Traversing the Romance of a Liberal International Order: The Democratic Peace Thesis and the Regional Security Problematique in South Asia

Date01 October 2020
Published date01 October 2020
DOI10.1177/0020881720962959
Subject MatterResearch article
Research article
Traversing the
Romance of a Liberal
International Order:
The Democratic Peace
Thesis and the Regional
Security Problematique
in South Asia
Sanjeev Kumar H. M.1
Abstract
The democratic peace hypothesis, which is embedded in the neo-Kantian romance
of liberal cosmopolitan idealism, was framed in the spatiotemporal context of
the Cold War bipolarity. Michael Doyle, who is one of its proponents, invoked
the Kantian philosophical abstraction of ‘the perpetual peace’ by providing an
intellectual defence and moral high ground for the values of the Liberal Capitalist
world. In the post–Cold War setting, Francis Fukuyama re-casted the hypothesis
and portrayed the triumph of liberal international order as ‘the end of history’. He
attempted to reframe the democratic peace thesis, not only to celebrate liberal
values as the normative exemplar for ordering a post–Cold War international
system but also to provide an intellectual defence for the newly emerging
space for American leadership in a post-hegemonic international system. This
intellectual defence of the ethical supremacy of liberal idealism in the world,
shaped by the leadership of the USA, was entrenched in the epistemological
Imperialism of the West. Besides, it also reflected an exclusionary idea of the
history of international relations that was heavily grounded in the chronology of
the post-Westphalia international order. Situating ourselves in this framework,
this article is an attempt to critique the epistemic foundations of the democratic
peace hypothesis, by deconstructing its assertions in the geostrategic context
1 Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi,
India.
Corresponding author:
Sanjeev Kumar H. M., Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi,
New Delhi, Delhi 110007, India.
E-mail: sanjeevp2009@gmail.com
International Studies
57(4) 344–360, 2020
2020 Jawaharlal Nehru University
Reprints and permissions:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/0020881720962959
journals.sagepub.com/home/isq
Kumar H. M. 345
of the regional security architecture in South Asia. The article criticizes the
democratic peace thesis, using an analysis of the Kargil conflict (1999) between
India and Pakistan, and by placing ourselves in the epistemological framework of
the historical turn in international relations.
Keywords
The democratic peace hypothesis, the liberal theory of international relations,
liberal cosmopolitanism, Republican liberalism, the historical turn in international
relations, South Asian regional security architecture
Introduction
The liberal theory of international relations (IR) represented by Michael Doyle
and Francis Fukuyama advocates an idealist cosmopolitan peace model as an
antidote to the anarchical character of IRs. Such a model, designated as the
democratic peace hypothesis, was propounded during the high noon of cultural
and ideological contest of Cold War bipolarity in IR. It affirms that no two
democracies would fight against each other and, through this propositional
assertion, the defenders of the liberal peace model offered an idealist formulation
to chart the pathways for ordering the international. The philosophical origins of
this thesis derive from the conception of Republican liberalism, as elaborated in
the pamphlet ‘Perpetual Peace’ written by Immanuel Kant.
The neo-Kantian romance for invoking of this classical statement of liberal
cosmopolitan idealism got inspired by the ingenious goal of providing an
intellectual defence and moral high ground for the values of the liberal capitalist
world that was led by the USA. Confronted by a contest of normative choices
from the Soviet-led socialist world, the US-led capitalist world attempted at
crafting the epistemology of IR theory in a manner to support its Cold War grand
strategies for responding to such a competition. These endeavours were situated
in the world order imageries that were weaved in terms of the Manichean
dichotomy between order (good) and anarchy (bad). The goal of devising modes
for ordering the international that was anarchical due to such a competition
constituted the language of the technical discourse of the discipline of IR. Such a
discourse was getting conditioned in the hegemonic Cold War vocabulary and
was directed towards becoming as a prescriptive enterprise for supporting the
policies of US ventures.
Diverse theoretical formulations were proposed to enunciate the capitalist
modes of ordering the international. Classical realism of Hans Morgenthau
advocated the foundational principles of foreign policymaking; structural realism
of Kenneth Waltz explained the ontology of systemic anarchy in IR and its
influence on state behavior. As regards the liberal paradigm, two distinct
propositions emerged as a critique of the realist formulations of the modes of
ordering the international. On the one hand, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye
provided a framework for institutionalized cooperation to deal with an anarchical

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT