Border and the Democratic Peace by Kant

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the problems of so-called democratic peace theory and the conditions of wars between nation states. This argumentation starts from Kant's 'On Perpetual Peace'. As the conditions of perpetual peace. Kant claimed that every political system shall be republic (constitutional democracy). This claim contains 2 elements. The one is that the citizens who actually fight against other nations don't prefer to begin war. Democracy prevents policy decision-makers from war.And the other point is that a state should be public and moral person. This is the condition of republic state. On the contrary, absolute monarchs regard land and people as exchangeable and acquirable property, so they can easily begin war for the sake of their own benefit. Therefore, absolute monarchy is threat to peace. This thought has developed as the democratic peace theory, which is today advocated by Michael Doyle and strongly supported by John Rawls. However, the democratic state as public and collective person intensified wars between nation states in 19-20 century, associating national identity with individual identity. Land became the divine element of state as same as the bodyof individual persons.