, this will not do. Removing a sourced assertion, as this edit does, is bad enough. Explaining it by an edit summary is worse.
If there is a conflict between two sources, we should present both, in proportion to their weight - and there is likely to be a disagreement about democracy, that ill-defined term, in many cases; that's one of the reasons to compile this article in the first place. (And a peer-reviewed article, such as Doyle's, has greater weight than a website.)
But the website cited does not work. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Neither of Pmandersons sources for claiming the Boer wars was wars between democracies calls Britain *or* the Boer republic democracies. I removed it. Again. It doesn't only go against earlier consensus, it goes against what Pmanderson himself claim should be included. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 09:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Pmanderson: Finally something from you that is at least borderline, and at least meaningful to discuss, and not a non-war between dictatorships. This, like all instances in this article, depend upon the definition of democracy used. - So maybe we should define it? Your definition seems to be "every country anyone ever called a democracy", and that doesn't hold up. Spain was a weak, autocratic democracy and isn't a democracy according to Polity IV, but it's admittedly borderline. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 03:20, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
It seems quite a number of examples have been brought forward, from reliable sources, of assertions that this or that conflict was a "war between democracies" and thus constitutes an exception to Rummel's Democratic peace theory, i.e., his claim that "no two democracies have ever made war on each other" (resulting in more than 1,000 casualties, that is).
If I hear no objection in about one more week, I plan to move this article to Objections to the democratic peace theory. Thereafter, I would invite all the contributors who have mentioned "wars between democracies" on this page to add information about them to the newly entitled page.
Each example should explain to what extent the various sources consider that each party to the conflict is a " democracy", as well as listing the number of casualties reported or claimed.
Recall that Rummel's own definition of democracy is quite specific, and entails "rights" as well as "expectations" along with his own view of an internal distribution of power which, he asserts, is utterly at odds with the monopoly on war-making power which he says the leaders of non-democracies enjoy (whom he labels " dictators"). But to be neutral, we must neither assume Rummel's view is correct nor assume that it is incorrect. We must only describe his viewpoint and the evidence he gives for it, along with the evidence and arguments that opponents give against it. (If there's room, we can give his rebuttals to those objections, too.) -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 22:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I am not making a case; nor am I interested in whether an author regards a war between democracies as a counter-example to his version of the democratic peace, all of which use a restricted definition of democracy.
It is true that the Boer republics limited the franchise to freeholders; so did much of the United States, and Great Britain, until quite recently (on the scale of this discussion). That is a reason why the Boer Wars were not a counterexample to most versions of the democratic peace - including Russert's; but they were democracies, as Russert says.
Similarly, most discussions of the democratic peace omit the first few years of a democratic regime - thus often omitting the whole history of many democratic regimes - because there are various reasons to expect the early years of a democracy to be less peaceable; this also includes several of the wars here listed.
That does not mean that such states are not democracies - merely that the democratic peace is a limited claim: established democracies with almost universal franchises tend not to go to war with each other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Maybe we can go forward if we simplify this, so that Pmanderson cant start talking about other things. Let's take one thing at a time. First thing: I propose that this article should contain a list of wars between democracies, as per previous consensus.
Proposal number 2: That in the list of wars between democracies, we should include only such things that are wars, as including conflicts that are not wars would mean it no longer is a list of wars. This means that we can only include those conflicts where the general consensus is that it is a war, and only if both listed parties by general consensus was warring.
Proposal 3: That when we list wars between democracies, we list only wars between countries which it is generally accepted was democracies at the time of the war.
Actually, what I think we need to solve this content dispute is to have a sourced list of wars between democracies. That's probably the only way. We need to find people who lists wars between democracies, and present each of their lists. That's probably the only way to avoid this content dispute and also avoid that the article becomes WP:OR. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 10:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Let's go back to WikiuserNI's proposal: we include anything that is cited by a reliable third party source as a war between democracies. We can note sourced claims that it is not a war between democracies.
Once again, Pmanderson adds a conflict with a source that does not support the claim that the conflict was a war between democracies. The book does *not* say so. He says two things: That many soldiers went to war because they wanted to preserve their government and it's democracy, and that the democracy also characterized the state of discipline in the armies. Neither of these is a claim that it was a war between democracies. Again, Pmanderson shows that he is not interested in making a list of wars between democracies, but only interested in making this article contain as many conflicts as possible, presumably in an effort to make a point against democratic peace theory. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 05:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
This list is a fine resource - congratulations to the people who put it together. - Pepper 150.203.227.130 11:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Are images necessary? I would avoid advertisement... this page is at high risk of being voted for deletion.Furthermore, they make the first table less readable Massimamanno
I have found an interesting review of Weart's book: [1]. Ultramarine 18:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
There has been some opposing sources to Weart's statement than 1/50 could vote. The Polyarchy Data Set seems to support him. It states that 0.1% of the population voted in Peru and 2.5% voted in Chile. It gives several sources. Ultramarine 09:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding casualties, Correlates of War not including civilian deaths is a debated issue, since in modern wars it is estimated that about 75% casualties are civilians. Also, it is an ongoing event and a provisionary count. I insist that the number stays, with the appropriate specification, as I wrote it. You can insert the number of "battle" deaths in the rebuttal section Massimamanno 15:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The current conflict isn't a war between sovereign states, it's a (lawful or unlawful, that's another discussion) military operation between a sovereign state and a militia. Lebanon's army is not involved in combat (except collateral damage). I don't see this article arguing that Hezbollah is a liberal democracy... Wouter Lievens 13:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Should the Falklands War of 1982 be included in this list as well?
The following is a quotation from this site: Chilean coup of 1973 1973 President Salvador Allende was democratically elected. The United States tried to undermine Salvador Allende's regime but was not directly involved in the coup d'etat. Chile was perceived as turning into a Communist dictatorship.[2] p. 227-228. Less than 1000 battle deaths in the coup.
This one is taken from the article about the Chilean coup of 1973: The worst violence occurred in the first few months after the coup, with the number of suspected leftists killed or "disappeared" soon reaching into the thousands.
Frankly, I am not an expert, but I never came across numbers of death below 1000, so could it be reviewed?
Should be moved to "List of possible exceptions to the democratic peace theory". Objections? Ultramarine 08:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
The Contra war between the USA (by proxy) and Nicaragua in the 1980s needs to be added to this list. Whatever people say about the Sandinistas they had massive popular support and did hold democratic elections. If the older wars involving barely-democratic countries merit involvement on this list there is absoloutely no reason why the contra war does not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dancloney ( talk • contribs) 14:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC).
Arguing British and Irish constitutional theory over the events of 1919-1922 is always messy, but have any of the authors cited noted that:
a) The 1918 general election was for a single, UK wide parliament and it was only Sinn Fein candidates who declared it to be the opportunity to elect a breakaway parliament
b) International practice tends to regard plebiscites not election results as a means for self-determination (for one thing it can get some clarity as to the precise area that would self-determine - the "mandate in all Ireland" vs "mandate in Northern Ireland" argument is basically "who gets to determine who gets to self-determine?!") - the Sinn Fein victory in this context would be a mandate to negotiate an independence settlement, not a legal act of separation in and of itself. See The Irish Election of 1918 And even if the election is a legitimate tool for independence, it turns the Irish election into an act of self-determination, not a choice of government for running the resultant state. So would the Irish Republic have qualified as a democracy?
Indeed in general can any war of separatism be considered to be between two democracies? Usually at least one does not recognise the legimitacy of the other's proclaimed government. Timrollpickering 01:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Would it be worth mentioning some of the wars between the Italian Republics, such as the Venetian-Genoese War, War of Chioggia, etc? They could be summarised together, as the major objection that the states were essentially oligarchies would apply to each war. Warofdreams talk 02:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Page numbers belong inside the reference tags, not outside them as is the case numerous times in this article. This is an annoying thing to fix, but it will be necessary if this article can be considered for featured list status. Shalom ( Hello • Peace) 16:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
how was the trail of tears a war? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.104.199 ( talk) 19:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
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BetacommandBot ( talk) 23:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Image:Ballots and Bullets.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot ( talk) 06:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Doesn't the war between Georgia and Russia count as an exception to this theory. Richardkselby ( talk) 23:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Sophistry runs rampant in the analysis of several posited wars between democracies, with ad-hoc limits placed to make a country "not a democracy" based on the proportion of adults voting or its pre war years of existence, or making a war "not a war" due to limited battle deaths. The requirement of number of battle deaths, the duration of the democracy before the war, and the proportion of adults voting stated to exclude particular wars seem to come from the ad-hoc desire to exclude certain cases. As for the 2/3 of adults voting, does this mean the U.S was not a democracy before women got the right to vote after World War 1? A better standard would be whether reliable sources now or at the time of the conflict considered the country to be a "democracy" by the standards of the day. Edison ( talk) 17:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Weren't Egypt and Istrael democracies in 1973? 24.160.242.185 ( talk) 05:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
This is an excellent article. The nature of the theory makes the debate focus on cases (see e.g. Tony Blair at Jon Stewart). It provides arguments for and against and is therefore NPOV. Jacob Lundberg ( talk) 23:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
This edit was labelled "typo" but it seems more like a revert to me. It should be examined closer. Jacob Lundberg ( talk) 00:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Should the article revolve entirely around their definition of liberal democracy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.70.177 ( talk) 18:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
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Its not clear to me what is meant by the "dubious-discuss" templates in the intro. The first line of the article on democratic peace theory is "The democratic peace theory (or liberal peace theory[1] or simply the democratic peace) holds that democracies — usually, liberal democracies — never go to war with one another." This is pretty much clear from the name of the theory. So why is it dubious? The statement doesn't seem dubious at all. Can someone explain what they meant with these templates? If not, I am inclined to delete them as unjustified clutter. Locke9k ( talk) 14:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Per the discussion on the AFD, a massive rework of this page is necessary. The page has been moved to List of wars between democracies, and the content needs to be adjusted accordingly. The major issue raised in the AFD was that a lot of this probably constitutes original research in the form of unpublished synthesis. It is also possibly open to charged of nonencyclopedic cross-categorization, so the usefulness of this categorization needs to be well established. In order to improved this article, several things are necessary from my perspective.
I have started work on this stuff, but its a big project, so any assistance would be helpful. Just getting the stuff out of the table is fairly lengthy. Thanks - Locke9k ( talk) 19:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
There are several items in this list that are essentially coups in a democratic nation, that were supported by other democratic nation (the US). I am skeptical as to whether these belong here as they don't seem to meet the definition of war. Any opinions? Locke9k ( talk) 16:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree. especially since this article revolves around democratic-peace theory. democracies find alternatives to direct war. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
In order to avoid issues over the proper definition of 'war', what would people think about another rename of this page to "List of military conflicts between democracies". This might short circuit a lot of the debate associated with the democratic peace theory that might cause problems here. Opinions? Locke9k ( talk) 16:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
The new, current name of this article ( List of wars between democracies) is POV in itself, since many (the majority) of the cases described are clearly wars involved non-democratic nations. The older title ( List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory) and the former, table-based format, were much more NPOV.-- MaGioZal ( talk) 05:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The only purpose of this article is to challenge the Democratic peace theory (which claims that "democracies" to not make war on each other) by providing a list of exceptions. A better title, therefore, would be Objections to the democratic peace theory or - more strongly - Counterexamples to the democratic peace theory. At issue is whether the list of counterexamples really does disprove the theory.
Of course, it all depends on the Definitions of democracy and democratic, as well as on how big " war" must be. Rummel has tinkered with his definition of "democracy" and "war" in such a way the list of wars between democracies is empty. His idea of democracy requires maturity and/or experience, so that simply having been democratically elected is nowhere near enough. His requirements are stringent and extensive:
He also defines "war" for this purpose as any conflict in which 1,000 or more people were killed. -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 19:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
This whole subject is like wrestling with smoke: But isn't part of the point of this theory that if people have a choice they choose against war? So isn't it relevant that the republic had a citizen army? That it was only citizens (who did vote) that were required to serve in the army (and provide their own armour)? Moonraker12 ( talk) 11:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I have posted the 'technical' template, because many of the discussions are written in a very clipped and advanced way that seems to presuppose a lot of outside knowledge on the part of the reader. It would be very helpful for the discussion of some of these wars to be rewritten in a brief way that is accessible to the normal person. Locke9k ( talk) 06:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
It would be helpful if the discussion of each war was approached in a parallel way, where possible and appropriate. To me, here is the ideal approach. Open the section with a (referenced) statement as to the overall strength of the argument for inclusion in this list. Is it a fringe case or is there a strong body of argument suggesting inclusion? Second, give a brief overview of the nature of the war. Who were the participants, when did it occur, what was it about, any other pertinent details. Very succinct. Third, give a summary of the main arguments for an against inclusion. The key is for all of this to be well referenced, since by its nature every item in the list is contentious. The objective here is for the discussion of each list item to consist of a coherent discussion of the war, rather that the fragmented approach offered right now. Unfortunately due to my lack of knowledge on the subject I am not the ideal person for this, but I will make as much headway as a I can. Unless someone else proposes a superior organizational approach to this one (and by all means, please do so) I'd propose that we try to edit most sections into this format as soon as the references are found to do so. Expert help would be appreciated. Thanks - Locke9k ( talk) 06:48, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Colonel Warden - I have reverted your intro edits because they present a serious POV problem. As I mention in the rename discussion above, there is a significant debate within the field as to whether this list should contain any items. It is very important in the intro to make this clear so as to avoid endorsement of a particular position. I agree that the intro is presently somewhat awkward, but we need to fix it in a way that continues to make clear what inclusion in the list actually signifies. Locke9k ( talk) 22:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
The war between Armenia and Afghanistan in the early 1990s needs to be added to this list. James Lee Ray, a proponent of democratic peace theory, seemed to view this war as the biggest threat to the theory. Unfortunately, I know nothing about the conflict except what is on page 123 of this book, so I can't write anything decent. Epa101 ( talk) 19:14, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
This is described as a conflict between various armed groups within Lebanon and the state of Israel. Why has this been included? Alastairward ( talk) 15:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I have never heard of an occupation being called a war. to be a war there has to be fighting, right? and to be between democracies, it has to be between two states, right? not government vs. private nationals. the Ruhr Occupation should be removed, or we are missing several other occupations. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
they aren't wars, that could be a whole other list. besides it has no bearing on the theory, unless someone important is arguing that a governments' near miss/war ratio is evidence for or against the theory. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
the source cited may be of questionable validity, but it states the Iran was a Constitutional Monarchy, not a parliamentary democracy, I don't think it should be here cause it isn't a war, but this is another issue. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 06:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
A civil war within a democracy is not a war between two democracies. And besides, the examples are not very democratic.
How is the American civil war a war between two democracies? And how can the confederation be claimed to be a democracy? It was only months old, there had been no elections, and no democratic basis for the attack that started the civil war. And of course most people had no right to vote anyway.
The Paris commune was a reaction to the defeat of France in the war with Prussia. A war between two military empires. France became a republic during that war when Napoleon III was captured, and the government in the newly formed republic that was in power during the Paris commune was a provisional government.
The Irish war of independence is equally weird. Here it is one part of a country that wants to be independent, but are not allowed. How is that democratic in the first place, it rather disproves the case that Britain was democratic during this time. And even then it's a sort of civil war, not a war between two democracies, but within one. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 08:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I think the article should be renamed "List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory". The current title makes a strong statement: that all the wars in the list were between democracies. That's not what the article is really about: the whole discussion revolves around democratic peace theory, and those who believe in that theory believe that all the articles in the list were (for whatever reason) not wars between democracies. The current title seems to impy that democratic peace theory is wrong, although I'm sure that's not the intention. Any thoughts on this? Epa101 ( talk) 20:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
@Alastairward. It should be renamed because its current name leads to too much original research and too much synthesising material to come to a novel opinion, neither of which is not allowed on Wikipedia. The academic interest in wars between democracy is (as far as I know) entirely confined to the question of democratic peace theory: renaming it to something that includes DPT in the title will keep the article in line with the academic discussions rather than the latest Freedom House/Polity IV reports. The material that should be removed is everything that does not include at least one academic reference (e.g. South Ossetia). Epa101 ( talk) 18:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Its says Ecuadorian President had an autocratic regime, yet I can find little about it. The war is not mentioned in the wiki's of either nation's article. apparently it is a minor war, where the sources tend to be biased. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 23:26, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
The 21st century entries are all without supporting cites, by which I mean, no source that specifically mentions them as wars between democracies. The editors who added those conflicts may well be correct, but we just don't know that and can't without a more appropriate source. I would like to remove them for that reason, but would like other views. Alastairward ( talk) 23:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, is it? Everything seems to cite opinions of democracy that is or isn't active in a country at a certain time, but little to say whether or not something is a "war between democracies". Alastairward ( talk) 18:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Fought in 1920, with about 1000 estimated battle deaths.[8] In both states, elections had been held with universal suffrage. In the polity scale, Poland receives a +8 rating in combined democracy/autocracy, while Lithuania receives a 7 in democracy and a +4 in combined democracy/autocracy.
Ecuador receives a rating of +9 in the polity scale of combined democracy/autocracy, while Peru receives a +7, meaning that both countries are classified as democratic, and Ecuador even as "very democratic". [1]
the reference [8] leads to some page about Irish elections? Is it possible there is some data on how Poland and Lithuania scored in polity scale back in 1920? or are these some modern numbers - making them quite irrelevant? In either case, wherever this was taken from must be sourced. The other claim about ecuador and peru gives similar numbers, but quite explicitly sources it to modern, rather than relevant 1981 data. I'll remove the entire paragraph until it is. Aryah ( talk) 01:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering why Ireland was inlcuded, if it was still a part of the United Kingdom until it's independence after the aptly named Irish War of Independence? Alastairward ( talk) 00:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Most scholars of the democratic peace have ignored the Irish War of Independence; Bruce Russell is like James Lee Ray and Rummel in this regard. I would say that it was more akin to the 1948 Israeli war than to the American Civil War. As you say, the Confederacy never gained international recognition, but Ireland was like Israel in that it did gain such recognition. Russell says, "the authenticity of Israel's leadership was hardly in question" even though an election had not been held. It seems to me that the Irish leadership was even more authentic since they had been elected. Even if we do apply strict definitions of "government", this war remains a big problem for democratic peace theory. If democracy is so peaceful, why did the Irish want to leave democratic Britain? If the people fighting on both sides believed in democratic values, this was still a war between democrats, government or not. Why have people fought in democratic Northern Ireland for so long as to whether they want to be ruled from democratic London or from democratic Dublin? Spencer Weart is the only one who has addressed the issue; he does so on page 312 of Never at War. My criticism of his work here is that he blurs the Irish War of Independence with the subsequent Irish Civil War. He says that the Irish army had a great deal of influence over the politicans as if this makes Ireland less democratic, but that seems typical of most modern democracies.
I can see what you mean when you say that this article is short on definitions. I suspect there is a lot of original research in the article, although I must admit that I find it useful in its present state. Epa101 ( talk) 16:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I think most civil wars and wars of independence do not qualify as democratic governments, mainly because of their illegal nature. However, when an already established local government starts war with the central democratic government, you do have one democracy fighting another. The American Revolution was fought between a democracy and a monarchy. How democratic the colonies was is not relevant, because you need two democracies to make this list.
the question still remains in this case; was the irish war of independence started by the democratic government and does democratic mean in ideals or in action. I think the article addresses that but could address it more. 12.156.208.3 ( talk) 09:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
The title implies that there have been a number of wars between democracies, which contradicts Rummel's Democratic peace theory. As such, the title presents a point of view. In my opinion, this violates our neutrality policy.
I'd prefer that we either:
There are three scholars who hold that there have been no wars between democracies; many more hold there have been some (the following quotation from DPT, despite its apologetic tone, accurately lists some of them - it is quite incomplete, but should be unpacked here); several scholars have argued that DPT has enough exceptions to not be interesting.
The citations can be found in DPT's bibliography; here, and probably there, full footnotes may be more useful than Harvard style. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:47, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
The treatment of Rome is particularly deplorable. The Italian allies were, for most of Roman history, no more part of the Roman state than the other NATO countries are of the US; after the Social War, they were fully parts of the Roman Republic. The sentence on the Senate is simply silly: one got to be a Senator in Rome by being elected to public office. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
I have restored this list from massive vandalism by an anon. Almost all of these I have seen mentioned as exceptions to the democratic peace; and my knowledge of the literature and current comment is not complete. The Venezuela crisis of 1895 and the Ruhr crisis of 1923 should be mentioned with Fashoda. (Most of these have been mentioned by authors supporting the democratic peace; most authors who support it do not belong to the doctrinaire fringe which holds that there can be no exceptions, however marginal.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
There is an extensive literature on the democratic peace other than Rummel, which is ignored here. (I have read your talk page - and one member of your "consensus" doesn't seem to have read Rummel, who is perfectly willing to include constitutional monarchies as democracies if they enfranchise two-thirds of their adult male citizens - without doing so, he would have even fewer democracies, excluding Britain and Canada and Sweden.)
All of the literature supporting the democratic peace, with two exceptions that I know of, argues that the democratic peace is a very strong correlation. Very strong correlation is a better argument (Spiro's paper, which should still be in the references of the main DPT article, argues that the claims of zero are not statistically significant, because they acknowledge so few warring pairs and so few democracies that it is not surprising that there is no overlap); but every one of them acknowledges marginal exceptions.
Thus for example, Dean Bobst, in the very first paper on the subject, calls the Boer War a war between democracies; Singer and Small acknowledged two marginal exceptions; Bruce Russert, in his theory of the gradual emergence of the liberal peace, counts numerous exceptions in Greek history - but then Greek democracies didn't conduct their internal politics peaceably either. Gleditsch finds the democratic peace much stronger, and perhaps more explainable, if one considers only formally declared wars; but then the Finnish-UK war of 1940 shows up as a lone exception; which doesn't weaken his theory - for it is so obviously marginal.
Which cases turned up as the handful of exceptions depends, obviously, on what standards of war and democracy you use. There are several policy sets on war; there are many, many definitions of democracy. What is important, and also worth saying, is there are normally only a handful.
And so on. It was useful to have a list of these cases; it was also useful to have a list of the cases (the First Balkan War, the Spanish-American war, the Venezuela crisis, and so on) cited by the skeptics of DPT. The article you edit war for is unbalanced, incomplete (in that it does not even mention the question of multiple definition), and lacking due weight on, say, Russert or Debating the Democratic Peace. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
I see several ways to go here.
Or we can acknowledge that having a list of wars between democracies is a bit of a nonsense list, and that the existance of this article in itself is POV-pushing, and that it should be renamed or merged into Democratic peace theory. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 19:18, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
I find the tags on the first two paragraphs of the lead peculiar. As this diff shows, 90% of the first paragraph and all of the second paragraph are exactly as they were a week ago; if they didn't need tags then, what requires citation now?
This is particularly true of the second paragraph, which is a description of this article, not of anything exterior to it:
I await the customary explanation of these tags on this talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:11, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Really, this will not do. Removing a sourced assertion, as this edit does, is bad enough. Explaining it by an edit summary is worse.
If there is a conflict between two sources, we should present both, in proportion to their weight - and there is likely to be a disagreement about democracy, that ill-defined term, in many cases; that's one of the reasons to compile this article in the first place. (And a peer-reviewed article, such as Doyle's, has greater weight than a website.)
But the website cited does not work. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Neither of Pmandersons sources for claiming the Boer wars was wars between democracies calls Britain *or* the Boer republic democracies. I removed it. Again. It doesn't only go against earlier consensus, it goes against what Pmanderson himself claim should be included. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 09:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Pmanderson: Finally something from you that is at least borderline, and at least meaningful to discuss, and not a non-war between dictatorships. This, like all instances in this article, depend upon the definition of democracy used. - So maybe we should define it? Your definition seems to be "every country anyone ever called a democracy", and that doesn't hold up. Spain was a weak, autocratic democracy and isn't a democracy according to Polity IV, but it's admittedly borderline. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 03:20, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
It seems quite a number of examples have been brought forward, from reliable sources, of assertions that this or that conflict was a "war between democracies" and thus constitutes an exception to Rummel's Democratic peace theory, i.e., his claim that "no two democracies have ever made war on each other" (resulting in more than 1,000 casualties, that is).
If I hear no objection in about one more week, I plan to move this article to Objections to the democratic peace theory. Thereafter, I would invite all the contributors who have mentioned "wars between democracies" on this page to add information about them to the newly entitled page.
Each example should explain to what extent the various sources consider that each party to the conflict is a " democracy", as well as listing the number of casualties reported or claimed.
Recall that Rummel's own definition of democracy is quite specific, and entails "rights" as well as "expectations" along with his own view of an internal distribution of power which, he asserts, is utterly at odds with the monopoly on war-making power which he says the leaders of non-democracies enjoy (whom he labels " dictators"). But to be neutral, we must neither assume Rummel's view is correct nor assume that it is incorrect. We must only describe his viewpoint and the evidence he gives for it, along with the evidence and arguments that opponents give against it. (If there's room, we can give his rebuttals to those objections, too.) -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 22:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I am not making a case; nor am I interested in whether an author regards a war between democracies as a counter-example to his version of the democratic peace, all of which use a restricted definition of democracy.
It is true that the Boer republics limited the franchise to freeholders; so did much of the United States, and Great Britain, until quite recently (on the scale of this discussion). That is a reason why the Boer Wars were not a counterexample to most versions of the democratic peace - including Russert's; but they were democracies, as Russert says.
Similarly, most discussions of the democratic peace omit the first few years of a democratic regime - thus often omitting the whole history of many democratic regimes - because there are various reasons to expect the early years of a democracy to be less peaceable; this also includes several of the wars here listed.
That does not mean that such states are not democracies - merely that the democratic peace is a limited claim: established democracies with almost universal franchises tend not to go to war with each other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Maybe we can go forward if we simplify this, so that Pmanderson cant start talking about other things. Let's take one thing at a time. First thing: I propose that this article should contain a list of wars between democracies, as per previous consensus.
Proposal number 2: That in the list of wars between democracies, we should include only such things that are wars, as including conflicts that are not wars would mean it no longer is a list of wars. This means that we can only include those conflicts where the general consensus is that it is a war, and only if both listed parties by general consensus was warring.
Proposal 3: That when we list wars between democracies, we list only wars between countries which it is generally accepted was democracies at the time of the war.
Actually, what I think we need to solve this content dispute is to have a sourced list of wars between democracies. That's probably the only way. We need to find people who lists wars between democracies, and present each of their lists. That's probably the only way to avoid this content dispute and also avoid that the article becomes WP:OR. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 10:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Let's go back to WikiuserNI's proposal: we include anything that is cited by a reliable third party source as a war between democracies. We can note sourced claims that it is not a war between democracies.
Once again, Pmanderson adds a conflict with a source that does not support the claim that the conflict was a war between democracies. The book does *not* say so. He says two things: That many soldiers went to war because they wanted to preserve their government and it's democracy, and that the democracy also characterized the state of discipline in the armies. Neither of these is a claim that it was a war between democracies. Again, Pmanderson shows that he is not interested in making a list of wars between democracies, but only interested in making this article contain as many conflicts as possible, presumably in an effort to make a point against democratic peace theory. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 05:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)