Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace by Joanne GowaReview by: G. John IkenberryForeign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1999), p. 163Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049460 .

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Recent Books

great driving forces of history?politics,

ideology, religion, inequality, and

nationalism?can be rendered impotent

by capital movements and global firms?

What happens if the world economy contracts or the financial system crashes?

Even in a world of virtual states, there

are winners and losers.

Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic

Peace, by joanne gowa. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1999,

144 pp. $27.50. The democratic-peace argument, which

holds that democracies tend not to fight each other, is one of the few lawlike

generalizations in international relations.

It has also inspired the Clinton administra

tion's strategy of expanding the zone of

democracy. Now Gowa has come out with

the most important and sustained critique of this premise. Using sophisticated statistical techniques, she argues that

aside from the Cold War era democracies

were in fact no less likely to fight with each other than with nondemocracies; conven

tional realist arguments best explain the

incidence of war between states, and power determines the state interests that drive

foreign policy. To Gowa, the democratic

peace phenomenon is really a side effect

of the Cold War system, not an inherent

trait of state behavior. States that do ally with each other are driven by common

security fears; they may be less inclined to

fight each other, but primarily for balance

of-power reasons. This book will spark valuable discussion as the post-Cold War

world tests both the democratic-peace

argument and Gowa's alternative.

Power Ties: Economic Interdependence,

Balancing, and War. by paul a.

PAPAYOANOU. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999,315 pp. $44.50.

Balance-of-power theory has endured in

the study of international relations because

it can explain a great deal. When newly

powerful states emerge on the world

scene, other states sense threats and

form counterbalancing alliances. But

the empirical record has varied widely. Britain and France responded weakly to

Germany's rise before the two world

wars, whereas the Western democracies

united effectively to balance against the

Soviet Union after 1947. To explain these

variations, Papayoanou investigates the

economic relations between major powers. Status quo states are most likely to cooper ate and balance against a rising power if

they have strong economic ties with each

other but not with the adversary. When

economic ties with the adversary are

extensive, however, a balancing strategy is difficult to sustain. There are few

surprises here, but the book nicely

attempts to integrate economic variables

into grand strategy. Papayoanou also warns

that dangerous security consequences arise

if a country forges deep economic ties

with potential adversaries, but he fails to examine the possibility that those ties

might actually transform the rival state.

Global Justice, edited by i an s h apiro

AND LEA BRILMAYER. NewYork:

New York University Press, 1999,

224 pp. $50.00. Economic globalization has ignited debates

over global justice as rising inequality challenges moral philosophers to expand their scope beyond domestic affairs. In

this volume, scholars explore the possible terms of "cosmopolitan justice." Columbia's

Brian Barry addresses an underlying

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- September/October 1999 [ 16 3 ]

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