Thursday, May 29, 2008

A League of Democracies

There's been a lot of talk this election campaign about the creation of a League (or a Concert or an Alliance) of Democracies. The idea, which has its adherents on both sides of the political divide, goes back a while, but it has had a resurgence over the past four years or so. The op-ed pages have recently been alive with League-talk - proponents include Jackson Diehl (here) and Robert Kagan (here); skeptics include Thomas Carothers (here) and Mark Mazower (here). I'm with the skeptics, as well as with Gail Collins, who asks (in her usual pitch-perfectly subtle and sarcastic way, obliquely referring to the Legion of Super-Heroes): "will there be uniforms?"