The time to begin crafting a new transatlantic agenda is now
Summary:By Anne-Marie Slaughter (Apr 21, 2008)
The time to begin crafting a new transatlantic agenda is now, before the inevitable transition memos are drafted by both Republicans and Democrats in the fall to guide the new American president in 2009. It is time for Europeans and Americans from all political camps to come together and focus on what issues the U.S. and the EU can collaborate on in the wider world.
When the EU and the US do align, their combined power
represents 850 million people, GDP of over $ 30 trillion, the
military power of NATO (excepting Canada), and significant
minorities of peoples virtually unbeatable -- on trade, climate
change, nuclear proliferation, counter-terrorism, poverty
reduction, and developing regional institutions where they are
badly needed, such as the Middle East. We should pick a couple of
these issues that are most pressing and most amenable to getting
something done and identify them as transatlantic priorities for
the next American administration, the EU, and individual European
countries in 2009.
Longer term, it would be useful to open a transatlantic
dialogue about the possibility of creating a
concert of democracies (COD). A respected friend and experienced politician recently
wrote me:
While the
‘concert’ concept is advanced in the context of new
administration initiatives and hence American politics, it implies
the involvement of parties beyond America. To be meaningful and
successful it must thus be attuned to the concerns of others. The
world is cynical about another organization, especially one that
seems designed to advance an American ideological agenda, but what
it is crying out for is to be listened to and respected. It wants
the U.S. to be less single-minded and more internationally
democratic in thought.
With this thought in mind, a COD could be established to do
three things: 1) provide a forum for concerting action among mature
democracies; 2) strengthen weak democracies, and 3) engage
non-democracies. In David Miliband’s recent speech on
The Democratic Imperative, he referred to Paul Collier’s argument in
The Bottom Billionthat new and fragile governments should be given security
guarantees conditional on their adherence to democratic conditions.
A COD could figure out which of its members should offer security
guarantees – or perhaps all – to which countries. A COD
could also work to demonstrate the links between well-functioning
democracy and economic growth; democracies have a stake in
challenging authoritarian capitalist claims (See Mike McFaul and
Kathryn Stoner-Weiss on Russia,
The Myth of the Authoritarian
Model.)
Finally, a principal function of a COD could be to conduct
“democracy dialogues,” to engage countries around the
world on how democracy should be defined and best achieved. As John
Thornton’s recent FA article
Long Time Comingmakes clear, the Chinese are actively grappling with increased
popular participation in government. They also argue raise the old
Soviet argument that safeguarding economic and social rights is a
critical part of what a democracy is supposed to do, but the
Chinese have a far better track record of actually providing their
citizens with a better economic and social life.
Yet another argument is that democracy means “being able
to throw the bums out”; the Chinese and many other
governments are not willing to go that far. Still, some of those
governments seek to make their hiring and firing of public
officials more responsive to public assessments of performance.
Still others, like Robin Wright in a recent Washington Post
piece, argue that democracy is “about differences, which are
bound to explode once disparate sides of society are free to speak
and make demands. Opening new space also does not guarantee who or
what will fill it.” That view makes many governments
genuinely afraid of moving toward democracy too far and too
fast.
These ideas spring from the American experience with
democracy; Europeans have many additional perspectives, as do
democracies from the developing world. It is thus a very valuable
transatlantic conversation to have. The common goals should be a
COD that would serve together to strengthen democracy both within
nations and among them -- not by drawing lines, but by crossing
them.
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