We appreciate the chance to respond to Dafoe and Russett’s (henceforth DR) reaction to our chapter and the challenge to the democratic peace (DP) causal hypothesis that the economic norms theory poses. DR have analysed our data and presented arguments that the best inference to draw from our chapter (Mousseau, Orsun, Ungerer, and Mousseau 2013, henceforth MOUM) and other works by Mousseau (2000, 2009) is that democracy remains at least one cause of the DP correlation. We would be perfectly content to reach this same conclusion, but cannot in light of the evidence.