Symposium: An Extended Debate on the Utility of the Democratic Peace Thesis

[This is a post-publication review symposium] The Democratic Peace thesis (DPT) has for a while now been considered the closest thing the field of International Relations has to an empirically tested truth. And yet, such a claim leaves many questions unanswered, many nuances unnoticed, and many small wars unaccounted for. Two upcoming ISQ articles (and now Early Views) grapple with these questions and continue the discussion here at ISQ Online.  The debate starts with Michael Poznansky's article, "Stasis or Decay? Reconciling Covert War and the Democratic Peace," (2015) in which he asserts that democracies assess their policies towards other democracies based on projections of that country's future likelihood to remain democratic.  Using empirical evidence from the Cold War, he argues that when that likelihood seems low, covert interventions become more acceptable. Tarak Barkawi responds to Poznansky, in "Scientific Decay," (2015) that such an argument reflects the overall poverty of DPT as an analytic device and the dangers of American Exceptionalism.  [...]