Justifying Empire: Pericles, Polk, and a Dilemma of Democratic Leadership
Author(s)
Lee, Ronald C. Jr.
Abstract
Democratic justifications of empire reveal a tension between the demands of the national interest and those of justice that democratic leaders must always face in their conduct of foreign policy. The imperialism of Periclean Athens and the continental expansion of nineteenth-century America provide the empirical case studies to lay bare this moral dilemma that empire poses for democracy and the distinctive ways in which a pre-modern and a modern democracy have dealt with it. In trying to justify empire, it is shown, both democracies appealed to universal principles–one in terms of natural necessity, the other in terms of natural rights. Although the former may provide a more theoretically sound justification of empire, the latter is more sound politically. This comparative study constitutes a new approach to the study of a perennial problem in international politics.
