Vol. 4(5), pp. 76-89, September, 2013 International Journal of Peace and Development DOI: 10.5897/IJPDS2013.0178 ISSN 2141-6621 © 2013 Academic Journals Studies http://www.academicjournals.org/IJPDS Review Foreign policy of Eritrea: Explained in the light of ‘democratic peace’ proposition Salih O. Nur School of Social Sciences, University of Osnabrueck Accepted 30 July, 2013 During the past two decades since its independence in 1991, Eritrea’s foreign policy had been characterized by conflict and confrontation. It maintained pretty much troubled and usually violent relations with all its neighbors. Likewise, its relations with major powers at the international arena had been strained, particularly since the beginning of the last decade. Its relations with donors and human rights agencies have also being extremely troubled mainly because of the regime’s intolerance, fears of external subversion, and gruesome human rights record. An analytical approach based on conflict of interests may proffer a partial explanation, but it hardly explicates Eritrea’s militarized foreign policy. This article contends that an account of the absence of democratic norms and institutions ― that ensure accountability, transparency, and institutional checks and balances in policy-making ― better explains the country’s awkwardly troubled foreign policy. In line with the democratic peace (DP) proposition, it is argued that the ruling party’s embedded authoritarian political culture and absence of democratic rule in post-independent Eritrea have seriously jeopardized the new nation’s foreign policy. Key words: Foreign policy, democratic peace, conflict, EPLF/PFDJ, political culture, institutions. INTRODUCTION The foreign policy of Eritrea, a small country in the Horn tightening sanctions by the Security Council since 2009. of Africa, in the past two decades of its independence The regime’s relations with donors and human rights has been characterized by conflict and confrontation with agencies has also being extremely troubled since the its neighbors and other world powers. It maintained pretty country’s independence because of its intolerance, fears much troubled and usually violent relations with all its of external subversion, and, more recently, gruesome neighbors, including conflicts with Yemen and Djibouti; human rights record. more seriously, with Ethiopia and the Sudan. Likewise, its This paper aims to explain Eritrea’s foreign policy in the relations at the international arena have been strained, light of democratic peace theory; which contends particularly during the last decade or so. Apparently democracies are less likely to go to war and a normal relations with the US in the 1990s have been government’s aggressive foreign policy has much to do frosty since an alleged border war broke with Ethiopia in with its nondemocratic-ness at home. An explanation of 1998. Its ties with the UN, African Union and the EU are conflict of interests, may partly explain Eritrea’s troubled as swell because of its outrage at these militarized foreign policy, but such an approach hardly organizations’ reluctance to force Ethiopia to accept a explicates the fundamental factors underpinning Eritrean boundary commission ruling. The rogue behavior of regime’s warlike behavior. This paper argue the absence Isaias’s regime and its allegedly destabilizing role in the of democratic norms and institutions ― that ensure region earned Eritrea the tag of a regional ‘spoiler’ and accountability, transparency, and institutional checks and E-mail: [email protected] Nur 77 balances in policy-making ― gives better account of such 1993; John, 1994, p. xi). It is logically impossible for awkwardly violent foreign policy. This paper, in line with (liberal) proponents or (realist) opponents (David, 1994; the democratic peace (DP) proposition, argues that the Christopher, 1994) of DP proposition to prove that ruling party’s (EPLF/PFDJ) tradition of authoritarian democracies have never fought and will never fight in the political culture and the absence of democratic rule in future. At the same time, several empirical studies find post-independent Eritrea have seriously jeopardized the that democracies are just as war-prone as other states. new nation’s foreign policy. Others argue democracies are “Janus-faced,” that they In order to better elucidate the topic, it raises three do not fight each other but are frequently involved in wars inter-related historical and contemporary themes. First, against authoritarian regimes (Thomas, 1995). the history of authoritarian political culture of the Eritrean Nevertheless, it still remains the case that democratic People’s Liberation Front ― EPLF, the ruling front that governments are in general more peace-loving than their renamed itself the Peoples Front for Democracy and non-democratic counterparts. If governments are Justice (PFDJ) ― is briefly examined. Second, and constrained by domestic institutional constrains and are related issue, is EPLF’s fatally realist Weltanschauung, bound by public opinion that always prevents leaders the understanding of history, and its cautious interaction from starting wars, then we should certainly expect that with the outside world. Finally, the absence of democratic democracies are more peaceful than non-democracies norms and policymaking institutions is examined to (Michael et al., 1996; Russet, 1993). understand the new nation’s foreign policy. This paper DP theorists argue that democracies rarely, if ever, will address these with two questions in mind: first, how fight one another. But what explains the absence of war democratic states remain at peace because of democra- between democracies, or the peacefulness of tic norms and institutions; and second, are democracies democracies? There are several versions of the causal predisposed to peaceful methods of conflict resolution? logic for the absence of war among democracies or their propensity to peace. Democratic norms and institutions are, nonetheless, two of the widely accepted normative THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY and institutional attributes of democratic regimes on which the consensus on DP proposition is built. In his The democratic peace proposition (or theory) finds its seminal work “Why Democratic Peace?,” Russett origins two centuries back in the ideas of Immanuel Kant presents two causal factors for the absence of war who, in his seminal thesis ‘Perpetual Peace: A between democracies. The first is the cultural/normative Philosophical Essay, 1795, asserted that ‘republican model, which argues decision-makers in democracies states would enjoy a “perpetual peace” with other adhere to norms of peaceful conflict resolution republics’ (Lynn-Jones, 1996, p. ix). By republican, Kant corresponding to similar domestic norms and practice. In meant a constitutional government based on “the political other words, since democracies resolve internal conflicts principle of the separation of the executive power (the peacefully, they also try to settle international conflicts administration) from the legislative”, one “on which all peacefully. Thus norms of peaceful conflict resolution and juridical legislation of a people” is supreme1. In a similar mutual expectation create peace among democracies but fashion, today, neo-Kantians (Doyle, 1983; Russet, 1993; not necessarily with non-democracies (Lynn-Jones, 1996, John, 1994) advocate that democratic states virtually pp. xvii-xviii). never go to war with one another. This (near) absence of In a similar fashion, (Doyle, 1983) argues that states war between democracies has come to be known as the that adhere to liberal principles/norms enjoy peace “democratic peace.” There is some discrepancy; some among themselves but are likely to go to war against refer to peace between democracies while others argue non-liberal states. In this ‘liberal zone of peace’, Doyle liberal states do not go to war against each other. Kant regards liberalism ― “a distinct ideology and set of himself focused on what he called republics, not institutions” ― as a source of peace, because it is based (a) democracies. There is, however, substantial overlap on principles that value the rights and “the freedom of the between the two, though “liberal peace” may not be individual”; and (b) on institutions that guarantee rule by identical with “democratic peace” (Doyle, 1983; Russet, representatives, legal equality of citizens, freedom of worship and information, private property, and market 1 In the Definitive Articles for Perpetual Peace Among states, Kant holds in the economy. To Doyle, Kant’s “perpetual peace” provides First Article that ‘The civil constitution of every state is to be republican’; one the best explanation of liberal peace ― not public control governed by a republican constitution (distinct from democratic constitution) in over foreign policy but principles and institutions shared which the ‘prospects for creating perpetual peace are favourable’, because ‘In a by republican regimes make war difficult ― and of the big republican system it must be the citizens, who are all legally on a par, who decide ‘War or no war?’, and in answering that they have to contemplate all tendency of liberal states to wage war against non-liberal calamities of war, in which they would have to fight, pay the costs of the war states (Lynn-Jones, 1996, pp. xiv-xvi). out of their own pockets, painfully repair the devastation war leaves behind, The second explanation, which Russett calls the and, load themselves with a heavy national