CDSn4001: Conflict Analysis
Domestic political/social
causes of war
November 9, 2021
Miriam Matejova, PhD
Agenda
• Domestic causes of war/peace
–Democracy, democratization, and
democratic peace theory
–Identity politics
Democratic peace theory
• Two versions:
1) individual DP model, and
2) the cost of war and public opposition
Individual model
• Looks at behavior of individual states.
• Democracies in general are more peaceful
(than non-democratic states).  largely
discredited
– People are generally disinclined to go to war and
will stop it if allowed.
– Authoritarian leaders sometimes start wars to
distract the public from authoritarianism, a
motivation that democratic leaders do not have.
“The cost of war” model
• Dyadic model (i.e., focus on pairs)
• Toward autocracies democracies are just as
warlike as autocracies, but democracies do not
fight each other.
• Origins attributed to Kant – possibility of an
international federation of republics that could usher
the perpetual peace.
• Ordinary citizens are inherently peaceful because
they are the ones who have to fight wars.
• In democracies, citizens can vote to control
politicians.
• Power-hungry governments go to war against
citizens’ wishes.
In support of the dyadic model
• Structural argument:
– political disputes resolved by compromise, which carries over
into foreign policy
– democracies keep their promises
– audience costs
• Normative argument:
– mutual respect among democracies and disdain toward
autocratic states
• Institutional argument:
– rational choice theory – political institutions have two effects on
leaders.
– 1) democratic states are more likely to win wars (because
citizens are more likely to support war efforts).
– 2) leaders are more sensitive to political costs of losing a war.
Problems with DPT?
• Is the promotion of democracy a solution to
war and conflict?
Identity and a constitutive outside
• Constitutive outside: what identity is defined
against, setting up an “inside” and an “outside” to
an identity group. Us vs Them, determining who
does and does not belong.
• Those who are “inside” the group are privileged
over those who are “outside” the group.
• The insiders can enforce “purity” on the insiders by
threatening them with being outcast and becoming
“outsiders.”
Primordialism
• Ethnic group = a group of people who
share blood allegiances, kinship,and
cultural attributes.
• Primordial ties become more significant
through recurrent reference to them in
symbolic and cultural attributes – through
myths, traditions, and heritage.
• A nation-state is a product of historical
processes
– Ethnic groups turn into political units
– Nation-state emergence as a natural process
Modernism
• Nationalism is a political phenomenon (not natural)
– driven by political elites (i.e., the state)
– “Nationalismis not awakening of nations to selfconsciousness;
it invents nations where they do not
exist.”
– Through communication and mass-education in a
standardized language, elites transform diverse ethnic
identities into a unified community.
• Emergence of nations is linked to the processes of
industrialization and modernization.
– Changes in mode of production and communication
created a need for “a culturally homogenous community
of centrally-educatedpeople.”
Imagined communities
• Benedict Anderson – political scientist, historian
• Nation is imaginary
– A communitythat is large enough that its members
cannot personally know each other is imagined.
– People perceive themselves as part of the group.
• Print-capitalism and spread of vernacular languages
enabled nationalism, because people could relate to each
other in new ways.
Elements of nationalism: territory
• Common territory seen as a homeland,
national cradle, historicalhome – a physical
place where nations can ‘act out their
dreams and fulfil aspirations’
– Promotes sense of group distinctiveness and
separateness;
– BUT raises questions about
nationality and citizenship,
exclusion and inclusion.