Do democracies make better lovers?
From the news from Ukraine, Syria and Gaza to the events of the centenary of World War I taking place in 2014, news addicts and students of history cannot help but wonder if war is not an eternal feature of civilization. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant wondered about the issue in 1795 in an article entitled "Eternal Peace". He concluded that citizens of democratic republics are less inclined to support their government in times of war because in doing so "they put all the horrors of war upon themselves." From then until today there are supporters of the "democratic peace theory". In his 1989 article "The Causes of War," Rutgers University political science researcher Jack Levy made the claim that "the absence of wars between democratic states is the closest thing to an empirical law in international relations." Skeptics cite as counter-examples the wars in ancient Greece, the Punic Wars [between Rome and Carthage], the War of 1812 [between England and the USA], the American Civil War, the wars between India and Pakistan, and the wars between Israel and Lebanon. Who is right? Can science answer the question?
In the book Triangulating Peace, political science researchers Bruce Russett and John O'Neill applied a multiple logistic regression statistical model to data on 2,300 military conflicts between states from 1816 to 2001 collected in the Correlates of War project. project). They gave each country a score in democracy, from 1 to 10, according to an index based on the "Polity Project" that measures the competitiveness of political procedures, the fairness of elections, the balances and brakes between the centers of power, the degree of transparency, and more. They found that if two countries have a high democratic score, the chance of war decreases by 50%, and if one or both countries have a low score, the chance doubles.
Kent also hypothesized that international trade (economic interdependence) and membership in international communities (transparency and reliability) reduce the likelihood of conflict. Rust and O'Neill therefore included in their model data on the volume of trade between countries. They found that countries whose dependence on trade increased in a given year were less likely to engage in armed conflict the following year. They also counted the number of intergovernmental organizations that each pair of countries was a member of together and ran the statistical analysis in conjunction with the democracy and trade index. All in all, democracy, commerce, and membership in organizations (the triangulation in the title of their book) all promote peace. If in a certain year a pair of countries receives a score of 10 in all three indicators, the chance of a military conflict between them in that year is 81% lower than that of an average pair of countries.
And how has the democratic peace theory held up since 2001? The feeling is that from most conflicts in our world, peace is "on the boards". But feeling is not data. In a special issue of the Journal of Peace Research, published in 2014, Howard Hager, a political science expert from Uppsala University in Sweden, re-evaluated the evidence in the article "Democracy and Peace Research". And so he writes: "The empirical finding that the chance of a pair of democratic countries getting into a conflict is lower than the chance of this happening to pairs of other countries is still valid. So is the conclusion that between stable democracies there are fewer conflicts than between semi-democracies." Hager doubts that economic interdependence alone can prevent countries from going to war. The "golden arches theory for conflict prevention", which gained publicity following Thomas Friedman's diagnosis according to which there are no wars between two countries that have McDonald's branches [the golden arches are McDonald's trademark], is valid, according to Hager, only if both markets are located in democratic countries. He wonders, logically, if there is another factor that explains the relationship between democracy and peace, but does not propose such a factor. I suggest that this factor is human nature itself combined with our tendency to favor the principles of democracy. Peace is a pleasant byproduct.
Whatever the underlying reasons, the long-term trends are encouraging. According to the data of the "Freedom House" organization, in 1900 there were no democracies in the world holding elections (with full voting rights for all). In 1990 there were 69 such democracies, and in 2014 there were 122, which is 63% of the 195 countries that exist in the world today. This is moral progress. The fact that there is another 37% - especially religious autocratic states eager to obtain nuclear weapons and determined to bring doomsday upon us - proves that we must still be on our guard. If we don't, we run the risk of Kent's eternal peace dissolving and resembling the inspiration for his article's title: a pub icon with a graveyard painted on it. This is not the eternal peace that most living beings aspire to.
About the author
Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com). His next book is: "The Moral Noah's Ark of Science". Follow him on Twitter: @michaelshermer
The article was published with the permission of Scientific American Israel
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Relations between countries are like interpersonal relations. There are those who are internally and externally equal and are more enlightened, thoughtful, open, respectful, sociable, politically transparent, communicative, smart, have many and varied connections and so on, all of whom have some material or value interest in being in contact with them.
And some are not. Israel is not like that, but her neighbors are worse than her, so that even if she were perfect, her neighbors would envy her and therefore hurt her. Therefore, the interest is to act simultaneously to reduce global economic, educational and cultural gaps...
The pension funds that the public is forced to set aside their wages, are stolen under the auspices of the government. They usually charge too high management fees. Their wages are too high, and they fail, so be it. Horizontal cut in all pensions - actuarial balance. The pension model went bankrupt! I was innocent, but the government lends a hand and encourages theft! And for her name? That the stock market would be inflated by institutions, and there would be no real capital raising.
Without Yehuda and Shimron, the state of Tel Aviv would feel an existential threat. Because the border would be right on the doorstep. And thus the security system could continue to demand endless resources. Poverty would expand, education would suffer. And democracy would be in danger. It is no coincidence that the idea of withdrawing from Shimron and Yehuda has a hold among the elites. Because parties like Mertz are no different from Likud in their economic platform.
It is not possible to give up Shimron and Judea, because there is not enough money and land to compensate all the Jewish settlers who live there. Therefore it is better that we annex at least in a practical way. We should strengthen diplomatic and economic ties with a variety of countries, from all over the world. And not be dependent on America and Europe.
It seems that the concept, that man is different from the rest of the creatures in nature in regards to producing existence and the struggle for survival, is wrong.
From the various religions and cultures, over the course of thousands of years, completely utopian words and concepts "emerged".
such as good and bad, justice, equality, brotherhood, peace and more. Instead of accepting the fact that we are a product of nature's evolution
that imprinted in us behavioral traits and reactions that cannot be erased and serve as a means of survival.
If they banned every action that is against the law, the whole world would turn into one prison.
The progress in science, technology, etc. does not change the existential need and the struggle for survival, but only the tools
which are at our disposal to fulfill those basic needs.
point
I think the recent wars show you wrong: al-Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah - these are not the rulers. In the recent past you are right, but even then there were wars that were the result of the aggression of small tribes.
The question is who makes the wars. It's always the rulers. There is nothing democratic about wanting to rule.
Although it is possible today to promote democracy from a technological point of view that the people will really participate in decisions and choose representatives to manage their affairs, no one is promoting the issue, on the contrary, the government has stopped the process and the question is why
Why can't I throw out a president or a prime minister who broke his promises, promised to lower taxes and raised
Why does the citizen's voice lose meaning after the elections
Because democracy is actually a fig leaf show of the technocracy that actually controls the country by a bureaucratic government that takes care of itself first and foremost
and makes a show of democracy in order to keep the power in his hands
The people want economic freedom
When Israel plays, it seems to me, there is Atum/there is no Atum, our Shimron and Yehuda or not ours?. Welfare or security. Israel does not know what it wants from itself!
The conflict is over the very existence of some kind of Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East.
*He is not territorial
My country people. Jews and Israel these days are the eternal scapegoat, so leaders and countries turn the anger of their citizens outward instead of inward. No artificial retreat will help, the conflict is territorial and religious/ethnic.
Suppose the annexation of Judea and Samaria, without Gaza (so that the Jewish dominance remains). He would have stopped the conflict with the Palestinians. And there was an Israeli embassy in Gaza, so peace would have flourished in the country. Would the Israeli left accept the annexation? Even if the Palestinians had their autonomy left? Would the boycott threat stop? Would the subject of the "occupation" be dropped from the episode? The answer is no! Because it's a scam to dig into, because it brings in money, and hurts Israeli competitors in Europe. It's a fact that the Golan Law didn't help. And it's clear that without Shimron Yehuda and the Golan, Israel is much weaker!