ABSTRACT
Democratic peace (DP) scholarship is a textbook example of the transposition of theory into political practice. In this instance, ideology is conceptualised as inhering in the politicisation of theory through the simplification and misuse within political practice. This perspective, however, externalises processes of politicisation from the production of theory itself. It ignores that theory is already part of struggles over meaning and therewith on political order. This is also apparent in recent studies on democratic war (DW). Even critical approaches in this area tie on ‘liberal’ assumptions about the international and generalise a minimalist conception of democracy, thereby reproducing the ideological effects they intend to critique. The chapter addresses this problem from a conceptual perspective. Drawing upon the notion of essential contestability of political concepts it argues for the politicisation of the core concept of democratic war study – democracy itself. Taking the idea of contestability and openness of democracy seriously has methodological implications for democratic war study on three levels: Its objects of investigation, operationalisation of key concepts, and the contexts of theory production and influence.
