| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 4/3 |
| 2003/5/24 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:28540 Activity:very high |
5/25 More on US racist imperialism
20TH CENTURY DEMOCIDE
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
\_ this is a good site in terms of murder by government statistics,
but like (it often seems) everyone, they just aren't too bright.
I'm sick of hearing this drivel about how "democracies" don't
fight one another.
\_ what's the most destructive war you can think of in which
both sides were democracies?
\- how many democracies were there in the world between
1648 and 1945? --psb
1648 and 1945? how many democracies were there in
the year 1812? --psb
\_ world war II, Hitler was democratically elected as was
mussolini. Finland was a democracy at the time they
were fighting on the side of Germany et. al. The whole
idea is just stupid. It is more true and slightly less
meaningless to say "countries with mcdonald's in them
don't go to war against each other." That is to say
that countries with stong economic interdependencies
and countries with similar cultures, are less likely to
\- the interdependence theory [sic] is pretty iffy.
in fact it isnt really a theory. does it apply to
france and england since 1066? were the alliances
of the peloponessian was explained by "cultural
and econ ties"? how about the post 1945 relations
between the US, Su and China? and of course the
war of 1812 again. the main problem is like that
with freudian theory ... it's hard to test because
it is so vague. it's not so much right or wrong
but either meaningless or more charitably an
assertion not a theory. (see APSR Dec97,pp913-917)
the %GDP in exports in 1900 was quite high ... that
level wasnt equalled for almost 50yrs after ww2.
remember states (should) seek security. interdependence
(often) means vulnurability. do you think germany
and japan liked being "interdependent" on other
countries for oil in the 1930s? there is a
huge lit on this since kohane and nye book.
e.g. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/copeland.htm
--psb
go to war; but the idea of being a democracy somehow
magically keeping you from making war on other democracies
is just stupid.
\_ They were elected but then took over and made them into
100% dictatorships. They were not democracies in any
sense of the word by the time any shooting started. I'm
so tired of know nothing smart asses like you spouting off
like you know something. This isn't a dorm lounge chat at
3am about whether or not God exists. It's the motd and you
can't get away with making up shit like that here.
\_ dear moron, i notice you didn't address Finland. Also
I can name a number of other examples of democracies
\_ Finland was a semi-autocratic nation under Field
Marshal Mannerheim at the time. Likewise, it was
not a case of 'two democratic nations', as their
alliance with the Germans was a logical continuation
of being invaded by the USSR in 1939 and losing >10%
of their territory. Your point about nukes is wrong,
and your historical points are shaky. Likewise, your
list of criteria about nations with residual
totalitarianism below will find few applications in
modern Europe. Plus, 'dear moron' is not a way
to win arguments. Just some free advice. -John
fighting one another, but you will just explain all of
them away until you are left making some stupid
statement which boils down to "Europe hasn't had any
warfare since world war II". (btw, the reason for this
is simple: NUKES). I was asked for the "most
destructive" example and i gave it. It is not the best.
It was the most destructive though. Asking to specify
"the most destructive" is practically an admission of
defeat already. If you don't accept democratically
elected govenments that turn dict. then you prob.
don't accept countries with nominal/residual monarchy
or countries with slavery/without universal suffrage
with makes the NUMBER of democracy/years in existence
pretty damn small with which to be making sweeping
generalizations like this. Of course, a complete
lack of data points (or intelligence) has never been
enough to stop Poly Sci folks from spouting nonsese.
\_ aristotle hated democracies cos he felt it ruined athens.
caused them the wwar.
\-how is this relevant? i'm tempted to say this is
wrong, but it is really more correct to say this is
meaningless. --psb
\_ Very well stated. who is this? -scotsman
\_ Exactly. There may be some anecdotal evidence that
\- it's not "anecdotal
evidence". it's an
issue of is it a
"mere corrletation"
or is there a causal
explanation. and then
is the data fudged
on the correlation at
all. --psb
democracies don't go to war with one another, but
if you consider why countries go to war, there is
no reason a democracy wouldn't go to war with another
democracy.
\_ Ooo Yea baby! I've been waiting to hear this for some
time.
\_ And you're incapable of typing it yourself?
\_ Too hard for me.
\-Hello, YMWTS: ~psb/DemoWar.commentarii. --psb
\_ How about adding another counfounding variable:
the deep fear of war European nations
(where a large number of the world's
democracies are) had after WWI and WWII,
which broke down the barriers for greater
efforts at integration such as the EU.
Or is that weak?
\- What are you trying to explain?
yes weak. "fear went down" is not
an explanation; it is an assertion.
why didnt the EC happen after the
"fear went down" after napoleon was
defeated? the concert of europe was
a very different answer than the EC.
how about "the frenchies stopped
fearing someone capturing paris again
aftger developing their "force de
frappe". on the period between ww1/2
see EHCarr 20 yrs crisis. that is a
damn good book and Keynes: Econ
Conseq Peace.
On the point of everything being
warm and fuzzy among the euro-allies:
what do you think is more likely:
--brit/france turn over their nuke
arsenals to a "EC joint nuke command"
--"team player germany" builds its
own nukes.
now it is possible neither will happen
in the next 20yrs, but if you were a
betting man, which would you bet on?
--psb
\_ But but but, isn't it true that the
nationalism and naitional rivalry
among European nations as seen in
the earlier half of the 20th
century very much went away? Isn't
that part of the reaction to the
horrors of WWI and WWII? Or do you
there a better theory for it?
\_ To add to it, another coun |
| 4/3 |
|
| www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM CENTURY DEMOCIDE Nearly 170 million people probably have been murdered by governments in the 20th Century, 1900-1987; What are the statistics of this global bloodbath and what governments have done this? What about the United States? CONTENTS Definitions The new concept of democide: Definition and qualifications 1 Article: What is Genocide? Democide versus genocide : which is what? Chapter: 1900-1987: 169,198,000 murdered 1 Article: pilot study: war isnt this centurys biggest killer References: overall sources of estimates/quotes/information 5 Table: summary by regime 5 Figure: democide year-by-year and war and rebellion-dead 5 What governments murdered how many? Table: summary of megamurderers -regimes that murdered 1,000,000 people or more 1 Chapter: the centi-kilo murderers-regimes that murdered 100,000 to 999,999 people or more 5 Tables: estimates, calculations, and sources, by states and by quasi-states 5 Chapter: the lesser murderers-regimes that murdered less than 100,000 people 5 Tables: estimates, calculations, and sources 5 Chapter: American bombing and other democide 5 Table: estimates, calculations, and sources 5 Paper: how many did communism murder? Chapter section: Khmer Rouge Cambodian democide 15 Chapter section: Rwandan genocide 15 Chapter: democide in totalitarian states: mortacracies and megamurderers-an annotated bibliography Chapter: the Holocaust in comparative perspective Paper: democide since World War II Chapter: the social field of democide 5 Tables: descriptive statistics among types of democide; The table in the upper right is from Table 12 of Death By Government. You are the visitor since 11/23/02 Return to top of page. |
| www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/copeland.htm Copeland, "Economic Interdependence and War: A Theory of Trade Expectations," International Security, Vol. With the Cold War over, this question is taking on importance as trade levels between established powers such as the United States and Russia and emerging powers such as Japan, China, and Western Europe grow to new heights. In this article, I provide a new dynamic theory to help overcome some of the theoretical and empirical problems with current liberal and realist views on the question. The prolonged debate between realists and liberals on the causes of war has been largely a debate about the relative salience of different causal variables. Realists stress such factors as relative power, while liberals focus on the absence or presence of collective security regimes and the pervasiveness of democratic communities. Economic interdependence is the only factor that plays an important causal role in the thinking of both camps, and their perspectives are diametrically opposed. Liberals argue that economic interdependence lowers the likelihood of war by increasing the value of trading over the alternative of aggression: interdependent states would rather trade than invade. As long as high levels of interdependence can be maintained, liberals assert, we have reason for optimism. Realists dismiss the liberal argument, arguing that high interdependence increases rather than decreases the probability of war. In anarchy, states must constantly worry about their security. Accordingly, interdependence - meaning mutual dependence and thus vulnerability - gives states an incentive to initiate war, if only to ensure continued access to necessary materials and goods. The unsatisfactory nature of both liberal and realist theories is shown by their difficulties in explaining the run-ups to the two World Wars. The period up to World War I exposes a glaring anomaly for liberal theory: the European powers had reached unprecedented levels of trade, yet that did not prevent them from going to war. Realists certainly have the correlation right - the war was preceded by high interdependence - but trade levels had been high for the previous thirty years; At first glance, the period from 1920 to 1940 seems to support liberalism over realism. In the 1920s, interdependence was high, and the world was essentially peaceful; Yet the two most aggressive states in the system during the 1930s, Germany and Japan, were also the most highly dependent despite their efforts towards autarchy, relying on other states, including other great powers, for critical raw materials. Realism thus seems correct in arguing that high dependence may lead to conflict, as states use war to ensure access to vital goods. Realism's problem with the interwar era, however, is that Germany and Japan had been even more dependent in the 1920s, yet they sought war only in the late 1930s when their dependence, although still significant, had fallen. The theory presented in this article - the theory of trade expectations - helps to resolve these problems. The theory starts by clarifying the notion of economic interdependence, fusing the liberal insight that the benefits of trade give states an incentive to avoid war with the realist view that the potential costs of being cut off can push states to war to secure vital goods. The total of the benefits and potential costs of trade versus autarchy reveals the true level of dependence a state faces, for if trade is completely severed, the state not only loses the gains from trade but also suffers the costs of adjusting its economy to the new situation. Trade expectations theory introduces a new causal variable, the expectations of future trade, examining its impact on the overall expected value of the trading option if a state decides to forgo war. This supplements the static consideration in liberalism and realism of the levels of interdependence at any point in time, with the importance of leaders' dynamic expectations into the future. Levels of interdependence and expectations of future trade, considered simultaneously, lead to new predictions. Interdependence can foster peace, as liberals argue, but this will only be so when states expect that trade levels will be high into the foreseeable future. If highly interdependent states expect that trade will be severely restricted - that is, if their expectations for future trade are low - realists are likely to be right: the most highly dependent states will be the ones most likely to initiate war, for fear of losing the economic wealth that supports their long-term security. In short, high interdependence can be either peace-inducing or war-inducing, depending on the expectations of future trade. This dynamic perspective helps bridge the gaps within and between current approaches. Separating levels of interdependence from expectations of future trade indicates that states may be pushed into war even if current trade levels are high, if leaders have good reason to suspect that others will cut them off in the future. In such a situation, the expected value of trade will likely be negative, and hence the value of continued peace is also negative, making war an attractive alternative. This insight helps resolve the liberal problem with World War I: despite high trade levels in 1913-14, declining expectations for future trade pushed German leaders to attack, to ensure long-term access to markets and raw materials. Even when current trade is low or non-existent, positive expectations for future trade will produce a positive expected value for trade, and therefore an incentive for continued peace. But in situations of low trade where there is no prospect that high trade levels will be restored in the future, highly dependent states may be pushed into conflict. This was the German and Japanese dilemma before World War II. The first section reviews liberal and realist theories on the relationship between economic interdependence and the probability of war, and provides a critique of both theories. The final section examines the diplomatic historical evidence for the new theory against two significant cases: Germany before World War I and Germany before World War II. The evidence indicates that the new variable, expectations of future trade, helps resolve the anomalies for current theories: in both cases, negative expectations for future trade, combined with high dependence, led leaders into total war out of fear for their long-term economic position and therefore security. The Liberal and Realist Debate on Economic Interdependence and War The core liberal position is straightforward. Trade provides valuable benefits, or "gains from trade," to any particular state. A dependent state should therefore seek to avoid war, since peaceful trading gives it all the benefits of close ties without any of the costs and risks of war. Trade pays more than war, so dependent states should prefer to trade not invade. This argument is often supported by the auxiliary proposition that modern technology greatly increases the costs and risks of aggression, making the trading option even more rational. Angell saw states having to choose between new ways of thinking, namely peaceful trade, and the "old method" of power politics. Even if war was once profitable, modernization now makes it impossible to "enrich" oneself through force; While the start of World War I just after The Great Illusion's initial publication might seem to refute his thesis, Angell in the 1933 edition argued that the debacle simply confirmed the unprofitability of modern wars. He thus upheld the common liberal view that wars, especially major wars, result from the misperceptions of leaders caught up in the outmoded belief that war still pays. Accordingly, his is "not a plea for the impossibility of war . Richard Rosecrance provides the most extensive update of the Cobden-Angell thesis to the nuclear era. States must choose between being "trading states," concerned with promoting wealth through commerce, and "territorial states," obsessed with military expansion. Modern conditions push states towards a predominantly trading mode: wars are not only too costly; Re... |