Democracy in International Relations
When democracy makes an appearance, it usually does so in several places at once (Tilly 2007: 40). Scholars seeking to explain the transnational dimension of democratisation talk in terms of waves and trace modern democracyâs emergence back to an initial surge in the nineteenth century. This original upsurge began with a series of revolts and revolutions against what was perceived to be the extremely arbitrary and unjust exercise of power by monarchies and imperial regimes. Constitutional changes across the worldâin Australia , Belgium , Britain, Canada , Denmark , and Sweden, for exampleâare often read as being linked to these events (Dix 1994: 94). All these developments are proof not only of the transformation of the model of monarchical consultation into representative institutions but also of the increasing tendency to define democracy as representative democracy.
Did that first wave in itself signal the advent of representative democracy? The answer to this question will depend on oneâs definitions of representative democracy. Some refer to specific levels of (almost always male) suffrage or cite universal suffrage as the key criterion. Applying this last principle, we would be left with no more than a handful of democracies even by the start of the twentieth century (Isakhan 2015: 1). Ultimately, no political system would meet the requirements of any stricter definition than the ones cited. This holds true even for Britain, which is often seen as a success story of democracy. The crucial point about the first wave of democracy is that it marked a time when democratic impulses began to play a defining role both in the articulation of modern hopes and in reshaping conceptions of international relations (IR) (Osterhammel 2014). Thus, early democrats demanded not only an end to monarchy but also, in regard to rule within multinational empires, the severing of oligarchic ties between politicians, traders, and white settlers and the opening up of public debate on the democratic control of foreign policy.
Much of the transnational impetus for the first wave of democracy derived from the global empire established by the British and from the politics through which that empire operated (Burroughs 2001). Not only did Britain sanction self-reliance and âresponsibleâ government in colonies such as Australia and Canada ; the actual expansion of the empire was intermeshed with the âsocial questionâ and the democratisation of the core. Thus, the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham , writing from the hub of the empire and from amongst the ranks of the âmother stateâsâ intellectual elite, viewed democratic and imperial issues as interrelated (Bell 2007: 34; 77; 96). When he pointed to public opinion as the custodian of peace , he did so in relation both to the expansion of empire and to the democratisation of the core.
Three great promisesâliberty, equality , and peaceâalready figured in the earliest wave of democracy. How the last of these might be achieved through democracy was explained in different ways by different intellectuals (Waltz 1968: 538). Alexis de Tocqueville (1998: 33) was struck by the fact that democracy tended only to flourish in industrialising countries. He posited that nations engaged in manufacturing and commerce would come increasingly to resemble one another, develop similar interests, and nurture a common desire for peace. Bentham , for his part, argued that the successful promotion of peace through public opinion depended on achieving a balance of power between the different classes in society and bringing the enlightened self-interest of each of these classes into equilibrium. The complexity of how public opinion might foster peace stems, on the one hand, from the multiplicity of factors that influence such opinion and, on the other, from the great variety of ways in which that opinion can, in its turn, impact political decision-making. In the minds of those who adopted this line of thinkingâand who often sought to turn the peace promise into a self-fulfilling theory through academic and public engagementsâa democratic , peace-promoting public opinion was one that counterbalanced both elitist state control and the power of popular nationalism.
This book explores the work of pluralist thinkers who took up the ideas of Tocqueville and Bentham on the peace promise and developed them into a framework for the analysis of modern IR. Political theorists paid much attention to pluralism but marginalised its international dimension (Hirst 1989; Laborde 2000; Stears 2002). In the discipline of IR, the term âpluralism â, if it appears at all, generally signals a focus on transnational actors and politics (Little 1996: 68; Sylvest 2007: 81; Schmidt 2002: 20; Cerny 2010; Keohane and Nye 1971). Rather than cast doubt on the validity of this approach, what I aim to do is broaden the understanding of pluralism.
Returning to its origins, I suggest that interest in transnational relations emerged as part of a wider interest in democratisation and IR. Historically speaking, there is no doubt that there was a degree of overlap with liberalism here. However, liberal thinking on war and peace approached democracy as one among several issuesâothers being trade, interdependence, and lawâand remained irresolute (MacMillan 1998). Pluralists distinguished their own approach from that of liberalism . For them, even states with a representative system of government did not represent all entitled social and political interests in IR. They demanded empowerment of marginalised groups through the functional representation of social and economic interests in the state and in international organisations.
Democracy and the Historiography of International Relations
The 1990s saw the rediscovery of democracy as an important theme and research perspective in the study of international affairs. Despite this, few scholars have challenged the widespread assumption of a division of labour between democratic theory and IR theory, and equally few have noted the way in which pluralist preoccupations anticipated present-day debates. For exceptions to this, see Franschet (2000) and Steffek (2015). And yet, the very existence of a pluralist tradition presupposes a substantial period of conjoint development by the two theories in question. Had our discipline not disregarded its own long-standing tradition of pluralist thinking, many of the theoretical and conceptual problems that have afflicted non-statist democratic theory could have been avoided. This traditionâwhich appears in retrospect to anticipate what has been termed âdemocracy in global governanceâ (Bexell et al. 2010)âendured until the mid-twentieth century, when IR ceased to be a mainly British discipline and, under American influence, began increasingly to identify with scientific positivism.
How was it possible for the democratic theory, which had earlier figured so prominently in the study of IR, to fade into oblivion? Despite the âhistoriographical turnâ in IR (Bell 2009), and notwithstanding a number of excellent historical studies, definitions of IR based on a negation of democratic theory remain common. On this kind of viewâone to which early historiographies lent credibilityâIR is an oddity: it is a segment of political science with a logic of its own. It was theorists of the English School, such as Martin Wight (1960), who introduced this way of thinking, on the erroneous premise that classical authors concerned themselves either with international or domestic affairs.
Stanley Hoffmann (1977: 43) accentuated these divisions when he recognised that modernity was defined by the democratisation of the domestic sphere, which then facilitated the evolution of the modern social sciences that are biased in favour of democracy. However, Hoffmann suggests clear inside/outside distinctions as well as a clear distinction between the subject of our discipline and democratic theory: democratic theory is concerned only with orderly life within states because international relations, the preserve of kings and soldiers, lies beyond democratic control. IRâs true object of study is thus the power politics engaged in by sovereign states vis-Ă -vis one another, which remain immune to modern democratisation (Hoffmann 1977: 42). This clear-cut domesticâinternational distinctionâas Alexander Wendt remarks (2000: 61)âmeant that IR theorists and democratic theorists could conveniently ignore each other.
Brian Schmidt (1998) refined Hoffmannâs account, his approach being to reconstruct the internal discursive processes that preceded theoretical stages in IR and in so doing recall an increasingly presentist American IR of the considerable history underpinning the discipline. While Schmidt provided an overview of complex and shifting interpretations of the concept of anarchy and of the reception of pluralist ideas in the American critique of sovereignty, his argument often boiled down to the assertion that anarchy was all that mattered in IR. As a result, Schmidtâs interventionâor rather the reception of itâperpetuated the divisions between IR theory and democratic theory. These divisions have still not been overcomeâalthough Schmidt later conceded that the world never presented itself to British intellectuals as being in a state of anarchy made up by sovereign states (Long and Schmidt 2005: 11).
Given this emphasis, I shall look briefly at the interaction between the discourses on anarchy and democracy. My chief focus, however, will be British intellectual preoccupation with the latter. Nowadays, different IR theories make different ontological statements and either recognise or deny the existence of international anarchy. In the early days of IR, however, recognition of anarchy and democracy was easily recognizable as a matter of ideology . After the First World War , conservatives sought a return to a situation in which European monarchies could live side by side in a non-judgmental, non-hierarchical anarchy (Tooze 2014).
Others, meanwhile, invoked anarchy in the opposite cause: the purpose of the 1916 book The...