Liberal democracies very rarely fight wars against each other, even though they go to war just as often as other types of states do. John M. Owen IV attributes this peculiar restraint to a synergy between liberal ideology and the institutions that exist within these states. Liberal elites identify their interests with those of their counterparts in foreign states, Owen contends. Free discussion and regular competitive elections allow the agitations of the elites in liberal democracies to shape foreign policy, especially during crises, by influencing governmental decision makers. Several previous analysts have offered theories to explain liberal peace, but they have not examined the state. This book explores the chain of events linking peace with democracies. Owen emphasizes that peace is constructed by democratic ideas, and should be understood as a strong tendency built upon historically contingent perceptions and institutions. He tests his theory against ten cases drawn from over a century of U.S. diplomatic history, beginning with the Jay Treaty in 1794 and ending with the Spanish-American War in 1898. A world full of liberal democracies would not necessarily be peaceful. Were illiberal states to disappear, Owen asserts, liberal states would have difficulty identifying one another, and would have less reason to remain at peace.

Comprising essays by Michael W. Doyle, Liberal Peace examines the special significance of liberalism for international relations. The volume begins by outlining the two legacies of liberalism in international relations - how and why liberal states have maintained peace among themselves while at the same time being prone to making war against non-liberal states. Exploring policy implications, the author focuses on the strategic value of the inter-liberal democratic community and how it can be protected, preserved, and enlarged, and whether liberals can go beyond a separate peace to a more integrated global democracy. Finally, the volume considers when force should and should not be used to promote national security and human security across borders, and argues against President George W. Bush’s policy of "transformative" interventions. The concluding essay engages with scholarly critics of the liberal democratic peace. This book will be of great interest to students of international relations, foreign policy, political philosophy, and security studies.

Moving beyond the binary argument between those who buy into the aims of creating liberal democratic states grounded in free markets and rule of law, and those who critique and oppose them, this timely and much-needed critical volume takes a fresh look at the liberal peace debate. In doing so, it examines the validity of this critique in contemporary peacebuilding and statebuilding practice through a multitude of case studies - from Afghanistan to Somalia, Sri Lanka to Kosovo. Going further, it investigates the underlying theoretical assumptions of liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding, as well as providing new theoretical propositions for understanding current interventions. Written by some of the most prominent scholars in the field, alongside several new scholars making cutting edge contributions, this is an essential contribution to a rapidly growing interdisciplinary area of study.

This volume comprises the key writings of Prof. Michael Doyle on the Liberal Peace, from the 1980s up to the present day.

This critical and comparative book is comprised of arguments for and against the dominant western style of peace interventions and post-war reconstruction that has been applied around the world. It examines and assesses the nature of the peace that these have achieved or offer for the future.

Sir Michael Howard traces the pattern in the attitudes of liberal-minded men and women in the face of war, from Erasmus to the Americans after Vietnam, and concludes that peacemaking is a task which has to be tackled afresh every day of our lives.

The present book uses Sri Lanka’s failed attempt at negotiating peace with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to examine the politics of state and market reforms towards liberal peace. Sri Lanka is seen as a critical case that demonstrates key characteristics and shortcomings of liberal peace, vividly demonstrated by internationally facilitated elite negotiations and donor-funded neoliberal development.