Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace

4. Why Democratic Bargains Are Reliable: Constitutions, Open Politics, and the Electorate

4 Why Democratic Bargains Are Reliable: Constitutions, Open Politics, and the Electorate IN PROJECTING promises, democracies have two major advantages that stem from their basic government structure. 1. Their constitutional procedures make promises more reliable. They are more likely to be carried out initially, harder to reverse later, and therefore more credible. 2. Their public debates, relatively open decisionmaking, and free press allow partners to make more confident estimates about how faithfully democracies will execute their promises, now and in the future. (This same open discourse probably allows democracies to make systematically better estimates of others’ intentions, as well.)1 These procedures make democracies more trustworthy and allow partners to gauge the depth of support for policies and promises on a continuous basis. They can see the strength and character of opposition and can reasonably judge the chances that opponents will come to power. That is the heart of what we mean by transparency: the visibility of debates, decisions, policy processes, and implementation to outside observers, from local citizens to foreign diplomats.2 Finally, partners can see and evaluate the procedural rules that constrain leaders —to a greater or lesser degree—from reversing their course. In other words, effective constitutional arrangements serve both to constrain and inform.3 Confidence and Reliance: The Role of Constitutional Practice Constraints differ, even within a single political system, because states have devised various ways of making promises. Some are deliberately more equivocal than others. These gradations of intent are reflected in how commitments are framed, especially their formality and publicness. A ratified treaty, for instance , is a more serious commitment than a joint communiqué. An exchange of letters between heads of state is more serious than the same exchange between foreign ministers. Political leaders are well aware of these subtle differences , just as they are aware of such differences among threats. This simple hierarchy does not always apply; sometimes it is necessary to make crucial agreements quickly or secretly, as the United States and Soviet C HA PT ER 4 78 Union did to end the Cuban Missile Crisis. But it is usually true, and for a good reason. To highlight their deeper commitments, states need to use costly signals. Public, formal commitments are an efficient way to do that because they are very visible (and therefore costly) ways to pledge a state’s reputation as hostage to its performance.4 As matters of law, judges at the International Court of Justice conflate these differences. As long as the bargains are written and meant to be binding, they constitute treaty commitments as understood in international law.5 But prudent politicians and diplomats take a more nuanced view. For them, these gradations are meaningful. They convey different levels of commitment toward keeping particular promises, given the contingencies and changed circumstances that might arise.6 It is important to evaluate these commitments with a cold eye because it is the parties themselves, not judges at The Hague, who must make the promises binding. Why, then, do I refer specifically to the advantages of well-established democracies ? After all, many new democracies possess similar written constitutions . Do they have the same promising advantages as their older cousins? Generally speaking, no. To begin with, constitutional arrangements must be reflected in ongoing political practice. They must effectively constrain rulers. As Charles Howard McIlwain once wrote of medieval constitutionalism, “The fundamental weakness . . . lay in its failure to enforce any penalty, except the threat or the exercise of revolutionary force, against a prince who actually trampled under foot those rights of his subjects which undoubtedly lay beyond the scope of his legitimate authority.”7 Modern democratic constitutions are designed to overcome this fatal flaw. They answer Marc Bloch’s powerful question, Who shall bind the ruler?8 Even in the modern era, formal democratic constitutions are no guarantee of actual democratic practices. Remember that the Soviet Union’s allies in Eastern Europe considered themselves “democratic” and printed up impressive rules and constitutions to underscore the point. East Germany even called itself the German Democratic Republic, without apparent irony. In those mercifully departed days, one sure way to tell an authoritarian regime was to find the words democratic or people’s in its name. The propaganda began when its very name was spoken. The new regimes of Central Europe are quite different from that. They are serious social projects to construct democratic political life and enduring institutions . But they are still far from complete. Their future is hopeful but far from certain...