Democracy and Imperialism

Following costly U.S. engagement in two wars in the Middle East, questions about the appropriateness of American military interventions dominate foreign policy debates. Is an interventionist foreign policy compatible with the American constitutional tradition?

This book examines critic Irving Babbitt’s (1865–1933) unique contribution to understanding the quality of foreign policy leadership in a democracy. Babbitt explored how a democratic nation’s foreign policy is a product of the moral and cultural tendencies of the nation’s leaders, arguing that the substitution of expansive, sentimental Romanticism for the religious and ethical traditions of the West would lead to imperialism.
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The United States’ move away from the restraint and order of sound constitutionalism to involve itself in the affairs of other nations will inevitably cause a clash with the “civilizational” regions that have emerged in recent decades. Democracy and Imperialism uses the question of soul types to address issues of foreign policy leadership, and discusses the leadership qualities that are necessary for sound foreign policy.

“William Smith does a masterful job of laying out Babbitt’s views on the sources of imperialism in mistaken notions of human character and, especially, failures of personal and national self-control. The result is a substantial contribution to political theory properly understood, to our understanding of an important but too-little-known political philosopher, and most interestingly to the developing field of International Relations theory.”
—Bruce Frohnen, Ohio Northern University
 
“This book is timely in light of recent political developments that question the once unassailable normative status of liberal democracy. Babbitt develops a theory of the moral-cultural dangers associated with the democratic spirit. As an expert on Babbitt’s thinking and one who is versed in contemporary IR theory, Dr. Smith is well-positioned to serve this need.”
—Ryan R. Holston, Virginia Military Institute