Protecting Democracy

Reviews / Votes

Protecting democracy where it has taken root must be considered a fundamentally important element of the foreign policy of all democratic countries. For if we can help peoples to espouse democracy, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we cannot help them to sustain it, then democratic gains are illusory. ... The following chapters bring the imperative of protecting democracy to sharp focus. The stakes are higher now than they were [at the first Community of Democracies meeting] in Warsaw in 2000, but with the groundwork laid out in these pages, so too is the likelihood of real progress. -- From the Foreword by Madeleine Albright and Bronislaw Gereme Morton Halperin has long been at the forefront of analyzing and advocating ways in which the international community can respond to unconstitutional actions aimed at overturning democratic governments. He and Mirna Galic have performed a great service by bringing together a volume that addresses this critically important but relatively unexplored topic. -- Marc F. Plattner, Editor, Journal of Democracy and Director, International Forum for Democratic Studies Morton Halperin and Mirna Galic are to be congratulated for producing a book which significantly advances our thinking about how the international community can best respond to threats to democracy. While much attention has been devoted to how to promote transitions to democracy, there is an urgent need for proactive strategies to protect those fragile democracies that have been established over the last two decades-both from overt interruptions such as coups to more subtle erosions of democratic rights and institutions. This book blends scholarly international legal analysis with a comprehensive look at provisions and practices of current international and regional institutions, all grounded in real life examples of responses to recent democratic breakdowns. Halperin and Galic have set out an action plan of steps that the international community-and particularly the Community of Democracies-need to take if it wants to fulfill its goals of promoting and protecting the expansion of democracy around the world. -- Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director, Freedom House This important book provides timely prescriptions for what the world's community of democratic countries should do when open society is threatened in an emerging democratic state. Events in 2005 in Nepal and Togo underline the urgency of these proposals. -- George Soros, Founder and Chairman, Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network