Several analysts have offered theories to explain liberal peace, but here the author focuses on the state. He explores the chain of events linking peace with democracies and emphasizes that peace is constructed by democratic ideas - he asserts that peace should be understood as a strong tendency built on historically contingent perceptions and institutions. He tests his theory against ten cases drawn from over a century of US diplomatic history, beginning with the Jay Treaty in 1794 and ending with the Spanish-American War in 1898. Owen also points out that a world full of liberal democracies would not necessarily be peaceful - were illiberal states to disappear, he argues, liberal states would have difficulty identifying one another and would have less reason to remain at peace.