Never at War - Explanation

Explanation

Weart's explanation for the democratic and the oligarchic peace is the human tendency to classify other humans into ingroup and outgroup, documented in many psychological studies. Members of the outgroup are seen as inherently inferior and thus exploitation of them is justified. Citizens of democracies include citizens of other democratic states in the ingroup; the elites of oligarchies include the elites of other oligarchies in the ingroup. However, the oligarchic elites and the democratic citizens view each other as outgroup, democracies viewing the elites as exploiting the rest of the population, the oligarchic elites viewing democracies as governed by inferior men and are afraid that the democratic ideals may spread to their state.

The democratic and oligarchic peace are also strengthened by the culture of arbitration and the respect for the ingroup opposition in both democracies and oligarchies. Similar policies are applied to foreign policy when dealing with states belonging to the ingroup. In contrast, the leaders of autocracies are the survivors of a culture of violence against opponents. They use similar methods when dealing with other states which often cause wars. The book presents earlier statistical studies and case studies showing that democracies and oligarchies conduct diplomacy very differently from autocracies. Weart argues against explanations like more trade between democracies, finding the pattern to change too abruptly for this to be the case.

Earlier democracies and oligarchies did not include non-Europeans in the ingroup, perceiving them to be racially inferior people living in autocracies and anocracies. This allowed colonial and imperialistic wars and exploitation.

The book also describes an "appeasement trap". The autocratic leaders misunderstand the conciliatory methods used by democracies and oligarchies, seeing it as an admission of weakness that can be exploited with little risk. When the conciliatory methods are suddenly abandoned and the war arrives the autocratic leaders are often surprised and then conclude that the other side planned the war from the beginning.