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Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Septentrionalis has put up numerous templates disputing neutrality and factual accuracy on this article. However, he does not follow policy and make constructive explanations for this. Wikipedia:NPOV dispute states: "If you add the above code to an article which seems to be biased to you, but there is no prior discussion of the bias, you need to at least leave a note on the article's talk page describing what you consider unacceptable about the article. The note should address the problem with enough specificity to allow constructive discussion toward a resolution, such as identifying specific passages, elements, or phrasing that are problematic." So, what is incorrect? What is missing? Ultramarine 21:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

A few facts

Latest comment: 18 years ago17 comments3 people in discussion
Review of Ray's book; Mershon International Studies Review, Vol. 40, No. 2. (Oct., 1996), pp. 304-307.
Democracy, War, and Covert Action Forsythe 1992
Russett on the Peloponesian War
Lake 1992 Winning war
Pevehouse, Jon C. 2005. Democracy from Above: Regional Organizations and Democratization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosato, Sebastian. 2003. The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory. American Political Science Review 97 (4):585-602.
Rees, Stuart. 2003. Passion for Peace: Exercising Power Creatively. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Doyle, Michael W. 2005. Three Pillars of Democratic Peace. American Political Science Review 99 (3):463-472.
Dallmayr, Fred. 2004. Peace Talks-who will listen? Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Archibugi, Daniele. 2004. Cosmopolitan Democracy and its Critics: A Review. European Journal of International Relations 10 (3):437-473.
Braden, Susan. 2005. Promoting democracy won't necessarily produce peace. International Journal on World Peace 22 (1):3-5.
Deudney, Daniel. 2004. Publius before Kant: Federal-Republican Security and Democratic Peace. European Journal of International Relations 10 (3):315-356
Infinity0's edit of 8 April 2006
  • The article depends excessively on the work of Ray, Weart and Rummel
  • The article includes a section substantially idenrical to the article deleted four times, at
  • Other people have made similar complaints about Ultramarine's edits before; Corax, Michael Hardy, and Robdurbar spring to mind.
  • This article is a turgid piece of advocacy, as it always has been.
  • The tags summarize these disagreements
  • The present text is largely produced by Ultramarine.
  • He plagiarizes. On a nother article, he made the abstract of his source:
    Summary: Conventional wisdom has long assumed that economic liberalization undermines repressive regimes. Recent events, however, suggest that savvy autocrats have learned how to cut the cord between growth and freedom, enjoying the benefits of the former without the risks of the latter. Washington and international lenders should take note.
    into
    Even if economic growth has caused democratization in the past, it may not do so in the future. Some evidence suggests that savvy autocrats may have learned how to cut the cord between growth and freedom, enjoying the benefits of the former without the risks of the latter.
  • He does not represent what his sources actually say. This has been discussed at some length in the archives of this page.
  • He confuses abstracts with the papers they summarize; here, for example.
  • He has refused offers of mediation by Kelly Martin and Kim Bruning.
    • Ultramarine quotes this statement below as saying that he has not accepted a mediator; this is not what it says. Unfortunately, he reads off-wikipedia sources with equal accuracy.
  • I have proposed a list of correctives, which should, if applied, fix this article.
    • Ultramarine has refused to implement them, and repeatedly deleted them.
      • I therefore subjoin them.
        The following program should correct these defects:
        • Verify that claims made are accurately and honestly represent the source.
        • Verify that quotations, both from the source and from Ray's papers, are identified, and necessary (see WP:Copyvio).
        • Remove peacock terms.
        • Remove the "supporters say"/"Critics say" style.
        • Check that the references to Ray, Rummel, and Weart are not disproportionate.
        • Rewrite whatever remains into clear and comprehensible English, without jargon.
        • Add recent papers of all PoV to article.
        • remove substantial similarity to four times deleted article, a PoV essay.
        • restore context and criticisms.
    • Ultramarine's jusitification for these actions has been that WP:TODO is policy, which it is not.
  • I have proposed three methods for settling this dispute
    • We can wait for a mediator, whether Blue Tie or some other, to direct fixing this article.
    • We can examine the present text, paragraph-by-paragraph, against the standards set up above. This will be a long slow process, but by the end of it there will be general consent to remove the tags.
    • Ultrmarine and I can agree to go away for a period of time, leaving the article as it is, to be edited by others. If the tags are in fact unjustified, they will be removed shortly thereafter, by consensus.
      • Ultramarine has accepted none of these.
  • Only Ultramarine and I care about this article. I will support any third party who tries to clean it up.

Septentrionalis 21:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Hm, this a long list of deliberately misleading statements. These issues have been resolved earlier. For example, Septentrionalis is deliberately misleading by citing persons who have since stated that there is nothing missing or incorrect in the article. He inserts extremely old comments, without the responses, about totally different versions of the article. He states a false copyright problem in another article that was ignored in the proper channels when he tried to complain about. He lists a long list of articles, demanding that someone else should read them and that they may then find errors with this article. I have recently serveral timeas asked other editors if they agree with Septentrionalis claims. No one does.
It should be noted that Septentrionalis has long history of trying to hide the advantages of democracy. See for example this, where he deletes every sourced advantage of liberal democracy while keeping many claimed unsourced disadvantages.[1] Or this, where he completely deletes the painstakingly made table regarding world-wide democracy from Freedom House.[2]. Or this, which seems to be deliberately misleading complaints of copyright infringement in order to remove pro-democracy arguments.[3] Or this, where he even argues that Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD/Download should not have any article about democracy.[4]Ultramarine 22:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
These are personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith. Your turn to apologize, Ultramarine. Septentrionalis 22:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Aside from your insinuations that there may be something wrong with article or demanding that someone else should read a long list of papers and books in order to find something wrong, do you have anything concrete that you claim is missing or incorrect? Something constructive that can be discussed instead of vague general insinuations. Like, is there a factual statement in the article that is incorrect? Is there a concrete sourced statement that is missing? Please state this so we can discuss it and resolve it. Ultramarine 22:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
No, I do not consent to change the subject; where's my apology for these personal attacks? Septentrionalis 22:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
The statements are sourced.Ultramarine 22:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
The assertions about my motives are the personal attacks; those are unsourced - and false. Septentrionalis 23:01, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Exactly what statement are you thinking of? I admit I used the wrong words above, it should have been "Septentrionalis has a long history of trying to exclude well-sourced advantages of democracy and related research."Ultramarine 23:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Can we keep this to more specific points. I can't see any point is these oh yes it is biased, oh no its not biased debates. --Salix alba (talk) 22:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Unless there are specific explanations of what is incorrect or missing, the templates should be removed.Ultramarine 22:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Let's begin with Ultramarine's apology; after that, he can pick which of the three methods to resolve this. Septentrionalis 22:50, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
See above. It is false to state that I have not accepted a Mediator, I certainly accepted for example Blue Tie. Obviously you must state concretely what is wrong or missing. Demanding that templates stating that there is factual errors should remain until after someone else have read a long list of books and articles, or until after a thorough review, which may find factual errors is absurd. Then we should have templates stating factual inaccuracy on every page.Ultramarine 23:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
The first item in the "to do list" seems to be to stop this endless quarrel. In any case, here are my opinions. a) This article talks about a legitimate theory, which may be true, false, or at present undecidable (just like, say, string theory). The article does not seem to be terribly bad, maybe a bit long and/or involved but I freely admit I presently would have no idea about how to break it in parts or make it more linear. b) Ultramarine clearly has a definite opinion about this theory, but in my 2-days experience he does not seem to be unreasonable in defending it. c) The article contains a whole lot of citations, the vast majority of which I of course don't know. I have checked a couple at random, and they don't seem to misrepresent what the source says. However, it would be helpful if Septentrionalis could point out precise examples of misquoting or biased report. d) I am especially dubious about the column of possible exceptions and rebuttals. Many of the entries would require additional comments or counter-rebuttals; just to make one example where I know what I am talking about, the row about Yugoslav wars 1991-1999 largely (in my opinion) over-emphasizes the un-democratic character of Serbia and tries (in my opinion) to obscure the very large democratic support Milosevic had at the time. There is a whole lot of bibliography pro and con on this issue, and clearly it gets lost in the one-sided view of the "rebuttal" column. Adding a counter-rebuttal column would probably require adding a counter-counter-rebuttal column and so on, so for the moment I think one should try and do his best to insert the pro-motivations in the first column, taking into account what the other column says also. As an alternative, one could possibly think of moving the table to a page of his own, but I understand that this could be a sensitive issue. e) About awkward english, sorry, English is not my native language and I am constantly hoping that someone corrects awkwardnesses :p in _my_ writing. so I personally can't help. The article looks fine to me in that respect. Massimamanno
The major flaws are in the reports of academic papers, mostly not available on line; although the list of wars continues to be questionable. Rather than repeat much of what I have said before, I refer to the discussion at Talk:Never at War, which discusses some of the flaws in a substantially identical list. Septentrionalis 02:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I have access to an universitary library... I'll try to check some of the claims. At the moment I focused on the list.User:Massimamanno!Massimamanno
Thanks for your suggestions. In fact, I am working an on improved version of that section with more details: User:Salix_alba/History_of conflict_between_democracies. I would be very happy if you could look at it and make improvements.Ultramarine 00:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
My original idea for the table was to have one column for status as democracies which could be kept fairly factual say: both states were young democracies, questions were raised as to the fairness of the elections in state A. Subsequent columns could discuss the interpretation, given by various authors. --Salix alba (talk) 07:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
One problem with that is that it is very difficult to separat facts and interpretation. If different researchers reach different interpretations, then they selectively cite certain facts and do not mention others. For example, regarding the Spanish-Amercian War, Gowa just states that Spain is classified as a "demcratic" in the Policy Data set. That is the only thing she states. Ray and Weart cite a long list of facts for why Spain was not a democracy as noted in the article. So I think that the current division is really do only practical one. Those who see conflicts can list the facts they use and their interpretation and the same for those who do not see a war.
Another prolem is that many of those who see wars do not explain why, they usually just state certain conflicts as self-evident examples of wars between democracies, making no further explanation.Ultramarine 08:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
This is because most students of the democratic peace have no problem acknowledging that there may be a few marginal exceptions, and therefore feel no need to discuss them. Septentrionalis 02:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

A moral comment

Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I am not going to add any of the following to the article, since I guess it qualifies as "original research". However, I am adding this to the discussion just to add my point of view. I am very interested in this article and the theory it proposes, since it is one of the very few pieces of research in the nature of international relationships which has the merit of being, at least to a significant degree, falsifiable. At least I hope that, if tomorrow an USA-Canada war would ensue, nobody would stand up and claim that either of them was not a (liberal) democracy. Now, to the point. It is, in my view, clear that Lebanon meets the requirements for being defined a democracy. There is universal adult suffrage, and clearly the government is determined by popular vote. However, I also agree that something is missing for lebanon to be considered an "estabilished liberal democracy", since Syrian troops left in 2005, the electoral law is somewhat made up as a compromise between various religious groups (christian and muslim), and some civil rights may be missing; however it seems to me undeniable that Lebanon is (was?) a state sincerely trying to make his transition towards a full liberal democracy, as the 'Cedar revolution' exemplifies well. Now my point is, how should one consider those wars that seem to be made by a liberal democracy to an evolving democracy for the precise reason of denying the transition to a full liberal democracy? The next thing I expect now, which I hope does not happen, is Syria occupying Lebanon again, with the excuse of "protecting" it. If lebanon's transition could have made its course completely, possibly Lebanon would have gained the EU and/or ONU support on many issues involving Israel; possibly the international community would have gained another reliable referent in the eastern community. Is this issue completely unrelated to the present crisis? And again, is this the only case in which we can see this pattern? Is this going to be replicated, and/or has it been done before? These are questions to which I may have tentative examples, but I do not want this contribution to become excessively long, so I leave these open, just as a suggestion that there could be a sort of "anthropic effect" when we define wars between liberal democracies, which may cause some liberal democracies to desire NOT that other countries become liberal democracies also, and to try achieve this result through war.

You are of course free to take this contribution as conspiracy theory; however it is only meant to be food for thought for the future, since only History will ultimately tell whether the theory this article talks about is sound or not; and it's inspired, in part, by the fear that Lebanon reverts to an authoritarian government again as a result of the current events.

-Massimamanno, 16 Jul 2006, 1.19 GMT

Here is the last free detailed Freedom House report: [5] As can be seen, Lebanon was rather undemocratic in 2004. Regarding Israel, I have read that at least part of the leadership accept the theory.[6] I think Israel's preferred option would be to disarm Hezbollah and let the Lebanese army gain full control over Lebanon. It is not impossible that that is what they intend. They seem to be cutting of all outside connections, especially with Syria. That could be preparation for an full-scale invasion in order to disarm Hezbollah. Only time will tell. Not also that many researchers state that the DPT is a statistical tendency, not an absolute law. A war between two well-established liberal democracies would only makes this tendency somewhat weaker.Ultramarine 00:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
It might be worth considering the Paradox of the heap (my favorite version) which basically gives the lie to any attempt to draw a fixed boundary, between democracies and non democracies.
What about the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, it does not seem to be mentioned? --Salix alba (talk) 10:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
The war began when the west Pakistan dominated government and army ignored the election results that would have given a majority to a east Pakistan party.Ultramarine 18:31, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The Palestinian Authority has been an elective government since 1996; it has even had a transfer of power through elections. Another democracy appears to regard this transfer as a casus belli; which should at least suggest a limitation on the democratic peace. Septentrionalis 22:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It is listed.Ultramarine 23:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

New list of of possible wars between liberal democracies

Latest comment: 18 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion

I am planning a new article on this. See the preliminary version here: User:Salix_alba/History_of conflict_between_democracies. Is there anything missing or incorrect? In particular, I would like to hear Septentrionalis objections, if any. It would not be good faith if he immediately lists it for deletion if he does not state his objections now and try to improve the article.Ultramarine 19:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I do think it would be good to make it as a seperate article, but I don't know how to get round the POV problem, perceived or otherwise. Maybe a dash of Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy might help. --Salix alba (talk) 20:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I and Massimamanno have added many more details for the pro democrat war arguments, so I hope this is mostly solved.Ultramarine 20:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the admission that the section is advocacy. Septentrionalis 01:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Huh? I have certainly not stated that.Ultramarine 01:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

It is a substantial recreation of a multiply deleted article; it remains a one-sided piece of advocacy. Septentrionalis 02:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

It is substantially improved by me and Massimamanno. If you are acting in good faith, please state what is wrong or missing so that it can corrected.Ultramarine 02:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
If Ultramarine were editing in good faith, he would never have written that piece of advocacy in the first place; he would have started a blog. Septentrionalis 02:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I again note that you refuse to make any constructive contributions, claiming problems but not explaining why.Ultramarine 02:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

the whole thing seems like a load of BS

Latest comment: 18 years ago11 comments2 people in discussion

they have to be "liberal" democracies in order for this to work. wonderful, so if we decide that so-and-so's democracy is not democratic enough, they dont count. by the same logic if the entire world was communist, or nazi there'd never be a war either. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.30.214.26 (talk • contribs) .

There are other methods of evasion; by the time you rule out all the democracies that are long-established, have no electoral problems, have unblemished respect for civil rights, and all the rest of the excuses used here, you aren't left with very many democracies at all. In the interests of the democratic peace, I must add that most students of the subject acknowledge that there may be a couple of marginal exceptions, but the democratic peace still exists, slightly imperfect. Septentrionalis 02:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
You are left with states representing almost half the world's population today.Ultramarine 02:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
That may be true in a few years; but neither Russia nor India could stand up to the sort of argumentation which the list of possible wars uses. More importantly, no such statement could possibly have been made before 1950; and if a genuine transfer of power by election is required, not before 1992. In short, the extreme form lacks data. Septentrionalis 02:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Freedom house classifies almost half the world's population as living in liberal democracies today. Regarding your statistical objections, publish in a journal. Wikipedia is not the place for original research.Ultramarine 02:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
They're not my statistical objections; they're Frank Wayman's. Since Ultramarine has cited this paper himself, he really ought to have read it. Septentrionalis 22:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

As the above should make clear, insisting on presenting the extreme form of DPT as if it were the norm only encourages skepticism. Septentrionalis 02:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, almost half the world's population is not a narrow definition.Ultramarine 02:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
This rhetoric amounts to the claim. which is in fact debateable, that India has not been to war with Pakistan when both were democracies; and that none of the (very few) full-scale wars in this millennium have been between democracies. As several sources on the subject reamrk, this is not statistically significant data. Septentrionalis 02:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Regarding that specific conflict, it is discussed in the article, as well as the objections to the theory. Most researchers consider the theory true.Ultramarine 02:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Repeating that falsehood does not make it any truer. (This is discussed in much more detail here.) A more accurate statement would be:
  • Most researchers agree that some form of the democratic peace exists; one researcher holds that it is absolute and automatic; a couple others holds there have been no exceptions. One of those expressly denies that there is enough data for this to prove anything, and there may not be for centuries. Septentrionalis 02:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
If there are many researchers seeing exceptions, please state what conflicts they are citing and their explanations for these conflicts being wars between democracies.Ultramarine 02:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Exceptions to wars between democracies are in the text. Most researchers will just use the Polity data, setting the limit for demoocracy at, say, +4, "ad hoc" rejections of individual wars being irrelevant because otherwise one would have to check the entire history of all democracy and eliminate possibly non democratic periods because of nondemocratic practice or lack of civil rights, thus in fact having to make an entirely new democracy rating from the ground up (which would then still be accused to be biased). Otherwise, the procedure of excluding wars would be statistically wrong. See also this Ph.D. Thesis for a good discussion. [7]. So, most researchers will accept the Spanish-American war (however questionable) and Kargil war, for example to be wars between estabilished (electoral) democracies. However, that there have been no wars between estabilished liberal democracies, which one may define as a) rated +8 or more on the polity data set, or b) as above until Freedom House data begins, and rated "free" on the FH data after that, appears to be still a valid claim. Statistical significance of it is another, quite technical, matter, to be discussed elsewhere, probably in the main text for the theory. I believe there is still some work to do on the text, maybe eliminating irrelevant examples, adding some clarification, checking the wording of some statements but I believe the draft to be largely correct. Massimamanno


Almost all wars are between business interests - liberal/conservative, who cares. This has got to be one of the dumbest theories I have ever heard, I thought this was just a gag page at first.

Another unsupported claim

Latest comment: 18 years ago23 comments2 people in discussion

This edit has the following edit summary:

Independent parties have reviewd and removed tags, as you asked. Everyone on the talk page has asked you to explain yourself).

As often, Ultramarine's claims appear to be figments of his imagination. I see no review, and no discussion, of the tags; and the only person who has asked me for an explanation has been Ultramarine - and I have done so. He is also the only person to have removed the tags. If I see some consensus of which he is not part, I will defer to it. (As for {{balance}}, it states that "some Wikipedian has expressed" a certain opinion; that is a simple statement of fact, and the grounds for the opinion have not changed any. Septentrionalis 22:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

"However, it would be helpful if Septentrionalis could point out precise examples of misquoting or biased report."[8]. "Can we keep this to more specific points. I can't see any point is these oh yes it is biased, oh no its not biased debates."[9]. Regarding the tags: "one is enough"[10]Ultramarine 22:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I hereby officially state that i believe the "totally disputed" tag to be inappropriate. That tag means that there are a lot of factual inaccuracies in the section, and I actually see none. I have nothing against the "not neutral" tag on the article. Infact, wording may still be biased in the article. Massimamanno
For the factual errors, see the discussion at Talk:Never at War; many of those errors are still in this text. Septentrionalis 23:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Please list any claimed factual errors here. There have been extensive changes since that discussion many months ago.Ultramarine 23:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion Talk:Never at War is a sad example of a long quarrel between two people who both have predefined contrary opinions and try to fit facts to them. I would prefer not to dig into it very much. Also, it's true that some of the claims have been addressed. Could you state what inaccuracies are left? Re: original research. I have to agree that the part on ongoing wars undoubtedly contains original research which has been inserted because there was too little material of non-original research. would you agree to remove the tag if that part is drastically cut? do you think the entire table should not be there? Would you agree to removing the table substituting it with a sentence saying "some of the debated cases are...." and linking to a different page for a deeper discussion? Do you think a deeper discussion is simply not legitimate to be in wikipedia? I have difficulties in understanding your position clearly.Massimamanno
That is, in fact, the arrangement I support. The problem is that Ultramarine insists on making any discussion of the individual cases a polemic in favor of the position that two democracies never, ever go to war.
  • This is an extreme and minority position in the field, supported by only three authors.
  • Even in them, it depends upon an extremely narrow definition of democracy, and further ad hoc arguments, which would reduce the pool of democracies even more.
  • Most authors are content to assert, accurately, that there are very few or no exceptions to the democratic peace; and the exceptions are marginal cases. Septentrionalis 13:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
This is incorrect. If researcher states few or no conflicts, then they mean that, not that they are certain that there are excpetions. There are certainly more than 3 arguing for no wars, as have been shown repeatedly before.Ultramarine 14:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Congratulations, Ultramarine, you have reached utter incoherence. Those who say "few or none", like those who say "very few", should not be quoted as supporting "none". Septentrionalis 14:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Huh? I of course referring to other authors than those who state "few or none". For example, Wayman, Bremer, Oneal, Muller, Wolff, de Mesquita, and so on state no wars.Ultramarine 16:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
ok, re: mexican-american war. What exactly are you disputing here? Are you disputing that Paredes took power in a coup? Probably not. Are you disputing that he was in charge at the time of the war declaration? Probably not. Probably, what you are disputing is that the US annexation of Texas of 1945 was, according to some historicians, made on purpose to provoke Mexico, and so the war should be retrodated to that time? In my opinion this would be a weak argument, but you could write it... Or I could, if that is the problem. Is it?Massimamanno
No; the argument is that the quarrel had proceeded to the point of a breach of diplomatic relations and an ultimatum before Paredes took power, and even if he had not, the concessions required by the United States would not have been given. Your edit supplied some of this, but could be stronger. Septentrionalis 13:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
My source says the ambassadors had both "asked for their passport". I did not include the statement, although I was tempted, because I am not sure on what it means. I interpret it as an almost-breaking of diplomatic relations? I agree it should be included. However, I am still not sure it is significant, because my source says also that "The congress would not have voted for the war unless the Mexican attacked" and Paredes seemed reluctant to do so.Massimamanno
On Peru: Do you have any sources on the Peruvian franchise in 1879? The "one in fifty" statement can be found in several sources, but derives from a description of Peru in the early 1850's. (I have no evidence of liberalization either, unlike Chile; but it should be checked.) Septentrionalis 13:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The original research research tag largely refers to the inclusion of the Fashoda Incident and the Ruhr in the list at all, which is Ultramarine's misunderstanding of their place in the literature. No one contends they were wars; in fact, the Ruhr is a type-case of non-violent resistance.

Christopher Layne argued that, if there is a real democratic peace, it should be possible to see its mechanisms in cases where democracies have avoided war with each other despite a crisis. He studied four examples, of which these are two; and found that there was neither a popular sentiment for peace nor any proceedural difference from the decisions of autocracies. Instead, one side decided they could not afford to fight that war at that moment, and backed down, usually despite difficulties arising from democratic pressures.

I do not claim that this argument disposes of the democratic peace; in fact, one of the papers listed as omitted above replies to it. (For the record, my PoV is that there is a democratic peace of some kind, but that there is probably insufficient data to tell what kind.) Including them in this list, however, is a novel synthesis. Septentrionalis 13:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

We can certainly remove these conflicts. Layne's study is mentioned, as are the counter-arguments.Ultramarine 14:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "Russett finds no wars between liberal democracies in modern times but uses different definitions for democracy and war for Ancient Greece." which is disputed by Pmanderson. Russett states that he uses the 1000 battle deaths defintion for modern wars on p. 12. However, on p. 50, for wars in Ancient Greece, he only requires a battle. He also states on p. 15 "by the middle to late twentieth century nothing less than a substantially univeral franchise will suffice". This would exclude every state in Ancient Greece, many of which he finds democratic.Ultramarine 15:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "There was never a competitive presidential election in the confederacy. In the 1861 presidential election, on November 6, there was no choice of candidates." which is disputed by Pmanderson. Would it be acceptable to simply change it to "In the 1861 presidential election, on November 6, there was no choice of candidates." Ultramarine 14:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

This entire strain of argument is inconsistent with the claims of Rummel and Weart that a democratic culture takes three years or so to develop. The Southern states had taken part in a bitterly contested presidential election as recently as 1860; and had been doing so at least since 1796. (One of the chief problems at Montgomery was getting the Breckenridge, Bell and Douglas men to cooperate.) The same objection applies to the treatment of the Anglo-Irish War, and to some extent the Indo-Pakistani war of 1948. Septentrionalis 02:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Weart notes that abolitionists were censored and imprisoned even before Lincoln was elected and that he was not on the ballot in most parts of the South.Ultramarine 03:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I am uncertain about the exact weight of this argument because probably a democratic culture would need to develop not only in the population, but also in the sense of a responsible and mature dirigential class, including politicians, ministers, bureaucrates, and army generals. However I have to point out (actually it was in my personal list of things to discuss or correct, but since the point has come out) that the way the 3 years rule is applied in the case of Cyprus in 1974 is borderline to absurd: A democracy is interrupted for 20 days by a semi-aborted coup and then it is claimed that the following democratic regime is no longer 3 years old because from here it starts again from zero... sigh Massimamanno
Please read Never at War regarding the differences between democracies and oligarchies. The South was an oligarchy. Regarding Cyprus, mabye we should add more details, like that many of the participants of the bloody coup was in the new regime and that the elected president was not.Ultramarine 03:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't quite understand. Makarios (the elected president) was restored and the new government was even more democratic than the previous one (according to Polity).Massimamanno
No, Makarios had fled the country. The Speaker of Parliament temporarily become President. Many of the coup leaders remained in the cabinet. Later, after the war, Makarios returned.Ultramarine 03:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not understand the need for templates disputing both Neutrality and Undue weight. Undue weight is one form of a Neutrality dispute, as the link on the template states. Thus, I think the undue weight template should be removed, which also an independent editor thinks. [11]. Do anyone disagree and why? Otherwise, I will remove it.Ultramarine 02:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

{{Npov}} asserts that the article is biased in phrasing. {{Balance}} asserts that the article relies excessively on one type of sources. While related, they are distinct; in an extreme, it would be possible to write entirely from Ray Rummel and Weart, and still express the results neutrally. Septentrionalis 02:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Both templates link to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view Ultramarine 02:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Another red herring; they are different aspects of the policy. Septentrionalis 02:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
"{{Npov}} asserts that the article is biased in phrasing." Source please. The templates links to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. The balance templates links to a section in that article.Ultramarine 02:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Classification of theories

Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion

The following may be helpfull since the classification has disappeared from the text. Unfortunately, Ultramarine alternates between

  • affirming the wide support for the democratic peace, which is true; and
  • claiming that the form of Rummel, Ray and Weart is the only DPT, and therefore that those who disagree with that theory oppose the democratic peace, even when, as with Maoz, they strongly support it.
    • Response: Incorrect. I certainly agree that for example Maoz support the DPT as a strong statistical tendency, even when he also states that the Spanish-American War is an exception without giving any explanation for this.Ultramarine 15:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

There are three questions which divide those who accept the democratic peace.

  • Are democracies at peace only among themselves, or are they more peaceful in general;
    • Peaceful among themselves only: Doyle, Russett, Weart, Gleditsch, Owen, Singer and Small, Mansfield and Snyder, Mueller, Wolff in fact, almost everybody.
    • Peaceable with non-democracies: Rummel, Ray and half-a-dozen other papers listed in Mueller and Wolff
  • Is the democratic peace an automatic and mechanical thing, or is it a strong statistical tendency?
    • Automatic (and so without exceptions): Rummel, Ray and Weart (as far as I can tell nobody else)
      • Response: Incorrect. Only Rummel argues for automatic. Ray has stated that there may be exceptions in the future and Weart's explanation for the peace has no trouble with a few exceptions.Ultramarine 15:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Statistical tendency:Wayman, Bremer, Chan, Cederman, Doyle, Russett, Owen, MW, Gleditisch, Mansfield and Snyder
      • Of these some say there have in fact been no exceptions yet, but explicitly reject view the chance of interdemocratic war is zero: Wayman, Bremer,Manfield and Snyder
      • Some hold no exceptions, and are tatistical, but don't go out of their way to refute determinism: Doyle,
      • Some discuss one or two exceptions:Gleditisch, Maoz
      • Most use words like "rare", "very rare", "'virtually' immune to war".
      • Multiple correlation studies don't talk about exceptions, only outliers (and there aren't really enough here to be serious outliers.
      • Russett is a special case; he thinks there have been no such wars in the last two centuries, but somewhere between 13 and 35 in ancient Greece, and that the democratic peace is growing with time,
  • Is liberal democracy enough, or do the other factors Kant discussed have independent effect?
    • Kantian:Doyle, Russett, Owen, Hegre, Cederman,...
    • Non Kantian: Gleditsch, Rummel, Ray, Weart.
      • Response: No DPT researchers states that democracy is the only thing affecting the risk of wars. There are several researchers mentioned in the article who dispute the effects of trade. However, I cannot recall Rummel and Ray disputing this.Ultramarine 15:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

As you can see, these divisions cross one another, and so there are many factions possible. Every major theorist rolls his own DPT. and it only agrees 80% or so with other people's. Rummel (with Ray) and Weart are probaly closer together, and Ultramarine belongs to this same faction,

  • Gowa, Mearsheimer, Layne, and so forth, are striaght opponents, and outside these questions.

Septentrionalis 14:43, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Athens

Latest comment: 18 years ago17 comments2 people in discussion
Many of the government leaders in Athens were selected by allotment and thus did not have to worry about being elected or re-elected.

This is a novel synthesis; the Athenians who decided on war and peace were the Ten Generals, who were elected, and the orators, who held no office at all, and thus lost all power if they lost popular support. Septentrionalis 02:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

This is Ray's argument.Ultramarine 02:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Reference please. Septentrionalis 02:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
It is in the article. I will make it clearer.Ultramarine 02:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I have read those pages. I note:
  • That Ray explains, correctly, that requiting female suffrage would mean no possibility of a democracy before the twentieth century.
    • Russett explicitly changes his definition after WWII, not between antiquity and modern times. He does discuss nineteenth century democracies as evolving the norm of a democratic peace, and uses male suffrage in that discussion.
  • Ray's source for the assertion made is Sir Moses Finley's Democracy, ancient and modern, p. 18. This is a remarkably -er- careless job of citation; he would have found, on the same page:
    • "Political leaders...were of necessity brought into a direct and immediate relationship with their constituents, and therefore under more direct and immediate control"
    • "The Assembly, which had the final descision on war and peace,[list of other activities] was an outdoor mass meeting of many thousand citisens, over the age of eighteen, as chose to attend on any given day."
In short, Ray has misread his only source, and should not be prefered to it. Septentrionalis 18:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
This is still not very similar to modern liberal democracies. Maybe direct democracies are very prone to wars. Regardless, the claims apply to liberal democracies.Ultramarine 18:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
That would be a relevant argument; you may even be able to find a source for it.;-> What you cite from Ray is a false claim of fact, which should not be included; this is not a list of sophisms. When it is removed, the other remark on Ray can go as well. Septentrionalis 19:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
That is Ray's argument and he states nothing that is factually wrong. He does not state that all leaders were selected by allotment.Ultramarine 19:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I think Pmanderson's objection is valid and interesting and should stay, although in dubitative form. Also, I have a question: what do you exactly mean with "citizen's natural rights?" If you mean "human rights", which are of course "natural" and extended to citizens also, I think you should state "human natural rights", because the wording appears to be misleading. If you mean specifically "citizen's rights", which are not "natural" since they can be gained or lost acquiring and losing citizenship, they seem to have been very present in ancient Athens, although they may have been differnt from today.[[User::Massimamanno|Massimamanno]]
Ray uses the word citizen's natural rights. This may be because there were the concept of such rights after the enlightenment, but they did not apply to blacks and doubtfully to women and homosexuals. So it may be better to speak of a citizen's natural rights rather than universal human rights.Ultramarine 18:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

(left )He says "selection of governmental leaders by lot means that those leaders were not responsible to their constituents". This is in itself a misreading of Finley, who makes a clear distinction between leaders, like Pericles, who achieved power by persuasion and election, and administrators, appointed by lot. But for our purposes, it is sufficient to ask: Was the power to decide on war acquired by lot?

  • If Ray's text means "No", his argument is literally meaningless.
  • If Ray's text means "yes", it is merely wrong.

I am prepared to edit the article in this sense, if Ultramarine insists, but assuming the second alternative seemed more courteous. Septentrionalis 20:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You have a point. But arguably the allotment system affected the whole democratic culture, which made it different from liberal democracies. Since we do not know exactly why liberal democracies are peaceful, we cannot say that this difference is unimportant, even if allotment was not used regarding war decisions, which used direct democracy instead. I do certainly think we should mention this criticsm of Ray, but he is not factually incorect and we cannot say that this difference to liberal democracies is unimportant.Ultramarine 21:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
If you can find someone who says this, put him in. It will probably mean dissolving the table and making that section into prose, but it is not really about individual wars anyway.
Closer to hand, the article is asserting a falsehood in Wikipedia's voice. Yhis is unacceptable. If you wish to ascribe it to Ray, fine; he certainly implies it; if he does not mean it, he is talking nonsense. If not, it is unsourced. Choose. Septentrionalis 21:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
He does not state anything factually incorrect. He states "Many, perhaps most, important governmental leaders in Athens, for exmaple, were not selected in competitive elections". What is your source for that the general political culture is not important for the DPT?Ultramarine 06:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
This is unacceptable, as is th red herring about general political culture, which is not the issue here. Ray is in error here. The text doesn't have to say that, but distortion of the facts will not do; this special pleading will not save it.Septentrionalis 18:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Massimamanno added your point to anti-DPT section. Why did you remove his text? The arguments from both sides were fairly represented.Ultramarine 18:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


Why this revert? [12] Why did you remove Massimamanno's addition? Why did you remove all of the additions I had made, all clarifying Ray's view? Please explain.Ultramarine 18:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the objectionable material regarding allotment, although I though that it was an interesting discussion. I still think that the widespread use of allotment may affect the general democratic culture, so properly Ray's argument should be mentioned, with the counter-argument.Ultramarine 19:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

No Wars

Latest comment: 18 years ago12 comments4 people in discussion

from archive
POV: Many advocates not mentioned "A couple of the advocates of perfect democratic peace have examined the rather extensive record of wars and lesser conflicts between "primâ facie democracies".[63]. They conclude that no democracy has gone to war with another, unless". This view is much more widepspread than this. As a study (Frank A. Wayman) notes, "it remains true that there have been no inter-state wars between a clear-cut liberal democracy and another such state. All this empirical literature hangs on the examination of MIDs rather than inter-state wars" [13]" This is an important point, most of the dispute is about MIDs, not wars. Here are some other researchers who have also stated no wars:

  • Dean Babst
  • Melvin Small
  • J. David Singer
  • Rudolph J. Rummel
  • Michael Doyle
  • Bruce Russett
  • Spencer R. Weart
  • James Lee Ray
  • Jack Levy
  • Zeev Maoz
  • Nazrin Abdoli
  • Stuart Bremer
  • Frank W. Wayman
  • John R. Oneal
  • Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
  • Randolph Siverson
  • James D. Morrow
  • Alastair Smith
  • Harald Müller
  • Jonas Wolff
  • Edward D. Mansfiled
  • Jack Snyder

See User:Ultramarine/Possible exceptions to "Well-established democracies have never made war on one another" and [14][15][16][17]Ultramarine 05:32, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

These papers are
I replaced the name of the author of the study that you quoted. That edit seems like it was in bad faith. --Scaife (Talk)   Don't forget Hanlon's Razor 05:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Ultramarine, there is a difference between "rare" and "zero". The first four names of your list say "zero", although Russett diverges on ancient Greece IIRC. Levy's quote is "nearest thing to a law"; you put it in yourself, read it. Wayman, in the first paper you cite here, says "rare" not zero. Maoz recognises the Spanish-American War as (the only) exception; so does Bremer. The second paper you cite here quotes Russett and Maoz as saying "virtually immune"; that's not the same thing as "immune".
    • The others I have no evidence on at the moment.
  • Most of the dispute is about MIDs because there are so few wars of any kind for the data to be meaningful; not because of zero democratic wars (as opposed to one).
  • Please read your sources before presenting them. Septentrionalis 06:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
My sources clearly state no wars for all of them except Babst and there we seem to agree.Ultramarine 06:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
This is because you have failed to read half your sources, and on the other half are mistaking a generalization for a precise statement. Septentrionalis 06:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Instead of just doing a google search, why don't you go to the library and read this stuff? More than half of these people are minor players in the DPT conversation, while the others saying that there have been "zero" wars is dubious. --Scaife (Talk)   Don't forget Hanlon's Razor 06:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

In terms of the analogy below, Ray, Weart and Rummel are A's. Babst is also an A, although he accomplishes this by calling the Boer War a rebellion, which it was not.

Singer and Small's 1976 paper is a C. They name two "marginal exceptions": the Roman-French war of 1849 and the Continuation War.

Russett is a C; his exceptions are 13 wars between Greek democracies, and 23 more probable ones. He also holds that the norm of interdemocratic peace developed at the close of the nineteenth century (p.5) , and was still being built by the World Wars and the Cold War. pp(73-4), even before 1939 he says "rare"

Levy is s C; "nearest thing to a law" is not "a law".

Maoz and Abdolali [sic] (1989) was an A, but Maoz expressly changed his mind in his 1994 paper, and notes the Spanish-American War as an exception. He is now a C. Nazrin Abdolali was still a graduate student when this paper was published; he does not appear to have written on DPT since. [18]

Bremer's 1992 paper is a multivariate analysis. As such, it is unlikely to speak explicitly of exceptions; but he carefully uses "less likely" and "less war-prone" towards each other. C+.

Wayman (paper cited) is an A; I note, á propos another discussion, his other comments: But, if we rely solely on whether there has been an inter-democratic war, it is going to take many more decades of peace to build our confidence in the stability of the democratic peace...The objection that there haven't been enough modern wars to feel confident that democracies don't fight each other, especially when combined with the further objection that there might be a need to control for third variables.... The reason for concentration on MID's is not that the question of war is settled, but that there is too little data there, even for those who accept zero wars.

Mesquita et al. constructs another game theoretic model to explain the democratic peace; they accept their data at second hand, with the same qualifications (Russett's "virtually immune" etc.) as the original authors The only statement made in their own voice seems to be that democracies "have a tendency not to fight one another", which is again C.

Müller and Wolff say that "democracies are more peaceful towards each other" not at peace. See also their footnote 44 : "a perceptual peace, not a perpetual peace". C.

Owen's review of Mansfield and Snyder is plainly a B, as the review of a book-length thesis. I will enquire what their actual position is; since the argument Owen is interested in is that young democracies are warlike, they may well hold that middle-aged democracies have had an exception.

"No war between mature democracies". Their definition of mature, however, reminds me of the phrase "For all sufficently nice" X, in the list of mathematical jargon. Page 78 appears to say that mature = not democratizing = at least 5 years since the attainment of complete democracy; thus, for example, Russia was still democratizing at the election of Vladimir Putin in 2000; and from the tone of their discussion, may not be done yet.

Septentrionalis 21:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC) completed 19:35, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

This is the most recent discussion in the archives: [19]Ultramarine 02:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

In addition to Weart, Ray, and Rummel:

  • Wayman: "it remains true that there have been no inter-state wars between a clear-cut liberal democracy and another such state. All this empirical literature hangs on the examination of MIDs rather than inter-state wars" [20]
  • Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, James D. Morrow, Randolph Siverson, Alastair Smith, Jack Levy: "One such generalization, sometimes even asserted to be an empirical law of international relations (Levy 1988), is that democracies do not fight wars with one another. The empirical evidence for this claim is, in fact, quite strong" [21]
  • Müller, Harald & Wolff, Jonas "After all, the “dual finding” – that democracies though not fighting each other are in war with non-democracies in many cases and initiate such wars from time to time – remains valid."[22]
  • Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder "Their thesis, first published in 1995, is that although mature democracies do not fight one another," [23]
  • Gelpi, Christopher F. & Griesdorf, Michael "The bulk of the literature centers on the absence of war between democracies." [24]
  • Various older studies mentioned in: [25]Ultramarine 03:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)



Analogy

One problem here is that Ultramarine believes English idiom is more logical than is in fact the case. Consider students of Baseball:

  • A writes "American League players never play against the National League."
  • B writes "The American League doesn't play the National League", and turns from a brief description of baseball as a whole to batting averages (or whatever his paper is really about).
  • C writes "The two leagues hardly ever play against each other."

Both B and C are consistent with a later footnote excluding the World Series; they may or may not say different things about the All-Star Game and exhibition games - depending on what is the best definition for their present purposes.

C does, B may, disagree with A (whether he does is a question of fact). All three of them support the Two-League Theory; and will turn and rend

To further the analogy, A might then go on to argue that his paper is a theorem, by adopting the following restictions on his definition of "Baseball":
  1. It means Major League Baseball only.
  2. It means only games that count towards a team's standing in its league or division.
  3. It excludes any play involving a league that has been involved in a player lockout within the preceding fifteen years.
These "prove" A's case as follows:
  • They exclude minor leagues, little league, non-league games etc., even if major league players are present. Most people would see this as reasonable, and B and C and probably D are all doing so as well.
  • They exclude special exhibition games, such as the Baseball Hall of Fame game. Most people wouldn't care much.
  • They exclude pre-season games, which many baseball fans follow avidly and would expect to be included.
  • They exclude the All-Star Game, which nearly all fans would expect to be included
  • They exclude the World Series. This would astonish most people.
  • They exclude all play since 1994 until at least 2010. Since interleague play during the regular season began in 1997, the theorem is safe. Most people would see this as a crock.
A could, and probably would, piously intone that he is could have defined "X-ball" and no one would object, but of course the entire interest of his paper arises because people like "Baseball", and he has a responsibility to use the term as normally employed or else qualify it. "Until 1997, MLB did not involve regular-season interleague play," is a far better way to communicate the idea. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I can't follow arguments about baseball. Please use Football (soccer) instead. Massimamanno
Unfortunately, I don't know idiom or fine points of the playing soccer, and as far as I know there is a single national league in most countries. But perhaps a similar point would be someone who argued "French players never play Italians" and defined away players on a team not of their own nationality, exhibition games, and the World Cup. Septentrionalis 17:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Roman Repulic

Latest comment: 18 years ago26 comments2 people in discussion

re: papal states vs. French second republic: balance edit. In my opinion, statements positively definig opinions of entire groups of people, such as "the roman deputies were ready to be martyrs" or "the french officers refused everything democratic" should not be accepted even if they are refernced, unless the source actually supplies results of a poll in which the majority of deputies states that they were ready to be martyrs, which I believe does not. Also, the statement "Napoleon shot, jailed, or sent into exile thousands of his opponents." seems to be ambiguous. The fact is undisputed AFTER his later coup. I need reference for this having happened already in 1848-49 Massimamanno

These are all similar to statements from Weart's book. However, it would probably be more accurate to state that "many of the French officer, who had made their careers under the old monarchy, distruted democracy." and "Guiseppe Mazzini and some of his followers were ready to be martyrs". Regarding the persecutions, they happened after the war had started, so it is of dubious relevance. However, they happened before he become emperor.Ultramarine 14:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
The first statement is nothing new, and is in my opinion already included in the "older than 3 years" rule: at every regime change, part of the military will still be loyal to the old one; in italy, there have been reports of plans of military copus to restore monarchy and/or fascism up to the '60s. But I guess you can add it, if it's to make weight. The second statements, according to my understanding of Mazzini's thought, is incorrect: Mazzini sincerely believed that he could win the war, because he thought that no war of foreign aggression can be lost if one has sufficient popular support. Indeed, he did repel the first wave of french aggression with the decisive supprot many improvised peasant units. If you include the second statement, I will then include support for my view of Mazzini's thought.
Weart's sources for this are Harry Header, "Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento, 1790 -1870", chaps. 7,8. Harry Header "The making of the Roman Republic, 1848-1849", History (60), 1975. Gwilym O. Griffith, "Mazzini: Prophet of the Modern Europe". Alberto M. Ghisalberti, "Roma da Mazzini a Pio IX: Ricerche sulla Restaurazione Papale del 1849-1850". He notes "Mazzini has spent months in jail and years in impoverished exile, he friends captured and tortured; he had known only defeat, yet every defeat had added to the moral power of his movement." "He saw in the Roman Repubic not just an earthly city but symbol of univeral liberty, which would only become stronger the more martyrs died in its name. Mazzini did not think like an elected leader negotiating the best deal he could get for his nation, but like a self-anointed prophet calling on the world ot follow his star" "Their reckless defence inspired young men everyhwere with ardent visions of fighting for libery; in the long run the victory would be Mazzini's"Ultramarine 15:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Even if he had miraculously managed to defeat the French, just behind were Austrian and Spanish armies moving toward Rome.Ultramarine 15:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I may be a bit sensitive on this particular matter, since I am Italian, and even from the same city as Mazzini, but I must admit that I find Weart's comment to be slightly deflamatory. Defeatist thinking would not have united Italy, neither in 1848 nor in 1860-70, when Mazzini and Garibaldi (who was defending the Roman Republic also) are counted among the greatest artefices of the unification. But, as I say, being Italian and having mostly access to Italian literature on Mazzini may affect my judgement. Let me just quote the letter which Mazzini, Armellini and Saffi sent to the French General Oudinot who had just landed near Civitavecchia. Ironically, it also contains what appears to be a message to the supporters of Democratic Peace Theory:) (my translation from French)
Rome, 28th April 1849
General. Your communications have been received. They are extremely painful for us. We have always believed in the fraternal friendship of France; and the very first hostile act upon us comes fron France herself.
The landing of the army at your orders, General, with no previous communication, without the slightest sign of provocation from our part. Your first declaration speaks of us as of an anarchist minority. You have sieged Civitavecchia. Today, you are marching towards Rome. You declare to be going to enter our Capital, when the Government, the Assembly, the People, all of them ask that you stay away from it. This is no friendship, General; this is the behaviour of an enemy.
General, the consequences of your actions are incalculable. Disorder, struggle, resistance organized by us; your projects of restoration have been rejected by the People, and are unrealizable; the rise of reaction and hate against the name of France is what you will get: Here, General, what you are coming for, we will bring you.
In the name of God, in the name of France and Italy, General, stop your march. Avoid a war between brothers. LET NOT HISTORY SAY: THE FRENCH REPUBLIC MADE, FOR NO REASON, HIS FIRST WAR AGAINST THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC! You have, evidently, been lied about the state of our Country; take the courage to inform your Government abot it, and wait for new orders. We are determined to respond to the force of arms with the force of arms. And the responsability of such a catastrophe will not lie upon us.
Giuseppe Mazzini
Carlo Armellini
Aurelio Saffi Massimamanno
Arguably, this French army was the only chance Mazzini had in order to avoid being conquered by the Austrian and Spanish armies. He should have done everything in his power to ally with them, making whatever compromise needed. He needed the French in Rome. When Italy finally was united, it was with the help of one the great powers, France. Trying to fight them all at the same time may be noble but seems suicidal. This letter seems to show an idealist, but hardly a shrewd politician.Ultramarine 01:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
My last words on this issue: a) the only compromise the republic could submit to was, to my knowledge, restoration of the Pope under a semi-constitutional rule which had failed already and which, in any case, the French could not even promise because once he would return, the Pope would have done what he pleased. So, effectively, Mazzini and the assembly did not compromise to defend democracy. b) Mazzini lost his chance of a more decisive victory over the retreating French because he still hoped in an alliance with the French republic, basing his hope on the fact that both countries were democracies. Because of this, he started negotiations which were just deception and treated war prisoners as valuable hosts. Thus, in effect, Mazzini's actions were wrong because he held too much faith in Democratic Peace Theory (so to speak). c) The only time at which the "wannabe martyr" case may be justified is in the final days of the Republic, when defeat was certain and Mazzini did not want to surrender. However, the Assembly voted against him and surrendered. So, even in this case, one can see that democracy was still in action.
Said that, it's a free world, write what you feel correct to write, I may reply with rebuttals, discuss again, etc. :) .Massimamanno
A semi-constitutional rule with French troops in Rome is better than completely autocratic with Austrian/Spanish troops. The Pope would have had some difficulty in restoring all his power with French troops in town. If they left, and the other foreign powers, then there could be a new revolution. Compromise, take whatever you can, and wait for better times. It was Count Camillo Benso di Cavour diplomacy which in the end unified Italy.Ultramarine 02:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

"Other arguments merely show that democracy may not have been functioning perfectly in either state, as it has rarely been in history and especially at this time." I think this should be removed. When the military makes a full-scale assault without the consent of the elected assembly, then there are serious problems.Ultramarine 03:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I could agree to change the wording (I mean changing it from my latest change also), but sincerely I don't think it means much. Especially because you don't go searching for similar cases in all history, excluding democracies where a president does something which is not strictly included in his powers Massimamanno
If the military makes war on its own, then it is not the democratic system that makes war. Regarding Napoleon, the officers may have counted on his tacit support, but neither he or the French assembly consented to the assult.Ultramarine 04:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
In fact, Napoleon could not launch an attack according to the constitution. Only the assembly could, according to the constitution, and it never did.Ultramarine 04:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Source for Napoleon not consenting???? Also, the Assembly gave consent to an operation against a sort of anarchist rebellion. Lying to the parliament in order to fund a war isn't unknown even in modern times (WOMD, anyone?). Ah yeah, I might add that to the discussion. Sources please...Massimamanno
Again, Weart. The assembly consented to restoring peace in and protecting Rome. It never approved a full scale war. Especially not the bloody second assault, after more information had reached Pars, that conquered Rome. The officers on the scene acted on their own with no support from the democratic system.Ultramarine 04:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand the situation. The assembly's vast majority was conservative and catholic, it was only the minority republicans who protested in france. I have at least two sources saying that the assembly voted for the expedition (sources which don't state what was told to the assembly however). Furthermore, you gave no source for Louis Napoleon not having ordered the action. He sent reinforcements after the first defeat!!! Come on... however let's postpone this to tomorrow, I'll find a good coherent and complete reference on the whole affair. Meanwhile, look at the Cyprus case, I need a reference there too... goodnightMassimamanno
Weart's book is a perfectly acceptable source. The assembly consented to the expidition in order to protect Rome. It was misinformed regarding the situation, believing the Roman people would welcome the French in order to protect the city from a chaotic regime using terror and foreign enemies. Regarding the second assault, there were many conservatives in the assembly that were afraid of the radicals in Rome. However, Napoleon did still not dare to try a vote. He could not himself lauch an attack. He may have tacitly supported the officers ordering the second assault, but he never gave any explicit order. So this conflict was caused by misperception regarding the democratic status of Rome and military officers acting on their own. The assembly never consented to attacking another perceived democracy. Regarding Napoleon, he could not order an attack legally, and if he supported an assault covertly, he did not follow the democratic constitution and democratic procedures. Regardless, both democracies were less than 3 years old.Ultramarine 05:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Too long. It is meant just to represent the situation to you, I will later make a summary.Massimamanno
Weart gives a different view and lists many sources for his statements. As a well-sourced academic book on the DPT it is a significant view.Ultramarine 05:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The democracy did not function very well in France as evidenced by the bloody repression of radicals in France, both before and during the war, and Napoleon's interference in the 1849 elections. The assembly was dominated by conservatives afraid of the radicals in the Roman Republc, but they did not declare war or order an assault.Ultramarine 05:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
sorry, but I still don't accept the wording "shot, jailed, or sent into exile thousands of his internal opponents". there is a big difference between these 3 actions, you should distinguish the numbers. It's like saying "that criminal killed, raped or stole from 73 people"
I will rephrase it.Ultramarine 07:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
your representation of the situation in France is overtoned and dramatic. I don't find it represented this way anywhere in the literature. The newly elected assembly in june 1849 unambiguously voted supporting the war. also, i find no reference whatsoever to electoral fraud, but they appear to be irrelevant given the fact that Napoleon won with an overwhelming majority. Massimamanno
Weart's book is regarding the DPT and has many references. Napoleon's interference was with 1849 assembly elections. When a state two times in two years kills many demonstrators and send into exile many more, then there are problems with (liberal) democracy. Ultramarine 07:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
this is not in discussion as it is not that both states were young. The point is to accurately represent reality. Note that using political opponent's reports on election results I could show that the USA was not a democracy after the Bush-Gore election. Proving that the 1849 elections were rigged seems to be much harder. Pleas find the primary source or at least quote all of them so that I can find it.Massimamanno
Weart quotes mainly secondary sources. Obviously he cannot quote primary sources since he examines a rather large part of human history. Regarding thr 1849 election, his sources seem to be: Price, Second French Republic, p. 228-236; Jacques Bouillon, "Les Democrates-socialistes aux elextions de 1849" Revue francaise de science politique 6 (1956); 70-95; Theodore Zeldin "Government Policy in French General Election of May 1849" English Historical Review (1959): 240-248; Bourgeois, Rome et Napoleon III p. 47-52.Ultramarine 09:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
He only mentions this election briefly "Louse-Napoleon's goverment covertly instructed local officials to obstruct democrats and help his conservative allies, and the peasantry, with its ingrained deference to authority, duly elected a conservative majority. Yet radicals did will in the elections, and panicky conservatives feared a leftist takeover cold not be staved off for long" But in essence I do not think he disputes that the elections were mostly democratic.Ultramarine 11:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
so Weart states that (some) officers unofficially CAMPAIGNED for the conservatives, not that they manipulated election results, is that rigt? This is not what seems to be written in your text. As for the rest, please do not remove anything yet. It'll just take away some more time. I will consider your objections, really. Acting unilaterally you' just risk starting a very stupid edit war. Massimamanno
It should be noted that Weart states regarding this war "The only outright modern war between definite, if transient democracies".Ultramarine 11:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to remove these statements unless there are support for them:

A. "which approved continuation of the war" The assembly never mentioned the word war or explicitly approved an assault.
B. "Note that according to some observers, such conflicts are not unknown of in modern democracies". That is a weasel statement. What conflicts, and how are they related to this war, and who have made that claim.Ultramarine 09:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, do not mark as dubious when I have given Weart's academic book as source. It is perfectly acceptable. Ultramarine 09:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

We already found one case in which Weart's assertions are plain wrong; there are others. Just because Weart, who is a historian of tqentieth =century science with a hobby, says something does not make it indisputable. Septentrionalis 18:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
What has Weart stated that is wrong? Regarding the ad hominem, he is a respected historian not restricted to twentieth century.Ultramarine 18:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
To cite merely this page, the franchise of Chile in the 1870's. Most of his claims on classical antiquity have been dismissed by classicists. (And what has he ever written, aside from Never at War and one preliminary paper, about anything outside the history of science and before 1900?)Septentrionalis 18:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
An opposing source has been given regarrding Chile. I have not bothered to check Weart's sources to see if he made a mistake which of course is not impossible. Weart's book has received much praise has and has certainly not been dismissed by classicits in general. See Never at War. Again regarding the ad hominem, Never at War is major work published in academic press and certainly not a hobby work.Ultramarine 19:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

"When the new Assembly installed, the president ordered to send reinforcements to Rome and put it under siege, the left opposition asked impeachment of the President for violating the constitution which prohibited all wars, and the majority rejected the impeachment and approved "restoration of the Pope at all costs", thus effectively legitimating the attack, which was ongoing" This is interesting. Do you mean that the president ordered himself or that he was ordered to? Regarding the impeachment, did this happens after the second assault had started? Ultramarine 19:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's impossible to state all the details of this story, it's quite complicated. Everybody (in Rome, at least, but probably in Paris also) knew that a victory of the left would have meant no war while a victory of the right would have meant war. When the right won, In Rome preparations for defending a new attack started. However the French constitution in theory prohibited all wars, and a revolution was feared. The President ordered the attack contemporarily to the installation of the assembly, without a vote. 10 days later, so during the siege, the opposition asked impeachment, and the majority rejected it, approving the president's actions. Then, there were disorders in Paris and Lyon. Around 20 days later, Rome fell. Massimamanno
Well, then Weart is right. The Assembly had not formally ordered an assault when it started and Napoleon could not order it according to the constitution. Napoleon did not dare a direct vote, maybe because he feared uprisings, which in fact also happened.Ultramarine 19:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I never stated that Weart's reconstruction of the institutional process was formally wrong. It is one of the possible reconstuction of the events, and it is justified by the timeline; my only problem with it is the supposed indipendence of the military in the second part of the war. the "sent forward with ambiguous orders" is yours or Weart's? According to my sources, this did happen in the first part of the war, when the assembly had probably a majority against the war; but not in the second part, when Napoleon knew the assembly would have backed him, although his move was uncostitional. Here, according to my sources Napoleon gave unambiguous orders. What does Weart say? Massimamanno
(Note: in Italy, war is formally uncostitutional to this day, which does not prevent democratic italy from partecipating to wars, with the dissent of the radical left. In this respect, the situation today in Italy is similar) Massimamanno
He states ambigous orders. But this is not really a major point and as stated above he certainly considers this to be a war between (young) democracies, although in France the political elite was still authoritarian. (He also notes that one sign of an authoritarian regime is a substantial flock of exiles) Ultramarine 20:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Kargil War

Latest comment: 18 years ago10 comments1 person in discussion

"Regarding civil rights and freedom of press violations, it must be considered that war, its preparation, or its perceived proximity, have often led to restrictive measures even in more democratic states (e.g. McCarthyism). Although it is impossible to tell which actions by the Sharif government were taken for such reasons, it's worth noting that the human rights report for 1998 (before the war) [53] is significantly less negative than the 1999 report (the year of the war, which started in may)[54]." I would lika source for that McCarthyism was a prepartion for a planned war. Also, the statements regarding Pakisten are extremely speculative. The 1999 report is for a year with a coup and a military dictatorship, so it impossible to state any deterioration just before the war and the coup. So I think this should be removed.Ultramarine 10:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, not all partly free nations are electorial democracies, so the clam that Pakistan was one should be removed or a source given.Ultramarine 10:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The source is FH 1999 report! It is no longer online but it stated that Pakistan was an electoral democracy; you can derive it by following rports saying that it has been REMOVED from the list of electoral democracies after the coup. Please, do not make irrelevant objections.
OK. Just add it as a source. Please answer regarding McCarthyism.Ultramarine 10:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
What's wrong with it? Should I find a source stating a) that McCarthysm included restrictions of civil freedoms or b) that it was caused/provoked etc. by fear of a war with the soviet union and/or other communist countries? Isn't this common consensus??
It was provoked by a fear of Communists in the US. Not as a preparation for a war. It arguing this, give a source. And the restrictions affected only a few people and were not extremely severe, so it cannot be compared to Pakistan's restrictions.Ultramarine 10:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The main problem is however the extremely speculative statemens regarding Pakistan. There is no evidence that the situation deteriorated just before the war or that this was a preparation for a war.Ultramarine 11:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
It surely deteriorated immediately before the war. Didn't we discuss this already??? I'll see what I can do to add sources (leave me a couple of days I have other things to do) , but see, Ultramarine, the problem of the list lies the other way round. You quote Weart in every line of the table and often, I have noticed lately, you try to strengthen or extremize his statements which are strong enough already. Can you please quote the exact words regarding supposed Napoleon's interference in the elections? I'll have look at that book better sooner than later. Of the sources you gave, I read one paper entirely and it accepts the elections as perfectly legitimate saying that the conservative victory is undebatable. Probably, the paper title "Government attitude in the elections" or something to that effect says something to about the matter, but I doubt it is as lapidary as you write.Massimamanno
Weart is probably the main source regarding the pro-DPT arguments for most wars. Almost all of the anti-DPT arguments in the list are not from the DPT literature and are thus original research and should properly be removed from Wikipedia. However, I think they are interesting and should remain. But Weart's argument should certainly remain in any case since they are not original research. Regarding Pakisten, I will remove the argument until sources are added since it is at the moment a speculation with no souces.Ultramarine 11:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the Roman Repubic, I have quoted from Weart in the section above.Ultramarine 11:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, since you have added many good arguments, I feel I must add what the other side say, so that is compliment to you. :) Ultramarine 11:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia article on red scare explicitly mentions fear of the war as a cause. Also, I ask you, if a democracy declares martial law, then declares war (in a matter of, say, day, or weeks) then it would no longer be a democracy? Massimamanno
That would depend on the kind of martial law. Hitler used emergency power available in Weimer constitution. I still consider him to be a dictator.Ultramarine 12:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Er, that was 6 years before the war. holding emergency powers and forcing martial law for 6 years with no war around is certainly undemocratic... it wasn't really the question.
Martial law means a reduction in democracy. If Martial Law is declared for no apparent reason, giving the leaders dictatorial powers, then I would consider this state a nondemocracy or at least not a liberal democracy.Ultramarine 12:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Correlation, Causation, Progressive, Degenerative

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

I have started making some balance and general language edits. At the moment, the weakest point I find is the scarce or no representation of the view that political stability could cause peace and correlation with democracy may be (partially) spurious, which I find a very interesting objection. Mansfield should marginally included in this line of thought, but I believe there are others. Regarding the last subsection, I changed it into a section and changed the title because "general counter-criticism" seemed to be really unfit. Actually, it should be called "A new progressive paradigm?" or "a new progressive program?", but before that it needs sources for the claim. Massimamanno

This is mentioned in the articles cited in that section.Ultramarine 06:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok. As a methodological rule of thumb, I think that, especially in a so large field of research, 2, 3, or maybe even 4 studies should be described as "some"; 5 or more as "several".
I have seen the tentative new title written and does no longer convince me. This seems to be more enciclopedical after all. Also lacks something in term of an opposing view, if something can be found on literature Massimamanno

You may find this paper interesting: [26]Ultramarine 10:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Kosovo must be in

Latest comment: 18 years ago22 comments3 people in discussion

I insist that the bit about the Kosovo war stays in. Even if you disagree, Peter Singer is the most famous moral philosopher in the world, and his take on democratic peace theory must be represented here. There is also no expert on Milosevic's Serbia that I'm aware of who believes that the regime was anything approaching a dictatorship, as Rumsfeld ignorantly called it on the death of Slobo. "Partly free" is sometimes used as a description, but it was no less free than Turkey, Ireland, South Korea, etc. have been, and less corrupt than Italy or India. The Kosovo War is THE biggest problem for the theory. This isn't represented in the article, probably because the conflict is recent and most theorists haven't written about it yet. Singer has done, and he's mentioned that his Princeton colleague Wenar agrees with him. By the way, where is this subarticle? I clicked through all the stuff at the top, and couldn't find anything on Kosovo.

Ultramarine, could you please explain to me what this subarticle where Kosovo is mentioned is. It isn't mentioned anywhere on the pages at the top. I am going to fight for inclusion of Kosovo, because it seems clear to me that the case was relevent to this theory. Epa101 20:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Please put material about specific historical casees in the appropriate subarticle: List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory. I have already put your material there. This article is linked to at the start of the "Possible exceptions to no wars" section and at the start of the "Critcisms and counter-criticisms section". Ultramarine 20:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok. I'll take on the discussion from there now. Just one thing: it might be worth mentioning Singer and Kosovo in the section of possible exceptions to the theory. Singer is a big enough name to justify its inclusion, even if people widely disagree with him. Epa101 17:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Serbia is not really a good exception, for example Polity IV gives it a very low score for democracy. Singer is philosopher, not a historian or a political scientist. Ultramarine 17:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
We could just write "although he is not a historian or a political scientist,...." I'm going to start the long task of going through the evidence given against the claim. Must say from the outset though that giving the regime 0 out of 10 does seem a little extreme. I personally can't see what kind of ruthless dictator it is who has to negotiate a coalition with his old arch-enemies to form a government. Epa101 19:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I would not give a score of 0 on scale of of 0 to 10, but it the Polity scale if often used, so it is a significant view. I would not classify Yugoslavia as a democracy regardless. You may find Human Rights Watch's section on Serbia interesting, in particular the yearly reports: [27].Ultramarine 19:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Here is one interesting report: [28].Ultramarine 19:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the comparison with Berlusconi's Italy, in Freedom House's "freedom of the press" reports Serbia&Montenegro mantains a ranking over 75, or "not free" during all the period 1994-99, while Italy reaches a lowest ranking of 35, "partly free" in the worst year of Berlusconi's term. The scale is from 0 to 100, with 0 being completely free. Said that, I don't think Freedom House ratings are always immune from criticism; defending Berlusconi could not be farther from my intentions; and also I personally don't think Milosevic has been a monster dictator "new Hitler" as he is sometimes portraited; but I don't really thik the two situations are really comparable, in view of the reality of facts. TV channels suffered a dire situation during Berlusconi's cabinet, and were under political control or pressure, to different degrees, but honestly print and radio press remained free. I believe the statement is unsupported and should be removed. Massimamanno 00:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I would say that you need some citations to back that up, Massimamanno. I know that Italy still had opposition during Berlusconi. Of course, it did. But there was quite obviously an opposition in Serbia, and I can't see how Serbia was much worse than Italy in terms of power concentration. Epa101 09:14, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

For example, you can compare what Human Rights Watch says about Italy and Yugoslavia during these years.Ultramarine 09:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I know I'm taking a while to review the case that the Slobo regime was an autocracy, but that's only because there's a lot of material on it, and I don't want to comment until I've read it all. I will do it though, as I feel quite strongly that the situation at least poses problems for democratic peace theory. I know that this can't be used as evidence, but the main opposition to Slobo was neo-fascist groups like the Serbian National Renewal Movement and groups such as the Serbian Radical Party, which were more supportive of the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs. It seems to me that, if Serbia wasn't democratic under Slobo, then a democratic Serbia would have been an awful lot more aggressive. However, I accept that this doesn't count as academic evidence, so I shall proceed with examining the anti-Slobo arguments. Epa101 09:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Update: the big 80-odd page document has been unable to load for a few days now. Odd seeing as it worked fine before. Epa101 17:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
With the human rights reports, I accept that Milosevic's Yugoslavia was an unstable place where political killings did take place. However, the reports don't seem much worse than for India http://www.hrw.org/worldreport/Asia-06.htm#P563_147545 and India is always considered to be a liberal democracy. Another thing is that I find it odd how groups such as Freedom House always presume that an assasination of a journalist by an "unknown" assasin must have been a government act. It could've been, but there were a lot of criminal gangs in Serbia, and many of them didn't take too kindly to journalists insulting their country. On Kosovo, Milosevic himself claims that all of the armymen involved in ethnic clensing were arrested and sentenced to lengthy jail times[29]. I don't know if anyone would have the resources to verify that? Probably not. Epa101 18:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
India did not have the many problems with manipulated elections and controlled press that Serbia had. Please again take a look at Nedovic, Slobodanka; et al. (2000). "Guide Through Electoral Controverseries in Serbia" (PDF). Centar Za Slobodne Izobre I Demoratiju. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)Ultramarine 18:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

It isn't working at the moment. Sorry, but there's nothing that I can do about that. Will continue with it when it does load. Epa101 18:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I could download it now. Try right-clicking on the link and downloading it to your computer. Then you have if forever.Ultramarine 18:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Izobre document

I've finished reading it all, and I can see that there were still big problems in Serbia with inconsistent rulings on elections and manipulation in some cases, and that the bias in state media was excessive. I accept that this could disqualify it as a "democracy"; all that I could say in defence of my earlier position is repeat the point that the government did accept the verdict of international observers when results were called into dispute. One problem with the page on list of possible exceptions to the theory is that it has a long list of things that Serbia is accused of, yet I don't remember reading them all in the paper. It's very long, and I may have forgotten, but I don't remember reading about massive double voting, organised planting of already prepared voting ballots into the polling boxes, forging of electoral records and election board records.

I must criticise a lot of things in the paper however. First of all, you have to remember that the main Serbian opposition for most of the Milosevic years was composed of neo-fascists and extreme nationalists. Some of the emotive sentences in the paper take on rather a different tone when you consider this. There are parts of the paper when information provided is very selective, such as concerning the 13th March, 1991 protests. Those protestors were complaining that state media had compared them to Franjo Tudjman; they were very anti-Croat and nationalistic. Also, the army was not deployed until the risk to public safety had become high; the paper gives the reader an image of them coming out straight away. Even Amnesty International supports laws that restrict the freedom of racist and neo-fascist groups; a statistic such as that 90% of convictions under a law were members of the opposition may not necessarily be a cause for concern if these convictions were for those who were peddling racial hatred.

When it talks about the opposition never being consulted on election processes, I must point out that this never happened in Britain or America neither. The electoral systems in those countries are blatantly biased towards establishment parties, yet no-one considers it to be an erosion of democracy that minor parties are not consulted. In Northern Ireland, the process was for years manipulated to minimise the participation of Catholics. The Law on Information that is often referenced was said by Slobo to have been "literally copied from the laws on information in some Western countries"[30]. I'm not sure which he was referring to exactly, but it's not hard to think of examples: South Korea's National Security Law is a famous one, and America's 1947 National Security Act basically empowers the C.I.A. to censor whatever they want to.

Your argument regarding most of the opposition being exteme nationalists needs a source. But it is an interesting argument. I have added counter-argument.Ultramarine 09:38, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
You are probably right that such a document may have bias. It is an unfortunate human tendency.Ultramarine 09:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok. I've posted a bit of info on the opposition, and responded to your point about nationalism. I suppose that it depends on how the word is defined. Milosevic was an old-fashioned Communist rather than a radical. In a way, Communism was quite nationalistic, although it always preached peace and unity amongst races. Many of his speeches contain anti-racist rhetoric. The Serbian Renewal Movement was very racist. That is the main difference. Epa101 12:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Singer

I didn't notice this before, but Singer is already mentioned in the article regarding definitions of democracy. Although I've now abandoned arguing the democratic Serbia case, would anyone object to me adding Singer's expressed opinions on Kosovo [and Rwanda] to this section? I think we need an update on his views since the citation from the 1970s. Epa101 16:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It is not the same Singer. Lets keep the discussion about specific cases to the article for that.Ultramarine 16:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I see. I always presume that a political/ethical article that says "Singer" means Peter. Wrong in this case though. Epa101 11:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Logical flaws

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

"Exceptions include the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the Prague spring, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, and the Sino-Vietnamese War. The external threat did not prevent conflicts in the Western bloc when at least one of the involved states was a nondemocracy, such as the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus, the Falklands War, and the Football War"

This argument has very serious logical flaws. Apart from the fact that it ignores the effect of the Sino-Soviet split, which is a minor issue, it includes the 1956 and 1968 Soviet interventions. Now, here in both cases the intervention happened after a sudden leader change in Hungary and Czechoslovakia; after the new leaders had allowed opposition parties, promised multi-party elections, freedom of press and proposed withdrawal from the Warsaw pact. They were no longer real communist dictatorships! This is analogous to the case of a democratic state where suddenly political parties are prohibited, freedom of press suppressed and elections witheld. If a war between such a state and a democracy is a war between democracies, then certainly for example the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and Cenepa War are wars between democracies. Yet the Turkish invasion of Cyprus is listed as a war between non democracies! Ray's argument is contrary to elementary logic here, I believe it should be corrected or removed.

"Spiro (1994) points out at some length that much of the democratic peace is in fact peace between allied democratic states, which have (unlike other alliances), not broken down into war between the allies. He regards this effect as the reality of the democratic peace; ascribing the rest of it to chance. However, this does not explain why democratic alliances are different."

Who exactly says that it should be explained? how many alliances in history have broken into war? We are talking about, to be generous, 3 alliances here: pre-WW1 allies, pre-WW2 allies and NATO. Is the evidence for alliances breaking into war so overwhelming that non-breaking of 3 alliances has to be explained? Who says so and where? Massimamanno 05:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the supposed Communist wars, those are Ray's examples, [31], but you are right that several are very dubious. However, even if he is wrong in those cases you mention, he is probably right regarding the rest. The Cambodian-Vietnamese War, the Sino-Vietnamese War, and the the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan were wars betweem Communist states. The Sino-Soviet border conflict probably had fewer than 1000 battle deaths. The Falklands War was a war between a nondemocracy and a democracy in the Western bloc, if we should divide the world into two blocs, which Gowa does. I have removed the dubious cases.
His review also notes that many studies have controlled for alliances and still found the peace significant.Ultramarine 08:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Not all sentences in "Criticism and counter-criticism" must end in a rebuttal

Latest comment: 18 years ago56 comments3 people in discussion

As above. Some questions are still open, and moreover the section needs breath to express concepts. Even Ray would agree that the statistical sample is limited; defining it a long-lasting criticism is correct.Massimamanno 14:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

No, but many researcher accept the theory and they would not if there were major problems with no rebuttals.Ultramarine 14:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The field is really vast and it is natural that some points are open. I am going on with study of the literature and rewriting the Criticism part, but I am starting to think that a separate article on "Criticism to Democratic Peace Theory" may eventually be appropriate, leaving only a short summary of main criticisms and counter-criticisms. Massimamanno 16:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Seems like a good idea. Wikipedia should have a good description of this theory since it has great real-world significance and influence.Ultramarine 16:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


Listen, if I write an argument with a logical developement, please do not break it into pieces and tear it away! Also, I read Mansfield and Snyder, and they talk about not hiding a negative effect of democratization. Why did you remove that sentence? Massimamanno 09:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

If you are talking about Rosato, then you should include the counter-arguments. The monadic argument is strange. Many explanations require a democratic dyad. Regarding democratization, this negative effect is mentioned, with Ray's counter-arguments, later.Ultramarine 09:30, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Why did you delete every single point I made without explanation: [32] Ultramarine 09:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
NOT-EVERY-SENTENCE-MUST-END-IN-A-REBUTTAL!!! A rebuttal is above already, where you write that some authors find monadice peace unnecessary. Some explanations may require dyads, but ACCORDING TO ROSATO many would work better if a monadic peace would be present, for example those based on accountability of leaders. This is what he says, and is part of the argument. It says "he says" and "he argues" everywhere.
Also, do you object that mansfield and snyder talk about not hiding a negative aspect of democratizarion?
Do you want this article to become somewhat neutral or remain a big piece of advocacy?
You only did those two things plus other minor changes made apparently in order to make criticisms less clear or readable. Massimamanno 09:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
The "war to manage internal tensions" is NOT, by any means the main point of their article. By evidencing it you are deliberately hiding its true content. Massimamanno 09:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
No, I added several arguments, like that there have been autocratic wars and that many studies have found less wars, even if not having a time limit. This should not be deleted without explanation. Regarding Rosato, I included your argument, but also added counter-arguments. If you want to clarify Rosato's view, do so, do not delete the counter-arguments.Ultramarine 09:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
We can remove the "war to manage internal tensions". but we should certainly mention that these wars occur in weak democracies.Ultramarine 09:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Also regarding Rosato, he belongs in the Realist section, not in the autocratic peace section for which he offers little specific support.Ultramarine 09:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
They occur in young AND weak democracies. "young democracies and democratizing countries" seems to be appropriate. It is, after all, what they state IIRC.
"No, I added several arguments, like that there have been autocratic wars and that many studies have found less wars, even if not having a time limit"
I didn't see any of the above. If so, sorry. however, please do not break the flow of that argument with continual rebuttals. You can write them at the end. But, you see, counter-rebuttals are a minor issue. In most cases they should not be there. OF course criticisms to a mayor theory have counter-rebuttals they don't ALWAYS. If you continue insisting, I will move ALL counter rebuttals in a new section on "counter-rebuttals to critticisms" and you can write them all there. After all, the current setting is not sacred. Most theories have a section on "criticism", not "criticism and counter-criticism
That specific argument of rosato belongs where it is.Massimamanno 09:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
The argument on there being "no dispute that autocracies made war" is totally irrelevant, and has nothing to do with studies voncerning MIDs. It's just to add something denigratory. YOu definitely should stop this attitude. Massimamanno 09:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
We should point out that they occur in poorly functioning democracies, not strong democracies. Note that NPOV requries that all views should be presented. Only criticisms are not allowed. If there are arguments, then they should be presented. Having separete sections for supporting and critcism is interesting, maybe we could make something similar to the specific wars article? Ultramarine 09:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
What is wrong with pointing out that the most autocratic states have made wars with one another? Ultramarine 09:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
No. The criticisms need their own space to be read. No table. They ARE relevant. Counter-criticisms need so also, but in most cases, less, because the initial exposition of the theory should be enough. Critical arguments should be there, well written, not constantly broken and readable.Massimamanno 10:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
"We should point out that they occur in poorly functioning democracies, not strong democracies". They don't say that those wars occur only in weak democracies!!!!!! If someone else says so, you can write it after that.
To exclude counter-arguments violates NPOV and is not allowed in Wikipedia.Ultramarine 10:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Left justfied for legibility

Oh my god. Counter-counter arguments, as I said, may be useful although, in most cases, not strictly required. What I am saying is that if you insist on puttin a rebuttal, whatever it is, after every single sentence of criticism, I will insist that counter criticisms are in a separate section instead, because criticisms MUST BE READABLE AND HAVE A LOGICAL FLOW. Is it clear? Massimamanno 10:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
We can discuss how to present the different arguments. Table, intermixed, different sections etc. But excluding is not allowed. Two different sections is fine with me, although I think it may be confuding for the reader who must jump between them constantly. Intermixed seems less confusing to me. Ultramarine 10:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Only if it stays to a reasonable level, as I say. Table, for me is a definite no. You see, making theories more readable is the reason why criticisms are in a separate section in the first place. The same applies to criticisms, to a degree. Counter-criticisms are fine for me but, as I said, not intermixed to every sentence or paragraph. It's fine at the end of each MAIN criticism that some counter criticisms are cited. Otherwise, a separate article on criticisms with a separate section on counter-criticisms will be inevitable. In most cases, criticisms are interesting theoretical arguments in their own right and should be readable.Massimamanno 10:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Npov is more important than readability. Regardless, I think that intermixed is better than two long separate sections where the readers must jump back and forth.
Regarding Rosato, I do not understand why he should be mentioned in the Autocratic peace section? His criticism regarding lack of monadic support is very general, it could be in any critical section and do no seem to support the Autocratic peace specifically? Ultramarine 10:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Obviously it is important to mention that some of the most autocratic states have made war with one another in the Autocratic peace section. Please explain why otherwise.Ultramarine 10:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It's his main argument for democracy not being the cause of peace; and it's cited in works regarding the similarity explanation. It is clearly related. In principle, it could possibly be in the initial paragraph, after the discussion of "A correlated to B" etc. but I support that it stays where it is. Definitely, not where you put (hid) it. If NPOV is more important than readability, why not inserting criticisms intermixed with the main article??? I am ready to accept anyone's judgement, and to start a new article on my own if it's necessary, but NOT to write what I consider to be good summaries of existing criticisms and see them being broken in pieces for the explicit reason of making appear "criticism" a chaotic ensemble of disordinate and incoherent statements. Massimamanno 10:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not important because nobody disputes that. The article clearly states "reduced chance of war" and "democratic peace being stronger". There is no need to say so, because it was never claimed otherwise! A rebuttal to a claim no one has made is a clear example of unnecessary countercriticism which just makes the section less readable for no reason. Even if it is stated, it could be stated in a very different way such as "...reduced chance of war between states which are strongly non-democratic, although of course no author claims that there was never one war between such states" but it's really, really, superfluous. Nor researchers, nor readers, are that stupid. Massimamanno 10:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Rosato's argument could be at the start of any critical section, it is not about the Autocratic peace specifically. It could equally well be in a section discussing economic development instead of similarity. Regardless, obviously it should be mentioned that there are many explanations that require a dyadic peace, not a monadic. It violates NPOV to exclude this.
You are free to add a referenced criticism to the specific article by rosato at the end of the Autocratic Peace section.Massimamanno 11:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
What article states that Rosato's argument is an argument for the autocratic peace?Ultramarine 11:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It is an argument for democracy not being a cause in Rosato's own view. And it's Rosato, who makes, implicitly, the connection. Infact in the article he makes the above point, and then discusses autocratic peace and analyzes the reasons why autocrats might be less prone to go to war to each other. He does not explicitly say "I support this explanation", there could be other explanations in his view, but autocratic peace is one he discusses. Massimamanno 11:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I find the connection extremely tenuous when this is a general argument against the DPT and not an argument for this particular explantion. Regardless, we should point out the several DPT explanations explaining why there is a dyadic peace and not a monadic.Ultramarine 11:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It's explained in great length above, in the main exposition. Of course Rosato makes plausible criticisms, which try to address most explanations, to show that even some of those whichare "dyadic" would require a monadic effect. but the section would become extremely long... A link to above could suffice. Or a direct rebuttal to Rosato, I am sure I can find one if i try; but this shoild be "your" job not mine.Massimamanno 12:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I have already added several critical studies to Realist section. However, if you want, I can move them to the autocratic section, if you for some reason think that Rosato belongs in that section instead.Ultramarine 12:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Must a critical author necessarily belong to one section only? Is this true of supporting authors also? Rosato makes several criticisms, some of which can be cathegorized as "realist explanations"; some, however, not.Massimamanno 12:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Since you are arguing that Rosato's criticism in general of the DPT is relevant for the autocratic section, I will add the general crticism of his study to that section also.Ultramarine 12:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Kinsella is an author you could relevantly cite here. But note that generic criticisms such as "Rosato has been criticized for (list of enormous mistakes)" will be corrected by relevant criticisms Massimamanno 12:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It is difficult to find more autocratic regimes than Stalin's and Hitler's, and they fought probably the bloodiest war in history on the Eastern front. Obviously that should be mentioned in a section discussing the possible existence of an autocratic peace. Again, excluding this violates NPOV.Ultramarine 10:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Find a reference which makes the above criticism. guess what? There are none, because it is an undisputed fact. Neglecting a rebuttal to a claim nobody made does not violate anything. Massimamanno 11:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Yhen we should point out that no one has made a claim about wars.Ultramarine 11:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
done. Absolutely useless.Massimamanno 11:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Most of the studies listed by Ray in his reviews, (Ray 1998), (Ray 2003), do not require young democracies when stating that democracies have less wars. This should be addded.Ultramarine 11:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding Mansfield and Snyder's argument about the dangers of democratisation, we should add the studies finding that the increased risk only applies if the surroinding states are nondemocracies.Ultramarine 11:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I have read your reference and can't find that part. Can you point me to the page? however, wasn't it in the counter rebuttals already? do you want to add it above also? Listen, I am much less strict on that point because it is on the "exposition of the theory" part, so it's "your" partso to speak but find something reasonable. As it was before "oh, look, most wars are between young democracies why don't we all remove them?" looked really stupid if EVERYONE would have agreed to do so. It's impossible, in a scientific environment that the choice of such a debatable statistical practice is unanimousMassimamanno 12:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Ray 2003. p. 15-16. "Perhaps the most visible attack on the democratic peace research program, by Mansfield and Snyder, asserts that while clearly democratic states may not fight wars against each other, states undergoing a transition to democracy are disproportionately warprone.48 In response, at least one analysis has created some doubt that such a national-level patterns exists.49 Maoz, however, acknowledges that there is a relationship between regime transitions and conflict, but argues that transitions from autocracy to “anocracy” or from “anocracy” to autocracy are even more likely to produce conflict than changes to or from democracy.50 These changes bring about conflict because of the response they evoke from states in their immediate environment. Similarly, Oneal and Russett,51 Oneal and Ray,52 and Thompson and Tucker53 all provide evidence that suggests that the national-level relationship between regime transitions and conflict involvement can be subsumed under a dyadic-level pattern brought about by the fact that states undergoing a transition to democracy will experience an increase in conflict only if many or most of their neighbors are undemocratic. It is this increase in “political distance” between themselves and their neighbors, in other words, that may bring about increases in the amount of conflict for states undergoing a transition to democracy. Thus the evidence pertinent to this apparent national-level anomaly regarding democratic transitions and conflict has been shown to conform to and support the idea that regime type has an important impact on inter-state, dyadic relationships."Ultramarine 12:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Ray in this review and his 1998 review also lista many studies finding a decreased risk of war. Most of those studies do not have a time limit.Ultramarine 12:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
So do you object to restoring this info?Ultramarine 13:30, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Not at all. I am not aware of ever having removed it.Massimamanno 13:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding Bennett, he uses MIDs and not wars.Ultramarine 11:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually he looks at both and finds the effect much stronger for wars.Ultramarine 12:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
You can't read. He SAYS a reduced chance of WAR has been observed, in a review. Others say so also. Writing MID there is just to discredit. Reduced chance of war has been observed. Using MIDS means nothing in principle: if one uses MIDS but only considers those whose severity is 5+, what do you say? If you want a citation for the sentence "reduced chance of war has been observed" i will cite that precise sentence but this is getting absurd. Massimamanno 12:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
As noted, I stated that Bennett has studied wars, and he finds the risk for those much lower than when looking at MIDs.Ultramarine 12:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding Werner, he finds that both joint democracy and political similarity are negatively related to interstate dispute onset, suggesting that “of all politically similar pairs, similar democratic pairs tend to be particularly pacific” (2000:362).Ultramarine 13:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I see that Massimamanno has encountered Ultramarine's preference for mentioning criticism, if at all, then between two slabs of argument for the position he prefers. This is called the "sandwich technique" in the archives, and deprecated. Nor is Bennett's the first paper which Ultramarine has read in a manner differing from its actual contents. Massimanno, if you would like me to read a paper inaccessible to you, I will be happy to do that. Septentrionalis 19:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The criticism section does not have "sandwhich", rather criticism followed by counter-criticism. I would be happy to reorganize the article into two sections containing arguments for and against, if this would solve any problems. One problem is that it would be difficult for the reader who must jump back and forth. Regarding Massimamanno, I find his arguments in general very well made, well-cited, and based on factual arguments, unlike the ad hominem and insinuations used by some other editor. There should be some lively, but factually based discussions, in order to improve an article. I think this article has improved very much since Massimamanno started researching and editing. I have found the discussions very rewarding and I hope he continues to research the literature to see if there is anything missing from the article.Ultramarine 20:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
In my view there should be one or two more subsections in the "alternate explanations" section, one on "economic interdipendence being the cause" and probably one on "political stability being the cause", with the "other explanations" section being much shorter. Any help on those would be appreciated. In particular, I would be eager to read or include a reliable account of Maoz Z. and Russett B., 1992, "Alliance, Contiguity, Wealth, and Political Stability: is the lack of conflict among democracies a statistical artefact?" International Interactions, 17 (3).
Regarding Ultramarine, he should definitely make fairness of tone his first priority for the future. I think that, eventually, there should be a separate article on criticism with a separate section on counter-criticism. Refuting arguments line by line is not acceptable beyond a certain limit.Massimamanno 12:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
We should include all the main criticisms and counter-criticism. NPOV requires the inclusion of all significant views. How we do that can be discussed. Separate sections, intermixed (as now), or a table are possible solutions. Regarding political stability, that it one factor affecting the risk of conflicts, but so is for example geographical contiguity.Ultramarine 12:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Ultramarine,
Sorry, but your repeated appeals to NPOV i find irritating. Official policy of wikipedia fairness of tone state very clearly that Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization — for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section. Your writing and edits consistently, continually and everywhere are examples of the above deprecated practice. This may be less severe than not presenting facts or opinions at all, but it is stil policy. You should simply admit that with yourself at least, and deeply change your mental attitude and disposition when you approach to editing this article. Subtly trying to make opposers view look less coherent, less readable, or less plausible through selection or organization should not be anywhere in your mind. That's all I have to say on this issue. Massimamanno 13:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Again, I have accepted that we could move the material to two sections, it that would improve anything. I would rather not discuss the personality or mentality of any persons, but the facts as stated in the literature. If there is anything missing or incorrect in the article, that should be discussed and corrected.Ultramarine 13:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Conflict initiation

Latest comment: 18 years ago12 comments2 people in discussion

Most studies simply look at who is involved in conflicts without discussing who initiated them. I find this study regarding conflict initiation by Stam and Reiter (2003) very interesting: [33]. We should include something about this.Ultramarine 14:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

So far I have stayed away from studies about conflict initiation which prove or disprove anything, because I find statistics on this point to be particularly unreliable. In many (most?) wars both partecipants will claim that the other side was the initiator. I believe this general objection is in the literature, in Rummel if I recall correctly though I don't have it at hand now. However, if this debate is to be included, I think we should probably start by discussing it in general in the main article. Massimamanno 14:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
You are of course right that who initiated the conflict is a very sensitive subject. Still, this article has been followed by several articles who discusses how authoritarian regimes differ regarding conflict initiation. This may bring important insights into which institutions affect peacefulness: [34][35][36].Ultramarine 14:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Note that for example this more recent article argues that democracies are more likely to initiate wars against non democracies than autocracies are[37]. And Gleditsch and Hegre, and Rummel, [38] separately argue that studies on conflict initiation are of limited value. It's ok for me to include this debate, with the appropriate warnings about its potential weakness and not preventing readability of the main criticisms.Massimamanno 15:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Bennett in his 2006 study states, from p. 3 "The findings also corroborate Reiter and Stam’s (2003) finding that autocratic states are more likely to initiate conflicts with democratic states than vice versa."Ultramarine 15:08, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
these are two different non incompatible statements. The first argues that directed dyad democracy->autocracy is less likely than autocracy->democracy. The second argues that democracy->non democracy is more likely than non democracy->non democracy, that is, democracies attack non democracies more fequently than non democracies do to each other. Massimamanno 15:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding "Evaluating the Monadic Democratic Peace", I think it states something different. First, however, note that they define democracy as >= 5 on the polity. Nondemocrayc is defined as lower than that, so they do not study the most extreme pairs. More importantly, note exactly what they state "However, initiation is more likely in a mixed dyad than in a nondemocratic dyad: the probability that the democracy initiates versus the autocracy is increased by 32%, and the probability that the non-democracy initiates versus the democracy is increased by 80%. Thus, contrary to the expectations of the monadic democratic peace argument, democracies are more likely to initiate disputes versus non-democracies than non-democracies are." That is, they do not find support for the monadic theory since democracies initiate more frequently in a mixed dyad than nondemocracies do in a nondemocratic dyad. But nondemocracies initiate even more frequently in a mixed dyad as compared to initiation in a nondemocratic dyad, if I read it correctly.Ultramarine 15:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
That's essentially what I stated above. Democracies attack nondemocracies more frequently than nondemocracies attack nondemocracies, while nondemocracies attack demoracies more frequently than vice versa, should be about 48% more by elementary math. Massimamanno 15:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Then it seems that the studies really agree or state somewhat different things.Ultramarine 15:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
The point is that this study should be actually mentioned in the debate about monadic peace, because it finds a somewhat reverse monadic effect. General criticisms such as Gleditsch Hegre and Rummel's should also. And there are probably other studies about conflict initiation proving or disproving different facts. My initial argument was that, if included, studies about conflict initiation should probably have its own section where controversies about this point are explained. Then, some of them may, or may not, be added to the various sections. Up to now, conflict initiation has been largely ignored in the article.Massimamanno 16:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

How about "Most studies have looked only at who is involved in the conflicts and ignored the question of who initiated the conflict. In many conflicts both sides argue that the other side was initiater. Gleditsch and Hegre, and Rummel, [39] have argued that studying conflict initiation is of limited value. Even so, several studies have examined this. Stam and Reiter argues that nondemocracies initiates conflicts against democracies more frequently than democracies do against nondemocracies. They, and several following studies [40][41][42], have studied how different types of nondemoracies with different instiitutions vary regarding conflict inititation."Ultramarine 16:11, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a misrepresentation of Stam and Reiter, at least judging from its abstract. They consider full autocracies, not "nondemocracies"; in particular, their results seem to be particularly relevant for personalistic dictatorships and less so for fully autocratic but different states such as one party states. Also, Quackenbush and Rudy should be included on this point as an alternate view, such as "(they), while confirming Stam and Reiter's results, find that democracies initiate wars against nondemocracies more frequently than nondemocracies do to each other". But you may start writing, I may add other relevant sources.Massimamanno 16:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Mansfield and Snyder

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Where exactly do they say that "every war between democracies includes one which is less than 5 years old"? This seems to be in contradiction with the fact that they cite the Kargil war as a war between democracies (at least electoral democracies). Also, when agreeing with the "no wars" statement of DPT they use the term "mature". Please do not re-write "well-estabilished", because otherwise the reader might assume that they agree with the 3 years rule explained above(which is not). Massimamanno 03:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Good points. Ultramarine 13:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Political similarity II

Latest comment: 18 years ago23 comments3 people in discussion
Is there a reason why you reordered the points in a non logical way?62.101.126.212 14:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
And that you have removed my introduction with rosato's view? I prefer to remove it from below, if it is necessaryMassimamanno 14:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Rosato's criticism is not an argument for the autocratic peace. It is a general criticism of the DPT. As such, it could equally well be at the start of an section about geographical contiguity or economic wealth. Please explain why it should be mentioned two times in the article and why in particular it is mentioned at the start of the autocratic peace section. I know you have stated that Rosato states this as one of several possible explantions but it is not his main one and using this argument we shold duplicate his argument many times. It is more logical to first state the general Realist objections, including Rosato. Then we state other possible explantions. Note also that political similarity, however defined, is not a particularly Realist variable, so it is not surprising that Rosato does not give this as his main explanation. The article should not give the impression that this is the case.Ultramarine 15:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
In principle, Realists should find an Autocratic peace just as objectionable and contrary to their theories as a Democratic peace.Ultramarine 20:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
In principle. In practice, however, Rosato argues that autocratic rulers may be more constrained in initiating wars than democratic leaders. The criticism is a good introduction and is perfectly legitimate to stay there, makes the logic behind the criticism more transparent. I would write the same sentence there even if unreferenced, I believe it is one very general although vague argument for similarity being the exception. I will see how to remove duplication from below, I may insert some differnt criticism.Massimamanno 01:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I think I will wait for a third party opinion on this issue. At the moment I am doubtful; I admit I don't like the partial duplication but the introduction on similarity and the autocratic peace is just a general statement, it is like if someone says "well, if there were a monadic peace, surely there would be no imilarity explanation". Below, in "realist criticisms", it has some more detail. As I said, I am uncertain but at the moment my opinion would be that in the absence of a better arrangement it can stay in realist criticisms also. Massimamanno 01:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
My objection is that this could be the introduction of any section giving alternative explanations, like wealth or geographical distance. Also, now the article gives the the impression that this Rosato's main explanation which is incorrect since he prefers a clearly Realist variable and explanation instead.Ultramarine 01:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
My counter-objection is that if there were a monadic peace, there could very well be explanations based on wealth, but probably not those based on political similarity. The logic is simple, I won't state it further. "Look, democracies make wars, but they don't to each other". "it could be because they both are democracies". "or, more generally, because they are similar regimes". The connection is cristalline. Regarding Rosato's opinions, I regard this as a minor point, since Rosato isdscussed at length in the realist section, which could as well stay in a note, although I may look for some other reference saying something similar. But I don't think it is really necessary.Massimamanno 02:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Now you are doing original research, something not allowed. Furthermore, Moussaue explains how wealth creates a dyadic peace. The article is now misleading regarding Rosato's view and duplicates things. The duplication should be removed.Ultramarine 02:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Stating this in a footnote does not really help since many readers will not read it and get the impression that Rosato's prefered explanation is political simiarlity. It would be more appropriate to have a footnote in the Realist section stating that he also mentions the autocratic peace as an possbility.Ultramarine 02:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Your remark about Moussaue seems to lack logic, re-read my above comment and explain the connection? Sorry, I see no original research, Kinsella's reply also mentions Rosato's argument as connected to Autocratic Peace. It is just that you don't want criticisms to be too credible or well presented. As it was before, a disordinate mess of seemingly unconnected objections, each followed by a harsh rebuttal was better for you. I will wait for a third party opinion on this issue.
The text says nowhere that it's Rosato's preferred explanation. You say it's misleading. An author can very well make a criticism which supports another view besides its own. There is nothing strange, it's how research works, it's intertwined.Massimamanno 02:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Again, please avoid personal attacks. The text gives the impression that Rosato mainly supports autocratic peace and hides that he does not in a footnote. This should be corrected.Ultramarine 03:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding wealth and distance, we could equally well state "The most naive explanation to such perceived anomaly is that democracies are not peaceful to each other because they are democratic, but rather because they happen to be the most wealthy states and that wealth reduces conflict" or "The most naive explanation to such perceived anomaly is that democracies are not peaceful to each other because they are democratic, but rather because they happen to be very distant from each other which prevents war"Ultramarine 03:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I will remove the footnote, then. The article does not give that impression, since Rosato is discussed at length in the realist section. Regarding Moussaue, what do you say?Summarizing, you state:
"the statement that there is a monadic peace but not a dyadic peace could as well support arguments based on wealth"
I say:
"No, it supports criticisms based on similarity, not based on wealth, because similarity explanation would be impossible with monadic peace, while wealth wouldn't"
To disprove, you must either exhibit:
a) Proof that wealth explanation would be impossible if there were monadic peace, i.e. that it is in principle impossible to argue that wealthy states are more peaceful towards all other states
b) Proof that similarity explanation would possible if there were monadic peace, i.e. that arguably democracies could not make wars to any other states because they are similar to every possible exisitng state.
But you instead present c), that is, proof that can be argued that wealthy states are more peaceful to each other. Sorry, that's a no go. But good luck!Massimamanno 03:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I find your argument very strange. What is the difference between wealth similarity or political similarity, for example? Again, Mousseau gives an explanation for why there could be a dyadic wealth effect and not a monadic. I only need state that wealth may not have a monadic effect, not that it must not have it. Then I have an explantion for Rosato's paradox, if democracies are the most wealthy.Ultramarine 03:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
The difference is that similarity explanation is naturally and necessarily dyadic. Almost by definition. Wealth is not. So, if someone objects that absence of monadic peace is strange, an explanation which is necessarily dyadic may have some merit. It wipes away the perceived contradiction by definition. Other explanations may require further arguments to explain why only a dyadic peace is observed, which may or may not be convincing to who perceives such contradiction. I am not arguing that such explanations are not possible, but in the case of the similarity explanation they are even not needed. This, as the article states, makes the explanation the most naive answer to such perceived contradiction.
It must be the fifth time that I state this point. If you still disagree, let's just agree to disagree and wait for a third party opinion.Massimamanno 03:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Now you have explained your view more clearly. I doubt anyone reading the article understands why the autocratic peace is supposed to be the most "naive" from the text which makes none of the above clarifications. In essence, you argue that it is a very simple explanation for a dyadic peace and therefore preferable to more complex explanations. However, I find this dubious. All dyadic explanation states that democracies are similar on some variable which is associated with peace. I would argue that the most simple of "naive" variable is democracy itself, requiring no further added variables such as political similarity. Now you would reply that that is actually more complicated since I must add some qualifier to explain the absence of monadic peace. I find it extremely difficult to state which explanation if the simplest or most naive since both requires added qualifiers. Regardless, there is certainly no requirement that the simplest explanation, however defined, it the correct one. Does Rosato actually make this argument regarding simple or "naive" variables? Ultramarine 04:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Note that in a Popperian perspective this makes a big difference, as, on this particular point, this makes the similarity explanation more predictive, and so, regarding this particular pioint, better. Absence of monadic peace is a prediction of the similarity explanation, and so a falsifiability test for it, while it is not for other explanations. In other words, if agreement about the existence of a monadic effect would emerge, similarity explanation would be disproved. Many other explanations would not.
Rosato does not state anything about naiveness. That's mine, and I think I have offered sufficient explanation of what is meant with that. I am sure I can find something to that effect in the literature, but I have no intention to debate on incredibly fine points. If that's terribly necessary I can add a qualifier such as "the most naive explanation alternative to the ones supporting the theory" but man, this is the part on criticisms, and that these are alternative explanations has already been repeatedly stated. If i start looking at the main article this way, it would become a big mess of precisations, clarifications and such. I don't want to continually interrupt the flow of discourse to make extremely fine grained clarifications. I re-emphasize that I think that a third party reader is needed for the section on criticisms, your criticisms of it seem to be too often destructive. This is not a persnal attack, that your view on this issue is extremely biased is fact.Massimamanno 04:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Note that incivility is not allowed. Please avoid ad hominem. I am certainly acting in good faith. One problem is that I seriously doubt anyone understands your rather complicated argument on this being a very simple alternative explanation from the given text. I certainly did not. Another is that you cannot state that it is the most naive or simply alternative explanation, there may be others that are equally simple or naive. A third is that this is original research which is not allowed. A fourth is that I find the argument very weak, it is extremely difficult to measure simplicity and it it not used in actual empirical research, only in philosophical discussions. A fifth is that it does no apply to the theory of peacefulness only at extremes of the scale. Ultramarine 04:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
So let's wait for someone who says if he/she understands the text or not, if he believes elementary logical connections between sentences to be original research or in need to be empirically evaluated, and whatever else. Have a nice day. 62.101.126.212 04:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Your latest version is a significant improvement. In fact, I see Rosato as unnecessary. You could just state "An alternative explanation, which has the merit of necessarily predicting the observed dyadic-only effect, is that democracies are not peaceful to each other because they are democratic, but rather because they are politically similar." This would preserve you argument and remove the duplication and possible misinterpretation of Rosato.Ultramarine 05:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
This would prevent comprehension of the argument. Duplication is presently minimal and perfectly acceptable. At least, until some other opinion besides mine and yours is expressed. Please stop insisting on this point. 62.101.126.212 12:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
(note:I often am logged out from wikipedia without realizing it or why, switches from my username to my IP are absolutely unintentional) Massimamanno 12:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

How are you using the word democratic here?

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

It is very confusing as to what you mean. GBYork 01:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Different researchers have used different defintions. The most common is probably using the Polity project [43] which scores nations on democracy for each year since 1800. There is a detailed wikipedia article on Freedom in the World 2006 and for many nations it and Polity agree. It only scores nations since 1972. Ultramarine 02:08, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Fishing disputes

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I leave to you the decision if including or not the paragraph on Fishing disputes. I initially wrote it, but then it did not seem to me really important. Massimamanno 03:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks good.Ultramarine 07:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I think the article would be improved by some pictures. Any suggestions? I have previously tried pictures of parliamentary buildings of early democracies, but they seem to offend nationalists from other early democracies.Ultramarine 05:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Trade and Democracy

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Weede argues that in order to promote peace and democracy the best strategy is opening markets and offering economic help. I do not really understand what you mean by "the same can be said about every other alternative explanation".

The theories exposed agree that free trade and democracy both have an effect. They may disagree on which one is more important. None of those stated claims "free trade alone". Cobdenism may be eventually added in a different paragraph (but claim that it lost influence will still need to be referenced)Massimamanno 11:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are right.Ultramarine 12:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Many or most

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

First of all, "many" does not mean "most". Many means many, most means most. Many can imply a significant minority or simply a number that is not qualified as majority or minority but simply as large. Furthermore, the sentence states "have looked for different explanations, connections and statistical variables". This includes really a lot of people. I will include "or complementary", since the text also discusses complementary explanations, and it sholud be more than enough.Massimamanno 11:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

And they have done so both as a rebuttal to democratic peace theories and as substantiation; for example, Gleditisch's work on distance is done in support of the democratic peace. He finds mutual democracy and distance the two explanatory factors. I would like to see some reason for "many" to mean "most"; this is special pleading. Septentrionalis 02:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Massimamanno made some changes a few days ago, as he stated above, which I found good, so I do not think there is any remaning problem.Ultramarine 02:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Early authors

Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

I have a problem with the statement that "no early author" considered democratic peace. Lenin in his 1916 "The Peace Programme" [[44]] quite clearly polemizes the "democratic peace program", meant as the possibility that democratic nations might grant long lasting peace. The debate here is mainly internal and targeted towards Kautsky (an early marxist social-democrat) and its "ultra-imperialism" argument (mentioned for example here [[45]]) that the dominant nations might permanently ally together to pursue common goals. Also, the present text mentions Wilson's appeal to democratic peace. I will mention the debate as an early marxist criticism but it seems to me strange that the concept was mentioned by democratic leaders and criticized by marxist thinkers without being theoretically defended by any liberalist authors. Could it be because liberalist authors defended cobdenidsm instead?

No early author before Kant (1795). I think many have criticzed the idea after him. All of this was mainly political and philosphical discussions with no real research before the 1960s. Ultramarine 15:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Kant looks like early enough to me. I would propose a text such as ... is a relatvely recent development. Although the philosophical idea has circulated since ---, it was not scientifically evaluated until ---. Or something to that effect Massimamanno 15:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Something like that sounds good.Ultramarine 15:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding Cobdenidsm, I do not know. It may not have been very important outside Britain.Ultramarine 17:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Except for Wilson, I do not know if the idea ever has been influential except recently. Wilson's idealism was discredited by the failures of WWI to create stable democracies and also by many failures in Central and Latin America where the US intervened to hold free elections before WWII. These nations returned to dictatorship as soon as the marines left, see Weart for a description. These failures may have contributed to Realism and the support of dictatorships against Communism during the Cold War.Ultramarine 17:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Richard Cobden was extremely influential; his free-trade treaty with France helped avert the Anglo-French criais of 1860. We should alao include, rather than Lenin, his sources: J. A. Hobson and Norman Angell. (All of these are precursors to the modern "Kantian" peace; arguing that modern war is not in the interest of a commercial country and that representative governments will, or should, act accordingly. Septentrionalis 02:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
While Lenin mentioned "a democratic peace", J. A. Hobson and Norman Angell did not discuss a democratic peace. I cannot see that Lenin cites them. We could include them if there is a reference for that later democratic peace researchers have cited them.Ultramarine 13:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Disputed Neutrality and Confusing templates

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

Lots of large changes recently. Please state remaining, if any, problems with neutrality so that they can be corrected. Otherwise I suggest removing the template.Ultramarine 13:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The same regarding the confusing or unclear template.Ultramarine 21:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Archiving

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Since there seems to be no disputes I suggest archiving the long talk. Any objections?Ultramarine 07:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

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