Thread by @ProfPaulPoast

The "Summit for Democracy" starts this week.

But it's not a "Summit" and it's not about "Democracy".

[THREAD]

The "Summit for Democracies" is a (virtual) gathering of leaders from 100+ countries (along w/ individuals from NGOs) to "to set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal and to tackle the greatest threats faced by democracies today"

state.gov/summit-for-dem…

Now, I'm not going to say that the "Summit for Democracy" is a bad idea. @JimGoldgeier & @BWJ777 make that case in @politico (or, to be clear, they make the case for how it could be a better idea).

politico.com/news/magazine/…

Instead, I want to make clear what this "summit" is REALLY about. "Democracy" is only loosely the motivation.

So why isn't it a "summit"?

Okay, this is just me being pedantic. Summits are ONLY heads of government and are usually pretty small gatherings.

Think of the G7 meetings...

...or the meetings of "the Big Three" during World War II

The "Summit for Democracy" is a LARGE gathering and not all of the participants will be the heads of the government. That's along the lines of a conference or forum.

Think Davos...

... or (if we do want to at least limit it to governments) the Bretton Woods conference in 1944.

Again, that's just a pedantic point.

More substantive is the "democracy" part.

Why isn't it REALLY about "democracy"?

For starters, not all of the participants are democracies...and quite a few are tenuous democracies. This @CarnegieEndow report by @SteveJFeldstein explores the regime makeup of the invitees.

carnegieendowment.org/2021/11/22/who…

Most notably, data compiled from @nahaltoosi shows that a fair portion of the participants, like 1/3, don't meet @freedomhouse's criteria for "Free Democracies".

So if the "summit" is not "for democracy", then what is it about?

To paraphrase the famous line by George Liska, it is AGAINST, and only derivatively for, something or someone.
amazon.com/Nations-Allian…

Specifically, it is about creating a coalition of countries to oppose 🇨🇳&🇷🇺.

This is not a secret. During the last year of the Trump administration, @mikepompeo had called for an "Alliance of Democracies" to counter 🇨🇳.

Pompeo's phrase echoed the phrase "League of Democracies" that appeared in a 2019 @washingtonpost piece by Robert Kagan and Pompeo's successor, @SecBlinken.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/ameri…

What I find interesting is that both "Alliance of Democracies" & "League of Democracies" echo an earlier phrase, "Concert of Democracies".

That phrase was used by @SlaughterAM & John Ikenberry in the 2006 final report of the "Princeton Project on National Security"
www2.world-governance.org/IMG/pdf_0080_F…

Slaughter and Ikenberry were envisioning something more substantial than a meeting. They wanted the Concert to become a full organization (they even include a draft charter in the appendix).

A selective organization of `like minded' democracies that can counter countries like Russia?

Hmm, that sounds like the founding of @NATO.

nato.int/cps/en/natoliv…

Though even NATO was never comprised solely of democracies.

After all, autocratic Portugal (under Salazar) was a founding member.

So if the model for the "Summit for Democracy" is a globe-spanning version of @NATO, then maybe it's okay that not all of the participants are democracies? 🤔

In the end, perhaps a better title for it is not "Summit/League/Alliance/Concert" of "Democracies", but something like "Conference to talk about talking about Countering China & Russia".

Unwieldy, but more accurate.

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