Six Alternatives to War, One Solution for Peace: The Pacifying Effect of Civil Society

Abstract

Although civil society has significant implications for international peace, it has been overlooked and not given enough attention. Instead, existing studies focus on other factors that contribute to peace. In this study, we compare five prominent peace factors, namely, democratic peace, Cold War peace, contractualist peace, capitalist peace, and territorial peace, to a robust civil society. Our research presents a unique theoretical argument that a robust civil society can have a pacifying effect on international conflict. This is because it can organize a united front against belligerent leaders, solve collective action problems, and take immediate action against leaders’ war decisions in pursuit of a common peace agenda. We begin by building a canonical democratic peace model and then compare the results related to civil society and each of the five peace factors. Our findings provide supporting evidence that a robust civil society has a stronger pacifying effect compared to democratic, Cold War, contractualist, capitalist, and territorial peace, respectively. Our empirical results are significant for academics and policymakers, highlighting the importance of building a robust civil society in the pursuit of perpetual peace.