Never at War - Results

Results

Using these definitions, Weart finds numerous wars between the same and different kinds of societies but also two exceptions. Democracies have never fought one another and oligarchies have almost never fought one another. Wars between democracies and oligarchies have, however, been common.

The book argues that the pattern is sharply evident in for example 300 years of Ancient Greek history, the Swiss Cantons since 14th century, in the County of Flanders during 14th century, in the three and a half centuries of the Hanseatic League, and in Renaissance Italy. These periods included numerous societies that frequently changed regime type. The societies abruptly stopped fighting other oligarchies if they became an oligarchy and abruptly stopped fighting other democracies if they became a democracy. This pattern immediately reversed if the regime type changed again.

Weart argues that the only clear case of war between oligarchies is a 1656 battle between Bern and Lucerne, caused by religious fervor during the Reformation. The War of the Pacific may be another, but both Chile and Peru had strong anocratic tendencies where family and personal loyalty formed much of the power base of the leaders. Toleration of political dissent was at best limited.

Democracies have a few times issued formal declarations of war on other democracies, usually because of a war between a temporary allied nondemocracy and the other democracy. In these cases the democracies have carefully avoided engaging in almost any real battle with one another. There seems to have been almost no deaths during the 369-362 BC war between Thebes and Athens, while at the same time Sparta and Thebes fought numerous bloody battles. In the main battle in 362 BC, the Athenian infantry avoided joining the charge. Finland and the United Kingdom carefully avoided attacking one another during World War II despite a formal declaration of war.