“Democratic War”: Democratic Peace Theory and the War in Former Yugoslavia

Abstract

This article analyses the democratic peace theory which holds that democra-cies do not fight each other. It tries to investigate whether the war in former Yugoslavia supports or rebukes this theory. The investigation of Mansfield and Snyder best explains the conflict in Yugoslavia. It was a conflict between democratizing states, which does not rebuke democratic peace theory, but it does challenge it because events in former Yugoslavia show that democratic elections – and they are conditio sine qua non of democracy – do not prevent wars.

Keywords

• democratic peace
• yugoslavia
• war
• elections
• democratization