Journal for Peace and Justice Studies

Volume 21, Issue 1, 2011

Andrew J. Pierce
Pages 31-50

Formal Democracy, Structural Violence, and the Possibility of “Perpetual Peace”

In this paper, I revisit and evaluate Kant’s prerequisites for “perpetual peace,” including the claim, central to contemporary political rhetoric, that formal democracy produces peace. I argue that formal democracy alone is insufficient to address the kinds of deep-rooted structural violence that ultimately manifest in terrorism and other forms of direct violence. I claim that the attempt to eliminate structural violence, and so achieve real “perpetual peace,” requires a more substantive sort of democracy, of which the United States and the West remain poor examples. It requires a political critique that goes deeper than just the critique of state power and government action. This paper tries to develop that critique through a conception of structural violence, and of participatory parity as an overarching standard of redress for this type of violence in all of its forms.