Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch

"Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch" (German: Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf) is a 1795 essay by Immanuel Kant.

In this essay, Kant proposed a peace program to be implemented by governments. The "Preliminary Articles" described these steps that should be taken immediately, or with all deliberate speed:

Three Definitive Articles would provide not merely a cessation of hostilities, but a foundation on which to build a peace.

Kant's essay in some ways resembles modern democratic peace theory. He speaks of republican, Republikanisch, (not democratic), states, which he defines to have representative governments, in which the legislature is separated from the executive. He does not discuss universal suffrage, which is vital to modern democracy and quite important to some modern theorists; later commentators dispute whether it is implied by his language, although many Enlightenment thinkers advocated a more aristocratic republicanism by men of letters. The essay does not treat republican governments as sufficient by themselves to produce peace: freedom of emigration (hospitality) and a league of nations are necessary to consciously enact his six-point program.

Kant claims that republics will be at peace not only with each other, but are more pacific than other forms of government in general.

The general idea that popular and responsible governments would be more inclined to promote peace and commerce became one current in the stream of European thought and political practice. It was one element of the American policy of George Canning and the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. It was also represented in the liberal internationalism of Woodrow Wilson, George Creel, and H. G. Wells. Kant's recommendations were clearly represented in the 1940s in the United Nations.

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