Kant's third image: Systemic sources of the liberal peace

Much recent scholarship has focused upon the apparent absence of war among liberal democratic states-the liberal peace. To help explain the phenomenon, many refer to the political writings of Immanuel Kant, and the central role he envisioned for the liberal republic as the foundation for ''perpetual peace.'' Against this view, ''neorealists'' contend that Kant, and modern interpreters, overlook the important and unremitting force of anarchy among states. For neorealists, no peace dependent oil only the internal pacific disposition of liberal republics can endure. Supporters of the Kantian interpretation respond that properly constituted republics can, in fact, overcome the anarchy among them, and that the present liberal peace therefore challenges the adequacy of ''systemic'' theories of international politics. This article argues that to view the significance of the liberal peace as a test of opposing ''levels of analysis'' misses dec:per issues, Kant's thought itself contains an indispensable systemic or ''third image'' dimension, identifying anarchy and conflict as key sources of progress away from the state of war among states. This perspective suggests that the core questions raised by the liberal peace phenomenon concern not only the importance of anarchy among states, but also the long-run effects of anarchy on the nature of states and the consequences of their interactions. As an initial exploration of this argument, the article concludes with some preliminary comparative applications of neorealist and Kantian hypotheses regarding contemporary and future trends in world politics.