ABSTRACT
My goal is to challenge this conventional wisdom. The argument is consistent with priorities identified from the systemist point of view put forward in Chapter 6 by Hayes and James. Like Hayes and James, this chapter calls for comprehensiveness in levels of analysis as the democratic peace moves forward. Unlike some critics of the democratic peace, who see it as a dead end, I present a constructive account of its future that utilizes recognized social scientific metrics. I agree with Ungerer’s and Chernoff ’s insistence that democratic peace research has a promising future. However, I differ with them over how this can be realized. While research at the dyadic level has previously achieved an enormous amount, today it faces acute diminishing returns. Contributions to knowledge have become increasingly incremental, and this will only intensify. The dyadic claim has become “decided opinion” that is stultifying productive debate. Thus the positive story of agreement from Chernoff in Chapter 5 may have a less happy sequel when further criteria come into play. Rather than reflecting unity and coherence within political science, consensus on the dyadic democratic peace reflects compartmentalization of research. Debates about democratic peace have become cut off from related areas of inquiry in comparative politics and political theory. In order to remain progressive in future, democratic peace research must shift to the systemic level of analysis and consider how the effects of the democratic peace vary with changes in the size and strength of the democratic community. There is nothing more dangerous for democratic peace research than continuing to “tread water” intellectually. Scientific progress is not possible to sustain over the longer term without taking risks and asking basic questions. Failure to do so will lead to stagnation, incrementalism, and growing irrelevance for the research community. These debates are important because research resources are scarce. Scholars face choices about where to bet their time and energies. The choices academics make now will determine the future strength and vitality of democratic peace research. Furthermore, since the democratic peace research program is a paragon for political science and IR, these debates shed light on how philosophy of science debates are best utilized and applied to other areas of research. The Lakatosian (1970) metric is not just valuable in assessing previous research but in guiding the future of scholarly inquiry.
