Why Democracies Need a League of Their Own
In Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, Anne-Marie and I propose the creation of a Concert of Democracies. This is a very old idea, dating at least as far back as Immanuel Kant’s vision of a league of republican nation-states. Kant played billiards in college for money but he had a very non-billiard ball model in his head about how democracies should best organize their external affairs. Kant was dead for over one hundred and fifty years before his idea emerged semi-triumphant, as it did after World War II in the “free world” political order built in the shadow of the Cold War.
Actually, after World War II two logics of global organization co-existed. One was the great power order symbolically centered in the UN Security Council (but actually manifest as bipolar balancing) and the other was the Western democratic order that was centered in Washington but also with offices in London, Paris, Bonn, Tokyo, Brussels, and elsewhere. It was the unusual capacities of liberal democracies to organize, produce, integrate, and work together that ensured victory in the great struggles of the 20th century.
In proposing a Concert of Democracies, we are urging the world’s democracies to once again organize, produce, integrate, and work together – and in doing so, collectively provide leadership. Here are our ideas.
First, let’s situate the proposal for a Concert of Democracies in the wider agenda for global governance reform. In the Princeton Project, we propose a general overhaul of global institutions – starting with reform of the United Nations. I dare say that if these other reforms are not also pursued, a league of democracies will not help that much. Indeed, if I had to pick between two reform steps – reform of the UN Security Council and the creation of a Concert of Democracies - I would chose UNSC reform. If we got Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, South Africa, and several African and Muslim countries on the Security Council – without the veto – the UN would come alive and strengthen the ability of the United States and the other democracies to provide collective leadership.
The Princeton Project also proposes that a new security organization be created in East Asia that includes China, Japan, and the United States. We also propose the rebuilding of NATO and the renewal of America’s wider array of security alliances. The point here is that the creation of a league of democracies is NOT a substitute for a more general effort at global governance reform. There will be lots of types and layers of global and regional institutions. A Concert of Democracies is just one of them.
Second, in using the term “concert” we are explicitly signaling that this is not an “alliance” of democracies. We do not advocate a “globalization of NATO.” I have criticized other proposals for a “democracy alliance” and a “globalized NATO” to the extent to which they threaten to usurp or erode the traditional alliance partnerships. The virtue of traditional alliances is that they specify explicit security commitments – and they make clear the terms and limits of liability. They also play their own important role in the architecture of liberal hegemony. These are critical features of alliances that allows states to sign up, including the United States. In twenty years, I would like to see a Concert of Democracies, but not if the price is a gradual – if unintended – decline in America’s alliance partnerships with Europe and East Asia. Alliances first, concerts second.
Also, a Concert of Democracies is not a substitute for the Community of Democracies, which is a large informal gathering of countries that meets every two years to talk about the problems of building and promoting democracy. This is a fabulous grouping launched by the United States and a vanguard of new democracies, including Poland, Chile, Korea, and the Czech Republic.
Third, our idea of a Concert of Democracies is, quoting from the Princeton Project report: “Its purpose would be to strengthen security cooperation among the world’s liberal democracies and to provide a framework in which they can work together to effectively tackle common challenges – ideally within existing regional and global institutions, but if those institutions fail, then independently, functioning as a focal point for efforts to strengthen liberty under law around the world. It would serve as the institutional embodiment and ratification of the ‘democratic peace.’”
“The membership of the Concert of Democracies would be selective, but self-selective. Membership would be predicated not on an abstract definition of liberal democracy or on the labels attached by states to other states, but rather by the obligations that members are willing to take on themselves. Members would have to pledge not to use force or plan to use force against one another; commit to holding multiparty, free-and-fair elections at regular intervals, guarantee civil and political rights for their citizens enforceable by an independent judiciary; and accept that states have a ‘responsibility to protect’ their citizens from avoidable catastrophe and that the international community has a right to act if they fail to uphold it.”
We provide a possible charter for the Concert of Democracies in the Appendix of the Princeton Project report, inspired by Tod Lindberg’s suggestion for a treaty that would ratify the democratic peace.
Finally, why create such a grouping? The simple answer is that we know that democracies have unusual capacities to cooperate with each other. Look at the EU. Look at the “free world” order built during the Cold War. We know that the United States and other democracies are more willing to make costly commitments to each other because they share values and interests. So in proposing to establish a league of democracies we are saying: let’s squeeze as much cooperation out of the democracies as we can get.
Beyond this, we essentially make four arguments for a Concert of Democracies:
(1) This grouping of democracies will form a sort of lobbying coalition to push for reform of the UN and other international institutions. Again, it is not a substitute for the UN but a supplemental grouping that can be employed to get the older institutions to reform themselves.
(2) This grouping of democracies is a way of bringing the newer democratic powers – India, Brazil, South Africa, etc. – into the governing club. It is in America’s interest to make room for these rising states within the inner circle of leading states that informally run the system.
(3) A Concert of Democracies would increase the “fields of play” for bargaining and international action. It increases “governance options.” It is a grouping that is larger than the West and NATO but smaller than the UN. This means that it has both limits and advantages – depending on the issue at hand. It does not speak for the “international community” and so it does not have the legitimacy that might come from the international community speaking with one voice. But if the international community cannot or will not speak with one voice, the Concert of Democracies might be able to speak. It is not just “the West” and so it is potentially more legitimate than a NATO agreement to act. Again – the issue and context matters. It would be nice to have a Concert of Democracies option.
(4) A Concert of Democracies should have some organizational infrastructure to plan and organize. It needs a secretariat. It could be a small organization staffed by seconded officials from foreign ministries and other government departments. On this point, my old friend James Huntley – a retired diplomat who has written most eloquently on cooperation among democracies – makes the essential point. He proposes a small secretariat that would provide a policy planning and coordinate function on the broad range of security issues. Check out his book: Pax Democratica.
One of the most far-sighted books I have on my shelf is James Huntly’s earlier 1980 volume, Uniting the Democracies: Institutions of the Emerging Atlantic-Pacific System (New York University Press). He gets right to the heart of the matter in his preface: “One of the main threads in the story of man’s progress over the ages has been the gradual advance in the scope, complexity, and effectiveness of his arrangements for organizing communities. These arrangements have developed from the most rudimentary clan and tribal ties of antiquity to the modern nation state, and now, in the twentieth century, to intergovernmental and, in a few cases, supranational structures which attempt to meet the needs of an increasingly interdependent world. Recognition of the need for such structures today seems commonplace, but the means whereby it can or should be given practical effect by creating new structures of government which transcend the nation state is not at all clear.”
This was a good argument. Initially I would have said I was about 80% opposed to the idea of the concert. During the discussion so far it had moved to about 90% opposed. But now it is back at only about 85% opposed. But that is still strong disapproval. I can briefly summarize the basis for my continuing opposition to the proposal:
1. Perhaps democracies have uniquely strong capacities for cooperation. But democracies are capable of significant cooperation with non-democracies as well. And the most pressing needs for international cooperation in the early 21st century, in my view, require this kind of broad-based cooperation.
2. While I can accept that at least some of the defenders of the Concert of Democracies are sincere in their desire that the existence of the concert will not interfere with the capacity of the international community for other kinds of cooperation outside the concert, I remain convinced that it in fact would interfere, and would provoke resistance and hostile counter-responses from potential partners in the non-concert part of the world.
3. The formation of this concert sends the wrong signal at a time when we progressives be leading the global community and the US public toward a recognition of the need for global cooperation on energy, the environment, security and economic issues of common concern; about the need to tone down the polarizing rhetoric of fear, suspicion and ideology; and about the need to strengthen our relationships with China, Russia and other important countries who may not make it into the concert. Drawing away from the broader world, and toward coalitions formed on ideological lines, points in the opposite direction.
4. The political energy that would have to be put into the formation and organization of the concert, and all its attendant debates, would be a distraction from more pressing matters. And the upshot of the debate is in the end likely to include a series of self-serving and hypocritical verbal compromises on the vexed philosophical issue of what makes some society a democracy.
5. While the proposed charter for the concert does include discussion of the important goal of UN reform, and while Prof. Ikenberry appears sincere in the importance he attaches to that goal, the goal is framed in the proposed charter in a threatening and coercive manner. It comes off as an ultimatum: reform in the way we like, or we will turn our backs on the UN, and turn to the Concert of Democracies for authorization and legitimization of military action. Overall, it seems less a plan to reform the UN than a plan to waeaken the UN, but provide political cover while doing so.
**6. The world in 2006 is caught up in an escalating great power conflict over strategic control of and access to energy reserves, and over political influence in the regions that contain them. We are drifting – bungling actually – toward global war in the same way our ancestors did a hundred years ago. At the same time, we are losing control of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and small weapons. It is of the utmost importance that we arrest this drift, and address its underlying causes through frank discussions and negotiations among all the major players. Otherwise we are dooming our children to the nightmares of the last century. The concert will not be useful in addressing this problem, and will exacerbate it by adding an unpredictable and provocative additional element of ideological rivalry.
December 19, 2006 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you plan on convincing anyone that this is a good idea, you are going to have to be much more specific and direct. I appreciate that tpmcafe is a "lay" site, but that does not mean that we are stupid or uneducated.
You say:
So, the CoD would operate within UN charterframe, but if the UN "fails" then the CoD would serve to allow liberal democracies to to effectuate their security goals.
Before going any further, we have to take a step back to Ivo Daalder's last post wherein he stated:
Let's be clear that what Daalder is advancing is an argument to support humanitarian military intervention. Specifically, he is arguing that the international community should become the enforcer of the "real responsibilities" of states such that if a state does not satisfy the demands of the international community (or the CoD), then that community is authorized to overthrow the existing regime in that state. It should be clear that this is the argument that got us into Iraq.
Suppose for a second that the argument is not specious. In that case, if what Ikenberry maintains is true, specifically, that the CoD will operate in accordance with existing global institutions, we have a problem. Let's say, for example, that the CoD wants to authorize humanitarian military intervention in North Korea. Any action taken toward that goal becomes a threat to international peace, and the UNSC is therefore authorized to address it. The P5 members would probably never come to an agreement that would allow the liberal democracies of the world to aggressively invade North Korea. The U.S., U.K., and France, presumably, would block an SC resolution forbidding the action while China and maybe Russia would block a resolution authorizing the invasion. It is s a recipe for UN inaction.
Following the scenario a little farther, what if the members of the CoD decide to proceed despite the lack of UNSC authorization? There would be two significant and damning consequences. First, it would belie any claims by the CoD or its members regarding their respect for the law. The UN charter already prohibits the threat or use of force. A CoD that authorizes the use of force without the agreement of the UN would be in violation of the UN charter. Second, it would prove that on the international stage, might makes right.
Now, for an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to furthering "liberty under law" the CoD is damned from the beginning: its goals and actions would almost immediately step outside of existing law. The whole thing is hypocritical.
Finally, let me just make one comment regarding the choice of the word "concert." You say you chose it to differentiate it from "alliance" and "community." That's fine and may be that is true, but you all still chose the single worst word you could have. First of all, there is nothing inherent in the term "alliance" that means only "military alliance," and even if there were, you already admit that the purpose of the organization is to ensure the collectuive security of the world's democracies. Second, there are a whole host of other words you could have chosen:
alliance, association, coalition, confederacy, family, federacy, league, partnership, ring, union, circle, council, federation, foundation, fraternity.
And let's not forget these:
cartel, mob, outfit, syndicate, conspiracy, club, and clique.
For my money, though, the most accurate word would be "gang."
December 19, 2006 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am done with this discussion but I'll add one more thing.
Three points:
1. Because democracies have unusual capacities to cooperate does not logically imply that they need a formal grouping mechanism. You must argue what it is they could do with the grouping that they couldn't otherwise. I have yet to hear a single convincing argument. To say Darfur or Iran is just silly. Actually I don't recall you saying it. But your friends have.
I truly mean this as constructive advice: you guys have to build a tighter case for the added value of a CoD
2. The EU: This is, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the most important development in the 20th C. The reason why is something that will be completely absent from the CoD (or if it not, please explain why). The extraordinary thing about the EU is that countries are willing to relinquish sovereignty for a greater good.
This is highly ahistorical. That's the magic of the EU and that's something the US will never ever accept. So that makes the example of the EU mostly irrelevant to the CoD.
3. The Cold War: this is where we part ways.
I view the CoD as a front of allies to fight a new cold war (with the non democracies: mostly Muslim + China). That's a premise I cannot accept.
The fundamental mistake you
CoD types make is to grossly overestimate the role of the US in the democratization success stories of the last 50 years (in Asia, mostly positive -- in Europe, mostly irrelevant -- in South America and Africa, the less said the better).
December 19, 2006 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
And when I say "in Asia, mostly positive" I have to swallow very very hard and not think of Vietnam and Cambodia and Indonesia.
December 19, 2006 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
So basically you don't even really care about this concert thing yourself. You're really more interested in changing the UN than anything.
Is the idea then to pressure the UN by threatening them & by extension the un-Democratic countries with irrelevance by creating an alternative organization that does the same things?
That might actually make some sense except that I think it may fundamentally misconstrue the divisions in the world today.
I see nothing to indicate that the primary division in the world is between Democratic and non-Democratic states. It seems like the antagonisms cross those lines.
I mean, you're talking about trying to create better global governance as if that were a goal that all Democracies were inherently on board with. In fact, the tendency of Democracy to breed fierce independence tends to lead toward a fierce defense of soveriegnty as we've witnessed with the end the UN movement here in the US.
And while that movement is stupid, it is true that soveriegnty issues can't just be waved away with a magic wand. The EU has spent years dealing with them. And it should be recognized that the concern is to some extent legitimate. Government by people far removed from the governed generally makes for bad government, and the more local control is ceded to larger and larger entities the more remote government becomes.
December 19, 2006 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Noblesse: "I view the CoD as a front of allies to fight a new cold war (with the non democracies: mostly Muslim + China). That's a premise I cannot accept." Or even worse, this nostalgia for the Cold War, like Beinart's more explicit one, is imposing such divisions on a world that no longer works in those terms. It's no different from Bush's first ignoring terror threats and then, after 9/11, blaming Hussein because all right thinking Americans know that only states count on the world stage. It won't end up fighting China and Islam. It will direct our fire only at our own feet.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
December 20, 2006 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
John
Is the COD really a Congress of Liberal countries? Part of the complaining about the idea of the COD is hinged on what it means to be a democracy. As is evident in Iraq, the Palestinian Authority voting does not alone make what most Americans think of as a democracy. This is because countries like Britain, France and Germany have not just votings but the rule of law and other liberal institutions. Speaking of liberalism rather than democracies would seem to be more useful.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
December 20, 2006 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm ready to change my opinion on this with one proviso: only democracies can join the "concert". As I demonstrate below this would leave out the US. Without the US others might believe that the group had benefiting the world at large as a goal rather than just being another cover for American ambitions.
A democracy (republic if you prefer) is based upon more than voting for candidates. It is based upon the rule of law and mechanisms to insure that the laws are followed and not changed by undemocratic means. Following the ideas of legal philosopher Franz Neumann, he lists the following as the key aspects of a democracy:
1. All men are equal before the law.
2. Laws must be general, not specific (this rules out bills of attainder).
3. Retroactive laws are illegitimate.
4. Enforcement must be separate from the decision-making agencies.
In my short essay, Saving Democracy, I show how all of these principles have been (and continue to be) violated. Even the fairness of elections is under question, both from the point of view of counting the ballots and from various schemes of voter suppression and gerrymandering.
How can the US promote the ideals of the founding fathers abroad when it fails to follow them at home? How about we clean up our own house before lecturing others.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
December 20, 2006 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
i imagine all this "concert" crap would never have happened if the UN okayed the Iraq Catastrophuck or showed signs of supporting an iranian sequel.
December 20, 2006 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would tend to agree that we need to focus on getting our own house in order before we go about trying to save the world.
December 20, 2006 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can imagine a role for CoD, but the Princeton Project has totally reverse priorities to my own.
Somehow, "security arrangements" are on the top of PP list. I have a serious doubt if there are any needs for additional security arrangements. There are no global security problems. Regional problems can be handled -- or cannot -- on regional basis.
Two examples:
(1) We have a problem with Iran, and Russia is in the same region. Either we have Russia on our side or not, and the "concert" does not change the situation. Suggestions: cut a deal with Russia, or cut a deal with Iran, or neutralize Iran using aliances or deals. (I would go for the last option, but the issue is complicated.)
(2) There is a sad problem in Darfur. Genocide in the context of guerilla war. A conventional approach which would be: tell Sudan to clean up its act, at least to a degree, or suffer consequences, the consequences being more armes delivered to the guerillas. One of the problems with such a solution is that recently we developed a doctrine that frowns upon arming guerillas. More serious problem (sorry, but our doctrine is not serious) is that we would have to do it from Chad, and Chad is tottering on the brink itself, and can suffer from a symmetric retaliation. Which is already happening. Solutions: if we really do want to solve it, probably a good start would be to bring representatives of various ethnic groups in Chad to the table and give them a BIG positive incentive to create a unity government, and some sort of democracy (federal system?). With (somewhat) stable (somewhat) democratic Chad as a base, one can pressure Sudan effectively, or at the very least, one can provide an effective relief in Darfur.
The second example shows that it would be an EXCELLANT idea to invest resources to foster democracies --- or at least stable governments working for the benefit of all ethnic groups. Something that a Concert could do, or some body coordinating Europe and NATO. It has not much to do with our security needs, but it would be laudable even so.
By the way, our problem with Iran is a bit similar to Darfur: the countries that would be are bulwark there are unstable, being very undemocratic.
I would like some more concrete explanation how Brasilians could help us in Persian Gulf and Japanese in the Saharan region. By the way of contrast, Brasilian help was very helpful in the recent crisis in Haiti where the lack of Japanese of Russian engagement did not hurt at all.
December 20, 2006 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
your ideas still seem like more layers of beauracracy.
Ghandi had a story about someone who asked him to ask her child to stop eating sugar and Ghandi said, "i'll be back next week." In a week, he came back and asked the child to stop eating sugar. when asked, why did you have to wait a week, Ghandi said: "i had to stop eating it myself."
the concert seems like it's the wrong solution because a beauracry doesn't do anything.
I agree with Ghandi: let's organize from the bottom up, not the top down.
December 20, 2006 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
any time I see the word "reform" I run the other way. The US blocks many resolutions at the UN which finger the bad behavior of democracies like the US and Israel.
The concert probably wouldn't allow musicians to play what the band director hasn't selected so instead of a democracy we would have a dictatorship.
December 20, 2006 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does the UN ever attack anyone other than Israel or the US?
66666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666Daniel A. Greenbaum
December 20, 2006 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
As far as I know, neither the US nor Israel has ever been attacked but other countries, like Iraq, have been attacked, literally.
December 20, 2006 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's stop the genocide in Darfur first. If the "concert" can do that, then we can talk about other things. If it cannot or will not, then that sort of refutes the entire stated purpose of the "concert" for existing, doesn't it?
December 20, 2006 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I fail to see how a "Concert of Democracies" would make one whit of difference in the world.
Mutual trade agreements, yes. Mutual alliances, no.
December 21, 2006 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, but I might say we should start with Uganda first.
December 21, 2006 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ummm--what are you trying to fix in Uganda? LRA? There are ongoing negotiations.
Uganda, while suffering the usual regional corruption, is doing rather well in economics and HIV management.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 26, 2006 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The LRA is killing more people per day that the Janjaweed. If Darfur is a problem, Uganda is a bigger one.
December 26, 2006 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your source on this? The LRA is most known for kidnapping and obscene mutilations -- they like doing things worse than killing.
Mind you, my observations on development in South Sudan also affect Uganda and thus the LRA.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 26, 2006 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
"they like doing things worse than killing"
Yes they do. They make children into prostitutes and soldiers. They mutilate people and they rape women to infect them with HIV. It is a genocide.
But we never hear about it. From the Keith Olberman and Al Franken to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh to the New York Times and The Washington Post, it never makes it to our eyes and ears. I have to hunt for these stories and it shocks me every time I uncover something.
Here are a few sources:
"The death rates in these camps in Northern Uganda are three times the death rates in Darfur, Sudan. A thousand children are dying a week in these camps."
Source:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10311
"The conditions in Northern Uganda are “worse than Darfur [Sudan].”
Source:
International Rescue Committee Vice President Anne Richard to the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus, April 14, 2005
"The current rate of death from the war in northern Uganda is three times higher than in Iraq following the Allied invasion, finds a new report released today."
Source:
http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2006/03/20060330_uganda_report.asp
Here is an audio file:
http://odeo.com/audio/1768687/view
Here is a collection of sources all on one site:
http://reader.classicalanglican.net/?page_id=372
December 26, 2006 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink