Does democratization lead to war?

For this post i have chosen to comment on an article found in Foreign Affairs entitled, “Democratization and War” written by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. I have chosen to write on this topic because of our discussion regarding the argument that democracies do not make war upon each other. After reading the article this thesis has its limits. The authors start their argument by mentioning that this idea is the “law” in international relations, only because the United States used it to further their aggressive foreign policy of promoting democracies across the globe. They also bring into the argument of history playing an important factor, in saying that after the Napoleonic wars, the elite halted the rise of  democracy and nationalism and there was a time of relative peace until the Crimean War. What does this mean to us today? While we see the creations of democracies outside of the west as progress, it it is not always so cut and dry.  Their results found that newly democratic states are more likely to take part in an interstate war. This can be attributed to a multitude of ideas. The one I find most supportive of their data is that in this turmoil, leaders strike a nationalist propaganda and need to solidify the regime change. While I agree with the idea of citizens gaining their right to vote and choose their own leaders, the west cannot push to hard.

The idea of democracies do not fight each other does hold true at the most stable of states, but newly democratized can be volatile and unstable to begin with. So the question is; Do the ends justify the means? This topic is very interesting to me and one i would like to learn about further if given the chance, especially with the growth of China capturing our gaze.