Liberal Hegemony, Democratic Peace, and United States Strategy.

Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton have made the promotion of democracy abroad the third pillar of their administration in foreign policy. Recent empirical studies in international relations have confirmed the statistical evidence of a separate peace among democratic nations. Few militarized disputes, and perhaps no wars have occurred between democracies. However, the causes of this phenomenon remain controversial. Up until now, efforts to explain the democratic peace phenomena have focused on the existence of domestic norms and institutions within democracies. Hegemonic stability theory provides insight for a new plausible explanation of the democratic peace proposition. Statistical analyses of interstate dispute data indicate that two centuries of liberal hegemony have, at least partially, been responsible for the separate democratic peace. This finding represents an important contrIbution to the international relations literature and has significant implications for United States strategy.