Sanctioning Liberal Democracies

Sanctioning Liberal Democracies

Much work has been done in recent political theory on the question of the appropriate scope of international involvement in the internal affairs of states. Two dominant debates come to mind in this respect: the ‘humanitarian intervention debate’, which explores the legitimacy of military intervention in cases such as massive violations of human rights, collapse of states and humanitarian disasters; and the ‘global justice debate’, which examines the appropriate scope of economic aid from rich to poor nations. In neither of these discussions has much attention been given to the particular question of the legitimacy and necessity of international military intervention, or supply of economic aid, to democracies, let alone liberal democracies.