The North American Democratic Peace

by Roussel, Stephane

• ISBN13: 9780889119376
• ISBN10: 0889119376
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-30
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

The Canadian-American relationship constitutes one of the world's longest-standing "security communities." Security communities are interstate groupings characterized by dependable expectations of peaceful change, meaning that members neither use nor threaten to use force as a means of conflict resolution within the group. The Canadian-American security community is remarkable in that nearly two centuries have passed since the two countries last fought each other, and a century since either made a credible threat of force against the other. In this remarkably original description of the continental security community, Stephane Roussel has set out to explain North America's "long peace," and he has succeeded. Skillfully employing insights gleaned from democratic peace theory -- a body of theory more typically applied outside the North American context -- Roussel demonstrates that the liberal-democratic domestic orders of the two countries account for the North American security community. Not only do these respective domestic orders predispose the continent toward peace, but they also serve to enhance the quality of security and defence cooperation between the neighbours, making the North American "democratic alliance" one of the world's premier collective defence structures. For anyone interested in how that alliance took shape, and how it is likely to evolve given the uncertainties of the current war on terror, Roussel's book makes for timely and invaluable reading. Queen's School of Policy Studies is proud to have facilitated its translation into English. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Stephane Roussel is assistant professor, Department of Political Science, Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM), and holds the Canada Research Chair in Canadian Foreign and Defence Policy

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Preface and Acknowledgements	xi
A North American ``Liberal Order''?	1	(14)
PART ONE: THEORIZING BILATERAL DEFENCE AND SECURITY
Asymmetry and Its Discontents	15	(14)
In Search of the ``Equalizing Factors'': Realism, Transnationalism, and Institutionalism	29	(38)
A Liberal-Constructivist Alternative	67	(42)
PART TWO: EVOLUTION OF COOPERATION
The Beginning: From the ``Long Peace'' to Conflict Resolution, 1867--1914	109	(40)
From Coexistence to Cooperation: The Common Defence of North America, 1914--1945	149	(44)
Business as Usual: The Joint Defence of North America, 1945--1958	193	(38)
PART THREE: CONCLUSION
Conclusion	231	(12)
List of Acronyms	243	(2)
Index	245