The Democratic Imperative
Mini Teaser: The world's democrats have joined forces, to the benefit of all involved.
Sporadically, chaotically, at times violently, the inexorable force of democratic hegemony is reshaping the world. Long gone is the East-West divide.
In the wake of communism's collapse, no array of closed societies or illiberal ideologies can seriously challenge the predominance of democratic states and liberal ideas. As a result, democracies are free to project their influence and values through diplomatic, military, economic, technological and cultural power. Increasingly, global affairs are shaped by the hegemony of democratic ideas and values, the acceptance of which has grown dramatically around the globe. Through "hard" and "soft" power, the world's cohort of democratic states aids indigenous democratic movements in toppling tyrannies, intervenes against rogues and tyrants, promotes democratic practices, and expands democratic governance through conditional foreign aid.
Often, such engagement reflects the pursuit of specific national interests. At times, democracies use their hegemonic power to end or preclude a humanitarian disaster that could otherwise send floods of refugees across their borders. At other times, they pre-empt threats to their national security. As often, the powerful democracies exercise hegemony on behalf of something larger-a genuinely new system of power rooted in liberal principles.
As a result of such interventions, intercessions and diplomatic pressure, a wave of tyrants has recently fallen. Since 2000, Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Liberia's Charles Taylor, the Afghan Taliban's Sheikh Omar, Peru's Alberto Fujimori, and Iraq's Saddam Hussein have been swept aside by the force of democratic hegemony. More recently, Georgia's president Eduard Shevardnadze succumbed to civic protest and external pressure, resigning in November 2003 after his government had doctored election results, while in March 2004, Haiti's Bertrand Aristide was forced from office amid mass civic protests and armed insurgency. Central to both resignations was the demand by key democracies that their departures were a condition for further engagement.
While the United States is perceived-and denounced-as the world's sole hegemon, it was not the leading force in several of these recent transitions. Indeed, in a wide range of settings, European, Latin American, Asian and African democracies-alone or in concert-assertively use their power to promote democratic outcomes and press illiberal regimes, often without the encouragement or participation of the United States.
Democratic hegemony does not come without risks. Because it exerts explicit and implicit pressures on dictatorships and anti-democratic movements, these have increasingly looked to the asymmetrical power represented by weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.
Democratic Predominance
Since the early 1970s, liberal democracies have grown at the rate of nearly one and a half per year. Today, there are 88 such liberal states, constituting nearly half the world's polities and 45 percent of its population. The liberal democracies generate 89 percent of the world's economic output and are the main sources of international entrepreneurship, invention and innovation. The economic and technological dominance of the democracies also translates to the military and security sphere: liberal democracies account for nearly 85 percent of global military expenditures. As a result, democracy has achieved a geo-economic and geopolitical critical mass that now appears to ensure its perpetuation and expansion around the world.
As importantly, established, prosperous democracies tend to have trustworthy democratic neighbors and enter into cooperative security alliances with other democracies. And while authoritarian states often use militaries at home to preserve illegitimate rule, liberal democracies have sufficient legitimacy that their militaries are devoted exclusively to the defense of borders and the projection of power. This means most of the "hard" power of democracies can be projected externally.
Of the world's ten most populous states, seven are governed by leaders whose power derives from free and fair elections. Only one-China-is an outright tyranny. Two, Pakistan and Russia, claim they are in transition to democratic rule and offer some space for opposition political parties and media. Of the world's twenty largest economies as measured by gross national income, only one-China-is an outright dictatorship. Eighteen of the world's largest economies are liberal democratic states.
So powerful is the economic, technological, cultural and military might of liberal states that they are increasingly capable of shaping the international system, countering threats, protecting fundamental rights and promoting the values of freedom. As the power and influence of the democracies grows, with the notable exception of China, most tyrannies are stagnating and falling further behind the liberal democratic world. Indeed, even with China's large and vibrant economy, the 48 countries Freedom House rates as "not free" account only for 6 percent of global economic output.
Today, increased trade and growing cross-border economic relations in the context of democratic predominance places constraints on how non-democratic states behave in the international system. Even powerful tyrannies like China are unlikely to act in a disruptive and aggressive way against liberal states that provide the direct investment and import markets on which those tyrannies rely. It is not accidental that rogue states have been either autarchic economies unconnected to the international system or self-sufficient states, usually deriving their wealth from exporting vitally important energy resources.
The overwhelming global predominance of the democracies means they can project power, even when they are sharply divided on tactics. Despite strained relations between the United States and major European states over Iraq, such foreign policy disagreements did little to abate the force of democratic hegemony. Paradoxically, the fact that democracies sometimes act in the absence of consensus increases the frequency of interventions and leads to a more active foreign policy.
Writing in these pages 15 years ago, Francis Fukuyama argued that "the victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness and is as yet incomplete in the real or material world." But the overwhelming economic success of the liberal democratic idea is now tangibly felt in the real, material world.
As a result, authoritarian values are increasingly threatened by the growing power of democracies and democratic ideas. Indeed, widespread global terrorism and efforts to procure weapons of mass destruction can be understood as responses by illiberal movements and states to democratic hegemony. Terrorism and weapons of mass destruction represent asymmetrical power in the face of democracy's growing strength.
Democracy's Many Interventions
So widespread and frequent are democratic engagement and intervention that-major wars apart-we are inured to the phenomenon. Yet by any measure, the pace of intervention by liberal democracies in the affairs of other states and societies is breathtaking. At times, such interventions occur under the aegis of the United Nations; at other times they are carried out through regional organizations; sometimes they are unilateral or launched by coalitions of the willing. In almost all cases since the end of the Cold War, the liberal and emerging democracies have been the driving force behind military interventions and peacekeeping operations-lobbying for them, committing military forces, and financing, staffing and shaping the post-conflict nation-building agenda.
In the last decade, the democracies have led military interventions and occupations in Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995, Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003 and Haiti, a second time, in 2004. Each time, whether under UN aegis, through NATO, or through coalitions of the willing, the military leadership and the post-intervention rebuilding has been firmly in the hands of the established democracies. Similarly, an array of peacekeeping and post-conflict interventions have also been launched mainly at the instigation and under the command of the liberal democracies including: Mozambique in 1994, Albania in 1997, Sierra Leone in 1997 and 2002, East Timor in 1999, Liberia in 2003, and Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003.
As Haiti and Iraq demonstrate, not all military and peacekeeping actions easily lead to stable democracy. Still, nearly all contemporary military interventions are accompanied by ambitious democratic state-building initiatives, including support for free media, independent civic groups and internationally supervised or monitored democratic elections.
Additionally, democracies exert influence through the regional bodies they now dominate. In organizations like the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union, NATO, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as the Commonwealth, agendas are shaped by the most influential regional powers (which as a rule are democratic) or by regional democratic majorities.
For example, in 2003 Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, on behalf of ECOWAS, risked personal safety when he traveled to Sao Tome and Principe and berated junior military officers who had staged a coup against the island democracy's government. His intervention led to a stand-down and the collapse of the coup. ECOWAS is now engaged in a vigorous effort to rebuild democratic electoral processes in Guinea-Bissau, where a coup toppled an elected government in 2003. In 2002, following a coup against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, the OAS exerted pressure that helped reverse the military takeover. A coup in Fiji in 2001 triggered suspension of aid by Australia and New Zealand, two major donors, who later provided assistance for new elections. West Africa's regional group, ECOWAS, likewise reacted sharply to a 1999 coup in Cote d'Ivoire and was instrumental in the return of civilian rule to the still troubled country. While international pressure does not always succeed, in most recent cases, military rulers are pressured to return their countries to elected leadership-making long-term military rule increasingly unsustainable.
Pressure and isolation are another part of the interventionist tool box of democratic hegemony. The OAS pressed Peru's authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori, encouraging opposition political forces that eventually forced his resignation after a corruption scandal. In recent years, the OAS had withheld aid from the Aristide government for electoral violations and relentless intimidation of opposition parties. This sanction paved the way for efforts by France and the United States to press Aristide to step down from office in March 2004.
Liberal democracies also assertively press new democracies to settle internal conflicts and ensure regional stability. In 2001-02, the EU and the United States demanded that the Macedonian government peacefully settle a violent insurgency involving its Albanian minority, threatening suspension of aid. After forcing a settlement on the Macedonian government, NATO peacekeepers were deployed to disarm Albanian terrorists and were replaced by EU peacekeepers.
The European Union has acted as a progressive democratic hegemon in relations with emerging democratic central and eastern European states that were eager to join its ranks. It successfully pressed post-communist states to eliminate the death penalty, settle unresolved border disputes and improve human rights protections for ethnic and linguistic minorities as a precondition of entry into the EU. And in 2000, the EU imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria in an effort to exclude the populist nationalist leader Jorg Haider from a governmental leadership post on the grounds that his platform did not comport with the European values.
Foreign aid is another frequent instrument of democratic hegemony. In 2002 President Bush announced his commitment to the creation of a Millennium Challenge Account, which will provide enhanced foreign aid to countries that perform better than their counterparts in ruling justly and protecting basic political and civil liberties. This year, the program will provide $1 billion in new assistance to developing countries that, in the words of President Bush, "rule justly."
While democratic hegemony is at times asserted through military force or economic incentives, often its most effective means of influence is support provided by governments and private sources to non-governmental democratic movements.
In the two decades since President Ronald Reagan delivered his landmark speech at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster calling for an international effort to promote democracy, states have created or encouraged dozens of government-funded foundations to offer training and significant resources to indigenous democratic groups around the world. Such foundations include the U.S. National Endowment for Demo-cracy, Germany's political foundations (the Stiftungen), Australia's Center for Democratic Institutions, Britain's Westminster Foundation, Canada's International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Poland's Freedom Foundation, and the Swedish-based Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
At the same time, nearly 20 percent of foreign aid provided by the OECD states is now targeted to support democracy-building programs. The European Commission today funds a broad array of global democracy initiatives, often implemented by non-governmental organizations. Such aid, augmented by state-funded uncensored broadcasts to closed societies, and coupled with private sector support from sources like George Soros's Open Society foundations, means that cumulative international democracy assistance amounts to several billion dollars each year.
Such private and government assistance supported civic-led democratic transitions in Georgia (2003), Peru (2002), Serbia (2000), Croatia (2000) and Slovakia (1998). Democracy assistance also helped facilitate the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. In South Africa, Chile and the Philip-pines, "people power", augmented by external resources from democracies and non-governmental support originating in the democratic world, assisted civic movements that used a combination of electoral processes and non-violent protests to force democratic openings.
Democracy's "Soft" Hegemony
The force of democratic hegemony extends far beyond financial and military power. It is as much, if not more so, a cultural and political phenomenon-hegemony as the Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci expressed it. For Gramsci, hegemony consisted of the consensual dominance of one group in society, attained through moral and intellectual leadership in a society and achieved through cultural and civic institutions. In this Gramscian sense, democracy's hegemony is exerted by the widespread popularity of and support for democratic ideas and values in much of the world. The ideological hegemony of democracy is disseminated by a globally linked intelligentsia, by global media and the Internet, and by like-minded non-governmental democracy activists united in cross-border networks of mutual support. Through such networks, techniques of civic mobilization are taught to activists in closed societies with the aim of achieving democratic openings.
The electoral and protest techniques used by Slovakia's civic advocates in 1998 to build opposition to the authoritarian prime minister Vladimir Meciar were taught to Serbian anti-Milosevic activists in 2000. In 2003, Serbian activists, in turn, helped train civic activists from Georgia, who used these techniques to protest massive election fraud and force the resignation of the country's elected president, Eduard Shevardnadze.
Tactics used in civic struggles in Serbia, South Africa and Chile are shared across borders with activists from a broad array of closed societies. No technique can guarantee success, which depends on indigenous public support. Still, external technical assistance, financial support and international pressure all empower civic movements in closed societies and are crucial to new democratic openings.
Because democracy thrives amid and promotes prosperity, democracies are today the most important powers in most regions of the globe. With the exception of the Arab world, which has no liberal democracies, and east Asia, where China is a major factor, democracies are the most influential regional actors. Populous and powerful democracies exert their own economic, strategic and diplomatic influence in South Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Americas, Europe and Africa, while the United States further tips the balance by playing a global role as a powerful democratic hegemon.
Latin America's two most important states-Brazil and Mexico-are dynamic democracies. Western Europe's powerful established democracies have exerted their hegemonic influence on eastern and central Europe by linking EU integration to democratic reforms and the rule of law. Nigeria's emerging democracy and South Africa's liberal democracy are the most important indigenous powers in sub-Saharan Africa. In the Asia-Pacific region, Indonesia, a restored electoral democracy, and Australia, a stable liberal democracy, are the predominant powers-a role filled by democratic India on the subcontinent.
Not all these powers interpret their responsibilities identically. India's conservative foreign ministry, for example, has been reluctant to support activism on behalf of democratic values and human rights at regional and global institutions. And Brazil under President Ignacio Lula da Silva has thus far refrained from playing an active role as a regional voice for democracy. On a visit last year to Cuba, Brazil's president even declared: "I don't comment on the internal policies of other countries." Among European states, France has been traditionally less interested in supporting a foreign policy based on democracy promotion than other EU states.
Nonetheless, there is a variety of reasons why democracies tend to pursue actively interventionist foreign policies on behalf of basic rights and democratic practice. One factor is a sense of solidarity and shared values that democracies feel with insurgent democratic movements. New democracies in particular, which often are led by revolutionary democrats, tend to be highly active in supporting their counterparts in neighboring states. Moreover, within democratic polities, foreign policy is subject to the pressure and influence of media and non-governmental lobbies, which frequently urge humanitarian intervention, press governments to uphold global human rights and urge support for counterpart civic movements. This is why, although many democratic states prefer to act with the mandate of the United Nations or regional bodies, democratic legitimacy and accountability spurs some of them to unilateral action.
Hegemony and the Non-Democracies
Non-democratic polities cannot today ignore the pressure exerted by liberal states and by the popularity of democratic ideas. Consequently, authoritarian and tyrannical states have adopted a variety of responses to democratic hegemony.
Some traditional monarchies in the Arab world are taking halting steps toward elected legislatures with limited powers. Other countries-referred to as hybrid states-mimic democratic practices with elections and a nominal opposition, while retaining absolute control through patronage, the use of state resources, domination of the media and political repression. Among such pseudo-democracies are Ukraine, Malaysia, Egypt and Russia. Yet in many cases attempts to "manage democracy" carry within them the seeds of fundamental change. A number of such illiberal and pseudo-democracies have fallen in recent years as a result of peaceful transition resulting from civic mobilizations (Slovakia under Meciar and Mexico, formerly ruled for seven decades by the Institutional Revolutionary Party). Sometimes, fraudulent elections in pseudo-democracies spark mass unrest that overthrows corrupt or authoritarian rulers (such as Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines). Of course, many non-democracies resist even a modest liberalization or the introduction of rudimentary imitations of democracy and multi-party politics.
Non-democratic states that are reliant on exports and foreign investment may often engage in a high degree of internal repression, even as they open up to economic, cultural and commercial penetration by the democratic world. But as a rule, many such states tend to pursue generally cooperative foreign policies and do not provoke conflict with the interests of the democracies. By contrast, non-democracies that are self-reliant because they possess energy resources (such as Saudi Arabia, Iran or Libya) are free to support radical political (and in some cases terrorist) movements. Impoverished, autarchic autocracies try to pressure the democratic world by supporting or sheltering terrorist movements and have sought to preserve their systems by trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction to act as deterrents from possible attack or pressure-North Korea being the classic example.
At the same time, the difficulties in reforming Iraq and Afghanistan may well lead democracies to retreat from the ambitious aim of democracy building, especially in the Middle East. Already, U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry has suggested that the aim in Iraq should be stability rather than the more ambitious aim of democratic rule. And while President Bush has elevated rhetoric in behalf of the democratization of the Muslim Middle East, he has refused to challenge the repressive status quo in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the two most important Arab countries.
There are also worrying signs that the broad expansion of democracy has resulted in the emergence of many fragile polities. Freedom House's annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, indicates there are 117 electoral democracies with meaningful, competitive multiparty elections. Of these procedural democracies, only 88 are rated as "free", meaning they have secured a broad array civil liberties and rights amid the strong rule of law. This means that for a variety of reasons, including insurgencies and ethnic strife, 29 elected democratic governments fail to secure for their citizens a number of fundamental rights.
Poverty and poor economic performance by many new democracies are also a growing challenge. Of the world's 88 free and liberal democracies, 38 have a per capita gross national income of $3,500 or less, and 18 have a per capita gni of less than $1,500. A report released in mid-April by the UN Development Program found that a majority of Latin Americans would welcome the replacement of democratic government with authoritarian rule if the trade-off were economic gains, suggesting rising disenchantment with elected governments that fail to achieve growth.
Even long-time democracies face new difficulties. In Italy, for example, under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, excessive concentration of broadcast media in the hands of the incumbent government has raised serious questions about whether the lack of media diversity is corrosive of pluralism. And all of the established democracies face the challenge posed by the transfer of significant democratically-accountable authority to international organizations that are less directly accountable to the people.
The Democratic Advantage
Established and new democracies will need to confront all these issues if democracy is to continue its ascendancy-yet there are few reasons to think that the force of democratic hegemony will abate in the coming years. Indeed, there are many more factors that favor the further projection of power by democracies and the spread of democratic values. Not only do democracies have a better track record at adapting to difficulties and finding workable solutions, the populations currently living under tyrannies continue to display a powerful will to democracy. This creates forward momentum to open closed societies-and weakens traditional arguments employed in favor of non-intervention.
In 2001 the Independent Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, convened at the request of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, put forward an expansive rationale for wide-ranging international intervention. The Commission asserted:
"Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it; the principle of non-intervention yields to the responsibility to protect. "
The statement went on to warn that if the UN Security Council fails to act in such cases, "concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation. . . ." Europe's championing of the imperfect International Criminal Court places significant attention on genocide and other mass "crimes against humanity", and it is yet another instrument likely to spur the projection of democratic hegemony as the new court goes after tyrants and mass murderers.
Furthermore, ongoing efforts to defeat global terrorism and reverse the spread of weapons of mass destruction to rogue states will create new opportunities for democratic nation-building. This idea is embodied in its most raw form in the latest incarnation of the doctrine of pre-emption. The corollary of this security-driven agenda is the Administration's growing acceptance of the view that terrorism and the extremist ideologies that propel it thrive in environments in which open democratic discourse is stymied.
Some commentators tend to view a widening chasm between Europe and America, arguing that under the Bush Administration, the United States tends to emphasize security arguments on behalf of democratic hegemony, while the European Union emphasizes the humanitarian argument to support interventions. In the end, both arguments lead in the same direction: increased pressure and more interventions by the world's liberal democracies.
The Future of Democratic Hegemony
Some critics and commentators see in the wide array of cultural, political, military and economic pressures exerted by democracies the expression of a new form of colonialism or imperialism. But the phenomenon of democratic hegemony is distinctly different. The projection of hegemonic power by the democracies is usually exercised not on behalf of specific policies or in support of specific indigenous political actors but on behalf of democratic political processes and market economic systems. As Ronald Reagan observed in his Westminster speech on the promotion of democracy: "This is not cultural imperialism; it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity."
Indeed, democratic choice sometimes empowers insurgent political forces that are deeply critical of established democracies and of the global market system. In recent years a range of electoral victories by insurgent, anti-establishment political movements has occurred in places as diverse as Turkey, Brazil and Ecuador. In each case, leaders came into power that had been critical of the United States.
Despite its immense influence on global affairs, democratic hegemony has emerged almost accidentally and has exerted its immense influence episodically and inconsistently. Frequently, democratic hegemony has often been projected by shifting and unstable coalitions of the willing. Thus, despite their geo-economic and geopolitical global predominance, democracies have rarely acted as a cohesive force. Democracies have tended to respond to emergencies and crises rather than to anticipate and manage conflict and instability or to advance a systematic agenda for global political change.
The present moment of hegemony offers an opportunity for democracies to move toward greater cohesion in expanding and deepening the democratic project. To do so will require new forms of institutional cooperation, including the strengthening of the nascent Community of Democracies, launched in 2000 to improve international coordination on human rights and political reform and currently coordinated by a group including Chile, the United States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Mali, Portugal, India, Mexico, South Africa and the Republic of Korea.
It will require establishing a working caucus of democracies at the United Nations to ensure that the global body works consistently and effectively in support of political rights and civil liberties. It will also require more diligent efforts to enable the World Bank to work more openly and explicitly in pursuit of democratic governance.
At the United Nations and global conferences organized under UN auspices, democracies routinely are outmaneuvered by tyrannies and dictatorships. Last year's election of Libya as chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and this year's election to that monitoring body of Sudan-whose government is engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Africans from its Darfur province-are emblematic of the poor coordination among democracies. Such symbolically important political failures make clear that nascent initiatives like the Community of Democracies and a UN Democracy Caucus are weak and have not yet had serious impact.
The power of democracies is predominant for the near future-but continued predominance is not preordained. America's domestic political turmoil engendered by the difficulties encountered in Iraq has led some to question America's commitment to aggressively promoting democracy around the world, particularly if intervention is required. Europe's population is aging, and the continent may soon face major economic challenges to further economic growth.
Weak democracies will need economic aid, foreign investment and access to developed markets. Evidence suggests that disillusionment with liberal institutions can set in if poor democracies are mired in economic stagnation. There already are worrying signs pointing to public disappointment with democratic institutions in countries where long periods of authoritarianism left a legacy of huge disparities in wealth.
In the end, the further expansion of democracy will largely be determined by events in China and the Arab world, which together account for the overwhelming majority of those who live under tyranny. In China, the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square indicated the potential for mass support of democratic principles. More recently, however, there have been few manifestations of mass public opposition to China's one-party system and fewer signs Beijing is headed toward serious political liberalization. In the Arab world, too, there are few signs of momentum toward democratic rule. Although polling data suggests significant sympathy among Arab citizens for democratic governance, tightly controlled one-party states and reform-resistant monarchies predominate, and mass civic protest is rare.
With economically dynamic China exhibiting no signs of serious democratic reform, with Russia tilting toward authoritarianism, and with the defeat of Islamist extremism and terrorism by no means certain, the perpetuation and expansion of democracy is not assured.
All this makes clear that democratic hegemony, in the end, is not some inevitable endpoint of historical development. It may only be an opportunity, an opening in history when there is a chance utterly to vanquish and banish the worst forms of tyranny and autocracy and replace them with an order rooted in the rule of law and democratic accountability before the people. Such an effort to press democracy's expansion clearly is not without peril. Tyrannies will certainly seek weapons of mass destruction to stave off the force of democratic pressure and extremist anti-liberal movements will attack the democratic world with the asymmetrical power of terrorism. But despite these dangers, the failure by democracies to press their advantage would be far more dangerous and would confer on succeeding generations a more terribly violent and tumultuous world.
Adrian Karatnycky is counselor and senior scholar at Freedom House. He serves as the principal analyst for Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties.
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