Review of the imperial peace democracy, force and globalization - Essay Example

In 1980s the focus was really placed on the state resulting in “a rigid boundary between the pacific nature of inter-liberal state relations and the warlike nature of liberal–non-liberal state relations.” (MacMillan, 1993) The view on this problem changed when more researchers started to relate it with the process of globalization. Statistical world of internal state politics was substituted by concepts in motion which highlight the dynamic nature of the relations between democracy and war.

From the globalization perspective the international system is viewed as a whole divided into discrete zones with different logics of interstate relations. As the meanings of ‘democracy’ and ‘war’ cannot be really fixed, the belief that ‘democratic’ states do not start a war with one another is inadequate since the states and their political systems are subject to changes. The notions of democracy and war differ across the time and location. The relation between them is determined by historical location and social contexts in which they are embedded.

As these notions are analyzed in the context of relations between sovereign territorial states in an anarchic international system, democracy and war defined in a historical and state-centric manner and globalization factor are little considered which is a serious oversight since the processes of social change related to the changing nature of democracy and war are global processes. In the majority of studies war and peace as the central problem of international relations are separated from globalization.

However, the historical evolution of democracy and war is a part of broader patterns of global social change which impacts directly on the nature and meaning of democracy and war and conditions of use of the force by the states. As Barkawi & Laffey (1999) frame it “states and peoples fashion democratic claims and