CDSn4001: Conflict
Analysis
Domestic political/social
causes of war
November 13, 2023
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.”
Static identity approach
• Assumes that identity is “fixed” or
“unchanging.”
• Relies on the observation of characteristics of
already-known entities (i.e., female or male).
• Often self-referential: i.e., women behave in a
certain way (feminine) and men in another
(masculine).
Limits of the static approach
• Does not leave much room for variation within
the identified group.
– i.e., no feminine men or masculine women
• Very conservative view – it can only observe the
status quo and it does not imagine alternatives.
• The view can also be strongly normative
– i.e., women ought to behave in this way. Can be very
negative for individuals who do not conform to how
they ought to act (i.e., a masculine woman or a
feminine man)
Dynamic identity approach
• Assumes that subjectivity (identity) is always a
product of discourses – national, ethnic,
sexual, racial, gendered, class, religious,
economic, etc. – that circulate at any given
time and place.
• Acknowledges that the possibilities for who
we are as an individual are not left up to the
individual, but rather set out in advance and
are also limited by society.
Elements of nationalism: territory
• Common territory seen as a homeland,
national cradle, historical home – 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.
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)
– “Nationalism is 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.
Imagined communities
• Benedict Anderson – political
scientist, historian
• Nation is imaginary
– A community that 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.