Many scholars and policy-makers have pinned their hopes on the expectation that in the post-Cold War world peace will be preserved if the diffusion of democracy continues. This hope is grounded on the demonstrable evidence that historically democracies have rarely, if ever, waged large-scale war to resolve their disputes with one another. Yet explanations as to why this propensity is exhibited have been unsatisfactory, and debate about the causes of `the democratic peace' as well as about the domain to which it applies have not resulted in consensus. Reviewing the empirical findings in this genre of research, this article examines a deviant case — the Reagan Administration's covert military interventions in the 1980s against established governments — to generate propositions about the heretofore neglected influence of democratic leaders' perceptions and beliefs on the linkage between democracy and peace. The implications for subsequent theory-building are probed to suggest how explanations and descriptions of the democratic peace might be improved by taking an expanded view of its preconditions.
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