Democracy and War

Conor Cruise O"Brien on the allegedly pacific character of democratic states (from On the Eve of the Millenium, 1994):

It is said that democracies are necessarily peace-loving because ordinary people love peace, whereas arbitrary princes and dictators use war and the threat of war as an instrument of policy. As a historical generalization, this has some flaws. Britain was already a full democracy at the end of the nineteenth century, under the forms of a constitutional monarchy. But the Boer War was immensely popular with the British public at its beginning in 1899, and remained so for most of its course. It was only in retrospect that it turned sour. In 1914, both the British and French democracies were enthusiastic about the war. Among all belligerents, the socialist parties, hitherto pacifists, were converted into warlike nationalists, by the popular mood, of which they themselves formed part.

It was through the experience of the First World War that the idea of war became repulsive to the democracies. If that experience [had not had] that effect, then people would have been incapable of learning. Yet the relation of democracy to peace is still problematic. The best way of averting war may be through the running of a limited calculated risk: as over the Rhineland in 1936. But the people at large can never be in a position to make such calculations. To run any risk of general war is unpopular.