ABSTRACT
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, as well as human rights advocates and neo-conservative publicists, have argued that promoting democracy abroad promotes peace. Mature, stable democracies have not fought wars against each other, and they rarely suffer from civil wars. But the path to the democratic peace is not always smooth. Stalemated, violent democratic transitions in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Authority were the bane of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” and its plans for a “new Middle East.” Likewise, during the 1990s, competitive elections held in the early stages of democratization led directly to major civil wars in Algeria, Burundi, and Yugoslavia.
