ABSTRACT
This chapter situates the notion of a democratic peace in its intellectual–historical and cultural context. Inspired by Azar Gat's argument about the “impact on modernity” on the pacifistic disposition of democratic countries, the chapter explores the “modern” character of the concept of democratic peace. It does so by way of an admittedly plotted conceptual history of peace. After a short reflection on the challenge of identifying the modern/modernity (warning that there are never clear breaks between historical periods and that any claim to identifying the particularity of modernity must remain a narrative endeavor), the chapter nonetheless proceeds to offer an (ideal-typical) description of “medieval peace,” for which Saint Augustine laid the conceptual groundwork, and “modern peace,” for which Thomas Hobbes laid the conceptual groundwork. The concept of democratic peace, as it developed in the late eighteenth century, does not sit comfortably with the ideal typically modern concept of peace. Rather, it shows evidence of the “romantic” dissatisfaction with modernity and betrays an equally romantic neo-medieval streak. The chapter ends by identifying four defining features of the concept of democratic peace. Democratic peace is a combative, republican, intimate, and sacred (or at least sacralizing) practice.
