The purpose of the article is to undertake a critical analysis of the democratic peace approach laid out in Oneal and Russett's Triangulating peace - democracy, interdependence and international organizations (2001). This study offers a theoretical framework to explain a supposed international "fact" and attempts to incorporate and control some variables of the main approach it seeks to challenge - structural realism. The article argues that Oneal and Russett fail in their two main attempted contributions. The causal mechanism identified by the authors does not withstand resist the understanding, derived from Clausewitz's theory of war, of war as an integral political phenomenon. Incidentally, this criticism also applies to other prominent works on the democratic peace, given these share the same assumptions. Furthermore, the authors are incapable of identifying and controlling the "realist" variables as planned, which makes them vulnerable to the criticism of epiphenomenalism.
Democratic Peace; Clausewitz; Theory of War; Structural Realism