Covert Operations, Wars, Detainee Destinations, and the Psychology of Democratic Peace

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This is wonderful example of cross-pollination of international relations and psychology. A theory from psychology, The Perceptual Theory of Legitimacy (Crandall & Beasley, 2001), describes how people like consistency, and find it hard to balance the notion that something bad (we go to war against them) can happen to something that is good (e.g., is a democracy). This simple notion of cognitive consistency led us to theorize about democratic peace, and how this might be more about appearances than reality. We find that the US might operate in the world with realpolitik, but appears to the American public to act consistently with democratic peace.

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