Recent history has wrought a change in the concept of peace. Peace is no longer merely the absence of war or the balance of hostile superpowers. Peace has now come to signify cooperation between peoples, the end of structural violence and a general indisposition towards war. This article aims to portray this changing concept of peace from the point of view of the political scientist and to provide a contextualized analysis of the role of the democratic state.
democracy and international relations; peace