The Rise of Democracy: Revolution, War, and Transformations in International Politics Since 1776
by Christopher HobsonG. John Ikenberry
Foreign Affairs, April 2016
The Rise of Democracy: Revolution, War, and Transformations in International Politics Since 1776
Christopher Hobson
With democracies around the world beleaguered by rising inequality, economic stagnation, and political gridlock,
a book on the decline of democracy might seem more timely than this one. Yet Hobson’s sweeping narrative of the rise and spread of modern democracy
provides a useful corrective to the unrealistic euphoria of the 1990s, when many saw the spread of democracy as an unstoppable force, and serves to dispel
today’s unwarranted pessimism about democracy’s future. Hobson shows that
World War I was the great turning point ,
as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson managed to frame the conflict as a fight
to establish democracy as the global standard for legitimate political rule. The
ideological stakes were even higher during World War II and the Cold
War, which pitted liberal democratic ideals against fascist and
communist alterna
tives. Struggles to create democratic governments were not just internal dramas; they played out on a global stage, where the rules and norms of the emerging international order were
still up for grabs. Hobson’s emphasis on the
contingent and contested spread of democracy contradicts idealists’
narratives about the triumph of democracy, but the book also reminds
skeptics of democracy’s future of just how deeply entrenched democratic
norms are in international society.
