ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the democratic peace into different levels, each more abstract and fundamental. The first-level explanation is really along the continuum of democracy to authoritarianism, rather than the more relevant continuum of democracy to totalitarianism. This mistake is understandable, since when this explanation was first proposed by Kant in 1795, totalitarian systems of the modern variety did not exist. Except for the newly republican United States and revolutionary France, the world was almost wholly made up of authoritarian monarchies. Nonetheless, it does give an easily understandable partial explanation for the interdemocratic peace, one that is most applicable to the most democratic of regimes most of the time. In contemporary research the first-level explanation focuses on democratic institutions. It argues that competitive and periodic elections for the highest offices, a wide franchise, a secret ballot, and freedom of speech create a regime responsible to the people and less likely to engage in violence.
