In Darfur, Sudan, 7,000 African Union troops have been charged with monitoring peace in a conflict that has so far killed 300,000 people and displaced 2 million more. In a region the size of France, there is one peacekeeper for every 28 square miles. This force is clearly inadequate, but international institutions are finally starting...

When the founding fathers decided on the electoral college system, they assumed the early republic would be full of uninformed plebeians who were too busy farming and fighting Indians to make decisions for themselves. They could be trusted with local decisions, but the important choice of president could only be made by electors chosen by...