Democracy and International Organization: The Experience of the League of Nations

The relationship between the domestic political philosophy of a state and its reliability as a member of an organized world community is one of the more hotly debated issues in the present discussion of future international organization. On one side of the argument is the school of thought which holds that international organization can be safely erected only upon a basis of solidly democratic states. On the other side is the school which denies that there is any such close connection between the internal political organization of a state and its external relations. In support of their respective positions, the former school can cite the early American experience and the latter the early Swiss experience.