GOV 312L 1st Edition Lecture 17 Current Lecture Outline1. TMFPQ, Mersheimer interview part 22. What is democracy? What are its pros and cons?3. How do democratic institutions shape relations between states?4. Wilsonianism and democracy promotion5. Ethics and democracy promotion6. Brief history of American democracy promotion effortsCurrent Lecture- make decisions affecting their lives.o Example: asking the students what to do for the class; experts like Pat and Moser arebetter at deciding.- Inefficiency - Democratic governments cannot usually make timely and difficult decisions as it can be hard to obtain majority.o Example: Getting the votes of the 1000 students in the class is time-consuming.-- The remedy to democracy’s flaws – centralized power – is far worse. - Churchill: No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." o Yes, democracy is bad. The others are worse.How does democracy influence interstate relations?- Foreign policy is dependent on what the majority of the population want.- Societal factors:o Composition of societyo Balance of power among them Relative size of constituencies. Capacity to engage in collective action. Example: majority is not really interested in isolationism.- How institutions aggregate these interests?These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.o Which policies that society wants are included and which ones are excluded.- 4 Mechanismso Electoral constraints In a democracy, elections are a means to punish leaders for poor decisions (such as going to war.) This explains why democracies are less likely to go to war. Also, when democracies do go to war, they only go if chances of victory is high. Autocrats don’t have this problem.o Sustaining commitments: checks and policies make it difficult to change status quo policies once implemented. (Democratic leaders cannot fail on their promises, Autocrats can.)o Externalize the norms of conciliation and compromise: Republicans and Democratic gridlocks creates a good stability. Nobody can do something extreme. There is shared identity, by which they expect conciliatory policies become externalized, sustains cooperation.o Transparent decision making Facilitated by checks (other party in a democracy can publicly complain) and competitive press.Consequences of Democracy for Interstate Relations- More Cooperation in Tradeo They trade more: Join preferential trading agreements such as lower customs barriers at a higher rate. o Engage in more international tradeo Foreigners invest more capital in democracieso More likely to join a military alliance with another democracy- More likely to win wars- Democratic peaceo Claims that military conflict (low levels, including threat to use force, and war) less likely between only two democratic states.o Democracies will be peaceful toward other democracies, but not peaceful to autocracies. So the war between US and Iraq/Russia is expected; US vs Canada/India is not expected.Recap and Integration: Why democratic peace?- Electoral constraints raise the political costs associated with war (will not be re-elected).- Peace settlements more durable because democracy helps solve the commitment problemo Treaties made are hard to change.- Shared democratic identity other democracies: externalizing norms of conciliation and compromiseo Public support is less when the enemy is also a democracy.Wilsonianism: Prioritizing Democracy Promotion- Wilson was at the forefront of placing democracy ideals in front of democracy strategies.- He had three principles (some were erroneous at times):- Omar G. Encarnacion (or) Three Principles of Wilsonianism:o Democracy is superior to all other forms of government.o Democracy is a universal value (even in a poor country).o The US has a moral obligation to spread democracy.- Omar Encarnacion: Using military force has not been a good idea in enforcing democracy is the bottomline.Ethics and Democracy Promotion: McFaul - Democracy promotion as a world value- Democracy faces no viable alternatives since the end of Cold Waro Fascism and Communism defeated in WWII and Cold Waro Post-Cold War alternatives like developmental autocracies and Islamic fundamentalism have not seriously threatened democracy- Elites even in authoritarian regimes justify their rule through a democratic lens.o Either in the process of going to democracy or say that democracy is the goal.- Mass support for democracy is high in all regions of the world- Norm of state sovereignty has weakenedo “… a majority of states and people around the world consider military intervention for the defense of individual human rights legitimate.”o McFaul says that non-military support for democracy is even more legitimate than military intervention. o But both military or economic intervention are still both considered illegitimate/butting into others