Social Trust, Anarchy, and International Conflict

Social Trust, Anarchy, and International Conflict challenges the democratic peace and diversionary war theories by emphasizing the importance of social trust, its origin as a by-product of effective governance exercised by strong states, and influence on international conflict. The author argues that strong states socialize individuals into social environments where self-esteem is gained not through comparisons against out-groups, but rather cooperative role fulfillment with other individuals. This socialization, which contributes to the formation of generalized social trust (itself a basic and powerful heuristic) is then carried over into the state’s interactions with international actors, contributing to their pacific behavior and even influencing the nature of international anarchy itself. As a result, democratic peace is not really peace between democracies but rather peace between strong, well-governed states, and diversionary war represents not an effort to improve regime popularity but rather state legitimacy.