"Although there is no undisputed case of two democracies at war, the evidence certainly casts doubt on the thesis. In fact, the thesis is not nearly as strong as the statement that no two countries with a MacDonald's Restaurant have ever gone to war with one another."
"Fastfood giants Pizza Hut and Burger King have set up their first franchises inside war-torn Iraq, even as many aid convoys waited on the borders for the war to officially end. The arrival of the two restaurants - sited inside giant trailers on a British military base near Basra - won a rapturous welcome from soldiers, whose limited range of rations lost their appeal many weeks ago."
There's certainly cases of democracies undermining other democracies through funding third parties....
But the Mac thesis is fantastic.
McDonalds' Yugoslavia information seems to disagree with you. The only escape I see from this quandry is that the US adventure in Kosovo was technically not a declared war...
Nevertheless I think it's basically an interesting line of thought, and someone should try to make a proof based on some other fast food franchise.
I guess it was foolish of me to assume people would actually read the links I post instead of just the quote.
The real correlation is not Macdonalds or democracy per se, but trade. Wars invariably get started because of some economic benefit perceived by either or all sides. Increase the interconnectedness of trade and you reduce the benefits of going to war cos in doing so you fuck up the markets you depend on.
Which is why Venice survived so long as it did and why Switzerland specialised in trading money.
I've noted this elsewhere on LJ, but I can't get over this. In March 2003...