Foreign Affairs - 03.2020 - 04.2020

(Frankie) #1

Stephen D. Krasner


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Pandemic diseases, such as the Black
Death, which wiped out more than
one-third o¤ Europe’s population in the
fourteenth century, were common. In the
Western Hemisphere, European colonists
brought diseases that devastated indig-
enous populations. Until the nineteenth
century, no country had the rule o‘ law;
at best, countries had rule by law, in
which formal laws applied only to some.
For most people, regardless o’ their social
rank, violence was endemic. Only in the
last century or two has per capita
income grown signi¥cantly. Most
humans who have ever lived have done
so under despotic regimes.
Most still do. Consolidated democracy,
in which the arbitrary power o’ the state
is constrained and almost all residents
have access to the rule o‘ law, is a recent
and unique development. The experience
o’ people living in wealthy industrialized
democracies since the end o‘ World War
II, with lives relatively free o’ violence, is
the exception. Wealthy democratic states
have existed for only a short period o’
history, perhaps 150 years, and in only a
few places in the world—western Europe,
North America, Australasia, and parts o’
Asia. Even today, only about 30 countries
are wealthy, consolidated democracies.
Perhaps another 20 might someday make
the leap, but most will remain in some
form o’ despotism.
The United States cannot change
that, despite the hopes o’ policymakers
who served in the Bush administration
and scholars such as the political scientist
Larry Diamond. Last year, Diamond,
re“ecting on his decades o’ studying
democratization all over the world, wrote
that “even people who resented America
for its wealth, its global power, its
arrogance, and its use o’ military force


nevertheless expressed a grudging
admiration for the vitality o’ its democ-
racy.” Those people hoped, he wrote, that
“the United States would support their
cause.” The trouble is that, regardless
o’ such hopes, despotic leaders do not
want to provide bene¥ts to those they
govern; they want to support with arms
or money those who can keep them in
power. They will not accept policies that
aim to end their rule. What’s more,
organizing against a despot is dangerous
and unusual. Revolutions are rare.
Despots usually stay in power.
Yet although the United States cannot
build wealthy democracies abroad, it
cannot ignore the problems o’ the rest
o’ the world, either, contrary to what
Americans have been told by people
such as U.S. President Donald Trump,
who in his ¥rst speech after he was
elected said, “There is no global anthem,
no global currency, no certi¥cate o’
global citizenship. We pledge allegiance
to one “ag, and that “ag is the Ameri-
can “ag. From now on, it’s going to be
America ¥rst, OK? America ¥rst. We’re
going to put ourselves ¥rst.”
The trouble with wanting to withdraw
and focus on home is that, like it or not,
globalization has indeed shrunk the world,
and technology has severed the relation-
ship between material resources and the
ability to do harm. A few individuals in
badly governed and impoverished states
control enough nuclear and biological
weapons to kill millions o’ Americans.
And nuclear weapons are spreading.
Pakistan has sold nuclear technology to
North Korea; the North Koreans might
one day sell it to somebody else. Nuclear
weapons could fall into the hands o’ jihadi
groups. Pandemic diseases can arise
naturally in badly governed states and
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