International relations theorists have long assumed that international society would be strongest when power is evenly distributed throughout the world, but international society seems to be much more effective now than it was then, though it is today much farther from being a society of equals.
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.”
— Winston Churchill, in Parliament, 1947