has been subsumed within the self proclaimed Realist approach to the study of international
relations, both in its classic and structural variants
3
. This perspective holds that the
characteristics of the international system, and not the characteristics of its composing
states, are the key to understanding the dynamics of inter-state relationships. In other
words, variables such as the type of political regime could not provide a satisfactory
explanation of a state’s foreign policy orientation.
Among the perspectives whose explanation of inter-state patterns of conflict and
cooperation is based on the internal structure of states, the most pervasive in the post-Cold
War era has been the one usually referred to as “Democratic Peace Theory”. It can be
summarized in the assertion that liberal democracies do not fight each other (and, by the
same token, are particularly prone to cooperate among themselves)
4
. Thus, it argues that
the type of political regime is crucial to understanding foreign policy orientation
5
.
likely to arise and where it is likely to lead when it does. Here we can assume, following Waltz, that
a balance of power constitutes an spontaneous inter-state order arising, in a process akin to Adam
Smith’s invisible hand, as a systemic effect not necessarily intended by any particular agent
operating within the system. I will further assume, like Waltz, that when such an order arises, it
tends to be relatively stable and peaceful, since these concepts do not necessarily presuppose each
other: “an international system is stable if the independence of all the actors in it is preserved. . . .
Thus, an international system can be stable even though it is characterized by frequent wars in
which many states are deprived of significant portions of their territory, so long as no state is
completely eliminated”.
Wagner 1986, pp. 546-547.
3
Hans Morgenthau refers to the notion of a balance of power as a “necessary outgrowth” of power
politics, which constitutes the main focus of realism.
Morgenthau 1973, p.161.
For Waltz, in turn, “From the anarchic nature of the international system and the assumption that
states ‘are unitary actors who, at a minimum, seek their own preservation and, at a maximum, drive
for universal domination’, Waltz deduces that balances of power must necessarily emerge”.
Keohane 1986, p.15.
4
Doyle 1986, and Russett 1993.
5
The assertion that democratic polities provide one another with a sense of mutual security derives
from two premises. First, within a state based on respect for the rights and freedoms of its citizens,
and responsive to their interests, conflicts of interests among them will be addressed through
peaceful means according to collectively sanctioned norms. Second, a state will tend to address its
conflicts of interests with other states through the same kinds of means and norms of conflict
resolution developed and applied within the realm of its internal political process.
If such a contention were to prove to be true, it would then follow that the conditioning effects on
the foreign behavior of states of an anarchic international system could be superseded by changing
Convention