August 5th, 2008 by Matt

Last week Jim Goldgeier had a piece up at political science blog The Monkey Cage that’s well worth highlighting here.  Goldgeier, drawing in part from his forthcoming book co-written with Derek Chollet, takes a look at why democracy promotion, and specifically John McCain’s idea for a League of Democracies, has not gained much traction so far in this election cycle.  Goldgeier argues that in 1991-92, there was an unusual convergence of international relations theory (specifically the Democratic Peace theory), campaign politics, and global trends toward democracy that is mostly absent today.  Thus, there is little real political payoff for McCain’s idea.  Goldgeier also suggests that although it might be handy to have a tool through which democratic nations can circumvent the veto power of major autocracies at the UN, the notion that all or even most democracies share enough of the same foreign policy goals to make the tool useful is highly dubious.

Posted in Concert of Democracies, Democracy Promotion, Election 08, US foreign policy, US politics |