Search

The international organization of the Democratic Peace matters. Interdemocratic institutions are particularly suited to block escalation pathways between states and to prevent conflicts from resulting in war. The paper builds on findings from three fields of research: (a) the liberal analysis of the democratic peace, (b) systemic approaches to international institutions, and (c) new quantitative studies of armed conflicts. The paper identifies three pivotal contributions of international institutions to peaceful conflict management. International institutions can be used to overcome the security dilemma among states and to tame power competitions. They sustain international cooperation and forestall the recourse of governments to unilateral self-help strategies. Finally, international institutions increase the autonomy of issue areas, which decreases the risks of destabilizing spill-over effects from other issue areas. The paper holds that these three functions are extra-ordinarily well performed by interdemocratic institutions. Therefore, interdemocratic institutions are considered a missing link in the explanation of the democratic peace.To strengthen our argument, we choose five state dyads for structured-focused comparisons. We investigate the security relations of Argentine and Brazil, Argentine and Chile, Germany and France, Greece and Turkey, and Indonesia and Malaysia. Each of these dyads is integrated in a comparatively dense institutional network and in each case the United States has a hegemonic interest in preserving peace. In a first step, we look for significant differences in the form of international institutions. Do democracies tend to organize their security relations differently than other states? And do the form of international institutions change in predictable ways when their member states democratize? In a second step, we compare the robustness of international institutions in times of crisis. Here we ask whether interdemocratic institutions more effective in transcending the security dilemma and in stabilizing cooperation among member states? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We can make reference to two different main projections of future for the EU: (a) the position defended by France and Germany, which presupposes that there should be ‘not a geographically very big but politically and economically strong social European ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]