Stephen D. Krasner
50 «¬® ̄°±² ³««³°® ́
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,
reecting 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