Critical Analysis of the Democratic Peace Theory

Student: Lidin Aleksey

Faculty: Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs

Educational Programme: International Relations (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2017

The democratic peace theory (which can be reduced to one simple statement: "democratic countries do not wage wars on one other") is one of the key contributions of the liberal school in IR to the "war and peace debate". The theory is held in high regard within the IR researchers' community as well as among European and American decision-makers. Nevertheless, it appears to be fundamentally flawed on conceptual, statistical and explanatory levels, whereas the realist case against it seems to be strong.

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