The laudable vision of a concert of democracies, based on shared values and allied on a range of international issues is not feasible, argues the Brookings Institution’s Ted Piccone, who spent several years working on such a project. The idea, he reluctantly concludes, “will not fly in the current geopolitical environment and will have to await the day when the world is composed of many more likeminded democracies than currently exist.”
Charles Kupchan goes even further, arguing in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, that “democracies will have to work with rising autocracies if they are to tackle global challenges.”
The Community of Democracies failed to move beyond rhetorical declarations and emerge as a serious international actor for three main reasons, Piccone suggests. Despite an “impressively diverse membership group” at the outset, resentment of American leadership led to a lukewarm if not hostile response from Europe. Other states like Mexico, South Africa and India especially consistently invoked sovereignty concerns to block efforts to address democracy and human rights issues. A third reason was the fear of a ‘new Cold War’ between democratic and authoritarian states, and suspicions that the CD was a ruse to undermine the United Nations.
He notes that “blocs built around identities other than democracy….maintain stronger solidarity, particularly in the face of any serious attempt to use the Human Rights Council to scrutinize domestic human rights behavior.”
“If the world’s democracies have so much trouble finding common ground in promoting democracy and human rights,” Piccone writes, “then surely there is little hope for a more ambitious agenda of cooperation, particularly on issues that by their nature require the cooperation of non-democracies.”
His recommendations for policymakers wishing to maintain bipartisan support for promoting democracy and human rights include ensuring that democracies deliver tangible improvements in citizens’ everyday lives, and taking a “do no harm” approach to democracy promotion:
Let local activists guide us in how we support their indigenous campaigns for reform….. And be prepared to take a long-term view, given the erratic nature of democracy-building, by investing significant resources for many years to come.
[...] by Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy”. It “makes sense to strengthen the Community of Democracies,” argues the Progressive Policy Institute’s Will [...]