Dictatorships and Double Standards

Rationalism and Reason in Politics

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9829322
AutoresJohn C Campbell (autor correspondente), Jeane J Kirkpatrick
Ano1982
Volume61
Fascículo1
Páginas219
Data de publicação1982-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoForeign Affairs (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0015-7120 • E-ISSN: 2327-7793
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/20041363
OpenAlexW2012756213
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas35

Those who wonder if any theory informs the practice of the Reagan administration will greet this collection of essays with considerable interest. Like other volumes that include disparate works published over a twenty-year period, this one has a disjointed quality. The organizing principle of rationalism foreign and domestic affairs does not really unify the vast field of politics that the current U.N. ambassador seeks to illuminate. Yet her blunt prose and no-nonsense style propels the text forward. The book should really be subtitled Memoirs of a Disaffected Democrat. Much of it is an unremitting diatribe against the electoral reforms of the Democratic party that the author blames for the subsequent disarray of party politics the United States. Her already familiar attack on the naivete of the Carter entourage for its handling of foreign policy rests part on a dubious distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, a distinction that many have found dangerous rather than simply pedantic or eccentric. Indeed, events El Salvador, among other places, do little to enhance the credibility of this allegedly crucial difference, as the Republicans struggle with many of the same intractable conflicts that plagued the Democrats. After the debacles Iran and Nicaragua, observers may initially sympathize with the author's insistence that the United States should refrain from destabilizing certain governments the mistaken view that they will be succeeded by presumably more moderate elements favorable to American interests. But practitioners especially will be disappointed if they expect to find her ruminations a thorough analysis of the local conditions much of the world that frustrate American objectives, regardless of the party power Washington. Equally, commentators may applaud her statement that ideas have bad consequences (p. 8), while they find that the present administration is even more devoid of good ideas than the predecessor she excoriates here. Kirkpatrick's denunciation of President Carter's appeal to moral verities would be more convincing if she explored some detail the domestic turmoil that made the American public receptive to such pleas after the Nixon era, even though these hometruths proved so debilitating subsequently. She partially redeems herself by noting that in undertaking the use of power to enhance freedom or equality, modesty and caution are surely the appropriate posture (p. 214). Since the Reagan administration need yield to none its ideological orientation toward a host of foreign and domestic issues like arms control, inflation, toxic waste, or international trade, readers must hope that, once out of office, Kirkpatrick will turn her caustic eye on the policymakers who are now her colleagues and superiors

Democracy · Development economics · Dictatorship · Economics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rationalism · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Philosophy