Institutional Peace
International institutions promote peace in democracies and non-democracies alike, but the democratically-built major international institutions are particularly successful in mediating conflict between democracies. In recent years, institutional peace has become an area of study on its own right, not only as an addition to democratic peace thesis. These studies have shown how international institutions promote normative rights and procedures that have reduced conflict.
Evidence for Institutional Peace
Institutional peace rests on three foundations of functions provided by interdemocratic institutions: to overcome the security dilemma and tame power competitions, to create cooperation and decrease "self-help" unilateral solutions, and to increase the independence of contentious areas, reducing the possibility of a problem issue spilling into other facets of a relationship (Andreas Hasenclever and Brigitte Weiffen, "International Institutions Are the Key: A New Perspective on the Democratic Peace," Review of International Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct., 2006)). Hasenclever and Weiffen prove that international institutions ensure all three functions, and have managed, in their study, three former rivals peacefully. Interdemocratic institutions provide a unique function in the world, and contribute to peace in tangible ways. Robert Keohane, in "International Institutions: Can Interdependence Work?" published by Foreign Policy in 1998, shows specifically how international institutions give nations incentives for keeping their word and the ability to trust that other nations will keep their world, and increase transparency within dealings and in motivations, decreasing several facets of the security dilemma. Another way institutional peace works is by creating widely held norms that states then feel bound to and accept intervention on (Darren Hawkins, "Explaining Costly International Institutions: Persuasion and Enforceable Human Rights Norms," International Studies Quarterly, 2004). Although institutional peace is not always effective, the increased communication, interdependence, and regulation of relations between democratic states leads to a lessening of armed conflict and a major lessening of war between liberal states.
Evidence for Institutional Peace
Institutional peace rests on three foundations of functions provided by interdemocratic institutions: to overcome the security dilemma and tame power competitions, to create cooperation and decrease "self-help" unilateral solutions, and to increase the independence of contentious areas, reducing the possibility of a problem issue spilling into other facets of a relationship (Andreas Hasenclever and Brigitte Weiffen, "International Institutions Are the Key: A New Perspective on the Democratic Peace," Review of International Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct., 2006)). Hasenclever and Weiffen prove that international institutions ensure all three functions, and have managed, in their study, three former rivals peacefully. Interdemocratic institutions provide a unique function in the world, and contribute to peace in tangible ways. Robert Keohane, in "International Institutions: Can Interdependence Work?" published by Foreign Policy in 1998, shows specifically how international institutions give nations incentives for keeping their word and the ability to trust that other nations will keep their world, and increase transparency within dealings and in motivations, decreasing several facets of the security dilemma. Another way institutional peace works is by creating widely held norms that states then feel bound to and accept intervention on (Darren Hawkins, "Explaining Costly International Institutions: Persuasion and Enforceable Human Rights Norms," International Studies Quarterly, 2004). Although institutional peace is not always effective, the increased communication, interdependence, and regulation of relations between democratic states leads to a lessening of armed conflict and a major lessening of war between liberal states.