Capitalism, Democracy and the Prevention of War and Poverty / Edition 1

by Peter Graeff, Guido Mehlkop

Overview

For a very large part of the world’s population, poverty and war are still part of everyday life. Drawing on insights from several disciplines, this book attempts to find scientific answers to explain the relationship between conflict and poverty.

This interdisciplinary volume brings together a range of arguments that synthesize both democratic and capitalist peace theory. Supported by a large body of research, contributors contend that nations with institutions that maximize individual political and civil rights minimize the probability of fighting each other. The volume includes:

• contributors from leading and award winning scholars in the field, including Bruce Russett and Erik Gartzke
• topics such as democratization and economic development, situated within the broader contexts of globalization and modernization
• contributions supported by empirical analyses, systematizing democratic and capitalist peace theories

This book will be vital reading for students and scholars of International Relations and globalization, and also for a broader range of subjects including sociology, political science and economics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415467407
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/03/2008
Series:	Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Dr. Peter Graeff is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. His research interests include positive and negative social capital, statistics/methodology, conflict and military sociology. Previous publications include Why Nations Arm in Age of Globalization, Comparative Sociology, 2 (4), 2003, (with Guido Mehlkop).

Dr. Guido Mehlkop is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Dresden University of Technology, Germany. His research interests include the institutional and cultural determinants of economic growth and income inequality; the economic theory of conflict and crime, and military sociology.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2. Thucydides, Ancient Greece and the Democratic Peace 3. What Is The Democratic Peace And Why Pursue It? 4. Production, Prosperity, Preferences and Peace 5. Peace by Interdemocratic Institutions? A Theoretical Framework 6. Rewards of Freedom: Democracy and the Inflow of Foreign Direct Investment, 1984– 7. Is the IMF right? How robust is the relationship between market-oriented institutions and policies and economic growth? 8. Economic Freedom, Wealth and Corruption: Analyzing their empirical connection by means of correspondence analysis 9. Varieties of Capitalism and Social Change in Rich Democracies 10. Authority: a social coordination-mechanism A Contribution to the Explanation and Analysis of Social Mechanisms 11. Conclusion