「民主和平」研究的方法論：「聽眾成本」概念之辨析

A Methodological Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Research

「民主和平」研究是近十年來美國主流國關學界重要的議題之一，大量經驗檢證文獻指出，「民主和平」是無法否定的事實。這樣的結論不但早已成為主流學界的共識，許多學者呼籲未來的研究不該再是爭論「民主和平」存不存在，而是如何解釋「民主和平」的事實。然而，這樣的觀點即便從「實證主義」立場來看，都還有許多方法論的問題存在。本文指出，在這些方法論問題尚未得到適當處理之前，對於「民主和平」研究仍不應作出過度的宣稱。

The 'Democratic Peace' has been one of the most important topics in American international relations academies in the last decade. Many empirical studies have indicated that the Democratic Peace is a robust proposition, not a statistical artifact. This opinion not only has become a consensus in the mainstream academy, but also gives rise to a loud voice for shifting the debate from whether or not Democratic Peace exists to how can we best explain the phenomenon. However, even from the positivist's view of methodology, the democratic peace research still suffers some fundamental problems. This article examines these methodological problems and evaluates the democratic peace paradigm. The conclusion is that the Democratic Peace theory not so robust as originally thought, and much effort must be made in order to bridge the discontinuity in the democratic peace explanations.