Veteran Yale international-relations theorist Bruce Russett and his collaborators provide a valuable counterpart to the Singer-Wildavsky volume

above by methodically examining the proposition that democracies do not fight each other. Russett finds this to be an extraordinarily robust conclusion, examining and rejecting the counterexamples (e.g., the Boer War, the Spanish-American War, U.S. covert action against Guatemala and Chile) often raised to refute the thesis. Russett similarly discounts alternative explanations for democratic peace, such as the view that it is the product of international institutions, or simple geographical distance. He argues that peace is the product of shared norms and institutions that severely constrain the ability of one modern democracy to fight another. Russett concludes by worrying that the democratic peace may be violated by a number of the new democracies emerging after the Cold War, where democracy is tied to intolerant nationalism and ethnicity. While the methodological apparatus can make for tough going at points, the book presents a challenge to realists while providing a rigorous undergirding to what has become a widespread view.

"A very important book on a timely subject by a well-known and rigorous scholar. The book addresses a subject that has been of great interest recently both to academics and in policy circles: whether democracies ever fight wars with each other; and if not, why not."--Jack L. Snyder, Columbia University "The best book yet written on the important question of why democracies appear not to fight wars with each other even though they do fight with non-democratic states. . . . This is a highly original and provocative work that is bound to stimulate much discussion and debate."--Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Hoover Insitution and University of Rochester "This is a sophisticated and interesting book on what is undoubtedly the hot topic among students of international relations. Given the book's subject and its high quality, Grasping the Democratic Peace will be essential reading."--Aaron Friedberg, Princeton University

By illuminating the conflict-resolving mechanisms inherent in the relationships between democracies, Bruce Russett explains one of the most promising developments of the modern international system: the striking fact that the democracies that it comprises have almost never fought each other.