The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. By
Robyn Eckersley. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 344p. $62.00 cloth,
$25.00 paper.
Some argue that market democracies do not engage in war with one
another, and therefore that if one promotes markets, franchise, and
elections, or democratic-capitalist states, this will lead to
international peace and cooperation. This idea has informed both the
theory of international law (e.g., a right to democratic governance)
and the practice of American foreign policy (e.g., Bush Doctrine). A
counterargument is built on the suspicion that institutional
political/economic process is largely independent of the propensity
of a state to cooperate in international relations, and that a focus on
democracy and markets as a cure-all for international dispute
settlement distracts both theorist and practitioner from the real
problems that plague the international system. These skeptics call the
focus on the creation of democratic states the “consoling
myth.”