Kant and Processes of Democratization: Consequences for Neorealist Thought

Abstract

Does the spread of democracy present a bright future, with peace among nations? The theoretical foundation for expecting peace to flow from democracy was set forth by Immanuel Kant. According to the interpretation in this article, Kant's notion of a pacific union of democracies rests on three pillars; first, the mere existence of democracies with their culture of peaceful resolution of conflict; second, the common moral bonds which are forged between democracies on this basis; third, the democracies' economic cooperation towards mutual advantage. The paper analyses each of the three conditions in the light of recent processes of democratization. It concludes that the emergence of a global pacific union embracing all the new and old democracries cannot be taken for granted. Success for the pacific union demands that the three basic conditions laid down by Kant are met by all members. Presently, this is far from the case. A pacific union is a reality among the industrialized democracies in the West; it may expand to include several of the new democracies in the East. Yet most of the democracies in the South fail to meet at least two of Kant's conditions, and instead of further democratic progress, they may backslide towards authoritarian rule. Finally, the article argues that it is possible to accept Kant's vision without rejecting basic insights of neorealism. The distance between Kant's idealism and neorealism is often overdone, as in Mearsheimer's analysis. A pacific union is the type of anarchy called a security community. It is only the extreme vision of Mearsheimerian neorealism with its one-sided emphasis on raw anarchy, and patterns of alliance and threat between anonymous state-units as the only sources of peace and war, which creates an insurmountable gulf between neorealism and Kantian thinking.