" Contrasting democracy with other forms of governments, Kant argues, "On the other hand, in a constitution which is not republican, and under which the subjects are not citizens, a declaration of war is the easiest thing in the world to decide upon, because war does not require of the ruler, who is the proprietor and not a member of the state, the least sacrifice of the pleasure of his table, the chase, his country houses, his court functions, and the like

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             Thomas Paine spoke on the theory in his book "Common Sense. " He stated that Kings would always go to war out of pride while democratic nations would not. The people's desire to remain in peace, for an array of reasons, would render war an unlikely occurrence among democracies. In 1964 a criminologist named Dean Babst did statistical research on the theory in his academic paper, but Melvin Small and J. David Singer objected the accuracy of the theory in 1976. They did find that there was a noticeable absence of wars between democratic nations, with two exceptions, but felt that this was mere coincidence and did not do much to support the democratic peace theory. A wide array of other researchers have attempted to explain, systematically, how democracies can cause peace and also how democratic nations may affect other aspects of foreign relations such as alliances and communication. There have been an abundance studies in the field since the initial works. Most of them have found that democratic peace exists on some level, although the extent to which it exists as a pattern has yet to be resolved. .

             As to be expected with any theory, the democratic peace theory accepted universally within the field of international relations. It is a result of vigorous and active research, but like most these kinds of theories, it has been cause for just as vigorous criticism from several sides. One weakness of the democratic peace theory is that there is a fairly small sample from which to draw conclusions.