No More Democracy Summits

These summits provide political cover for the abuses and overreaching of elected leaders and their governments.

Paul Poast wants this year’s event to be the last Summit for Democracy:

There are now plans for a third Summit for Democracy, this time to be hosted by South Korea. No date has been set. But no date should be set. Given the challenges facing the world today, the countries seeking to solve those challenges, whether democracies or non-democracies, would be better served by devoting their time and attention to something other than attending another virtual talk-shop.

Poast is right that these summits are not very useful. The word is I used to describe them in my column a couple weeks ago was pointless. Stephen Walt pointed to the summit as an example of time and resources being wasted on an unproductive meeting that should have been put to better use.

These assessments might be too generous, since the summits provide political cover for the abuses and overreaching of elected leaders and their governments. Take Narendra Modi, for instance. Just days before this year’s summit began, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was expelled from their parliament because he had been convicted on a ridiculous defamation charge stemming from his criticisms of Modi. Indian opposition parties naturally cried foul and denounced the decision in the strongest terms. Not only did this have no effect on India’s participation in the summit, but the Biden administration said as little as possible about it when asked.