MILITARY-INTERVENTION AND THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE

The finding generated by numerous empirical investigations that democr acies do not wage war against one another has inspired hope that the d emocratic ''pacific union'' envisioned by Immanuel Kant and Woodrow Wi lson might be created in the late 1990s as democracy spreads worldwide . This paper examines democracies' use of overt military intervention, exploring if the democratic peace applies tb small-scale as well as l arge-scale war. The research uncovers 15 instances in which free democ ratic states have moved their regular troops into the territory of oth er free states and 32 instances of free states intervening into partly free states between 1974 and 1988. Focusing on these anomalous cases, the paper assesses the extent to which this interventionist activity comprises a potential ''danger zone in the democratic peace,'' and a c oncludes with a discussion of the role that interventionism is likely to play in a democratic twentieth-century peace.