| Chapter 1: | The Domestic Analogy |
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clearly, these two objectives have not been attained in equal measure. Though the first is being carried out step by step, the second—the instituting of a democratic world order—remains a distant utopia. It cannot be claimed, of course, that the first goal—self-determination for all nations—has been accomplished in a problem-free fashion. On the contrary, the last hundred years have seen numerous bloody conflicts among peoples intent on settling accounts with those deemed a threat to their national interests. Yet notwithstanding various setbacks (coups, dictatorships, wars), the number of democracies increased steadily over the course of the twentieth century, in several “waves of democratization.”2 At the supranational level, by contrast, progress has been much more limited. Indeed, many take the view that the project ought to be dismissed, or at any rate postponed until the very distant future, until such time as the program for the self-determination of nations is completed.3
It is the supranational level that I discuss in this book. Rivers do not stop in their courses to await the completion of the first project; rather, the pollution of waters makes its way from one country to another. (Nor will the first project ever be completed, as I see it: new ethnic and national demands will always arise.) The winds do not cease to blow; trade and travel do not stop; migration does not come to an end. Questions of war, terrorism, and global security do not grow any less urgent. On the contrary, the world is being bound together ever more tightly, and nation-states face an increasing number of common concerns. As Wilson understood, an international organization is necessary in order to guarantee that this process of globalization is managed in a peaceful and democratic way.
But why must such a body be democratic? Is it not enough that its member states are so? A hundred years ago, peace and democracy were seen as ideologically interwoven, the latter being understood as the ultimate guarantee of the former. Only free peoples could keep a promise not to make war upon one another. Only democratic countries could, Wilson averred, put the good of humanity before their national self-interest: