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Democracy promotion / Comment

Is the League of Democracies a Bad Idea? how Europe should respond

02/06/2008 By Michael Emerson, Richard Youngs

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

The idea of an official organisation of democratic states wishing to promote democracy worldwide has surfaced periodically in recent years. In 2000 the Community of Democracies was inaugurated and continues to promote global democratic reform.

Now the notion is gaining further currency and US Presidential candidate John McCain has proposed a League of Democracies as a means to circumvent UN inaction where necessary, a concept which is being championed by his foreign policy adviser, Robert Kagan.

This paper by Richard Youngs, Director for Democratization at FRIDE, and Michael Emerson, Senior Fellow at CEPS, argues against the establishment of a new organisation, but instead advocates a renewed commitment to democratic governance within existing international frameworks. 

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Keywords

Democracy promotion Democratisation Security Council UN United States

Related publications

• The Community of Democracies: should Europe engage?

Bio author: Michael Emerson

Michael Emerson is Associate Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) since 1998, and program director for Wider Europe; he participated in successive projects on the Balkans, Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Cyprus, Middle East, conflict resolution, democracy promotion, Europe's strategic security, political Islam and the crisis of multi-culturalism within the EU.

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Democratisation programme at FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.