Just Politics

Many foreign policy analysts assume that elite policymakers in liberal democracies consistently ignore humanitarian norms when these norms interfere with commercial and strategic interests. Today's endorsement by Western governments of repressive regimes in countries from Kazakhstan to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the name of fighting terror only reinforces this opinion. In Just Politics, C. William Walldorf Jr. challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that human rights concerns have often led democratic great powers to sever vital strategic partnerships even when it has not been in their interest to do so. Walldorf sets out his case in detailed studies of British alliance relationships with the Ottoman Empire and Portugal in the nineteenth century and of U.S. partnerships with numerous countries—ranging from South Africa, Turkey, Greece and El Salvador to Nicaragua, Chile, and Argentina—during the Cold War. He finds that illiberal behavior by partner states, varying degrees of pressure by nonstate actors, and legislative activism account for the decisions by democracies to terminate strategic partnerships for human rights reasons. To demonstrate the central influence of humanitarian considerations and domestic politics in the most vital of strategic moments of great-power foreign policy, Walldorf argues that Western governments can and must integrate human rights into their foreign policies. Failure to take humanitarian concerns into account, he contends, will only damage their long-term strategic objectives.

"A fascinating account of how leading democratic states struggle over conflicts between hard-nosed strategic calculations and liberal democratic and humanitarian norms. Walldorf argues that it is in legislative bodies of democratic states that ferment over human rights is concentrated; executive officials, even those sympathetic to idealistic liberal aspirations, tend to embrace a traditional realist orientation. Walldorf also finds that strategic termination is most likely when nongovernmental activist groups and assertive congressional coalitions rally together in the face of particularly offensive illiberal behavior by an allied partner and is accomplished by ending or restricting foreign and military assistance. This book joins a growing body of work that illuminates the role of human rights in foreign policy."—G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2009, "The prevailing wisdom in international relations is that human rights norms do not play an important role in the foreign policy of major powers, especially when strategic concerns are at stake. In this rigorous study, Walldorf challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that human rights considerations play a more influential role than is commonly assumed. To support his claim, he relies on one 19th-century case study of British-Ottoman Empire tensions over the persecution of Christians and several Cold War cases from Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Peru) and Africa (Mozambique and South Africa) that illuminate the conflict between security interests and human rights. Walldorf argues that when strategic concerns come into conflict with humanitarian norms, the latter often prevail over the former—especially when initiatives by nongovernmental organizations and interest groups result in legislative actions in support of human rights. Additionally, he claims that humanitarianism provides a better explanation for how major powers respond to conflicts between strategic commitments and human rights concerns than either realism or domestic institutionalism. This book is an important addition to the growing literature on the role of moral norms in global politics and is strongly recommended for all academic libraries. Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice, February 2009, "Just Politics is a very important contribution to the growing body of scholarship that examines how, why, and when the foreign policies of states are shaped by human rights."—Michael Barnett, Stassen Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota, and coeditor of Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics, "Just Politics is an exceptionally clear and well-conceived book demonstrating the conditions under which legislatures in Britain and the United States pressure executives to terminate commitments to allies because of the allies' poor humanitarian behavior. C. William Walldorf Jr. takes domestic politics and institutions seriously in explaining foreign policy outcomes and breaks new ground as he demonstrates the power of norms to shape behavior."—Mlada Bukovansky, Smith College

C. William Walldorf Jr. is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wake Forest University.