The Dangers and Setbacks of Democracy
The promotion of democracy has long been a central focus of the United Nations. Indeed, in its 2015 resolution on sustainable development, the General Assembly reaffirmed that “democracy and good governance” are essential for achieving global peace and prosperity. Democracy requires a level of trust and tolerance that makes it possible to resolve intractable conflicts by peaceful means and provides an environment where respect for human rights can flourish.
However, the emergence of democratic governments and institutions is far from guaranteed. Even where the conditions are right, the process of democratisation is often fraught with dangers and setbacks. As the experience of post-World War II democracies in Europe and Latin America shows, democratization is not a simple, linear process that leads automatically to stable political regimes. Instead, a democracy is the outcome of a complex social and political evolution that typically takes decades to fully mature and become self-sustaining.
Among the most basic prerequisites for a country’s democratisation is economic development, which produces an educated middle class that has the interests and capabilities to pressure their government to adopt democratic reforms. This has been one of the driving forces behind the success of democratisation in countries as diverse as Britain, the United States, Brazil and South Korea.
While economic development has been a key factor in the rise of democratic states, there are also important factors that can derail the democratisation process. For example, a high level of economic inequality exacerbates conflict between the rich and poor and can lead to authoritarian tendencies on both sides.
Another factor is the level of public education, which can increase citizens’ ability to understand and assess a range of competing factual claims and normative viewpoints. However, not all countries have the capacity to invest in education and, as a result, it is difficult to predict whether a particular country’s democratisation process will be successful.
Another critical variable is the extent to which a society is willing to accept and implement democratic principles, including universal suffrage, in the face of opposition from powerful interest groups that have traditionally had access to power. This is the most challenging aspect of a democratisation process. It is why many attempts at democratisation, from the revolutions in Yugoslavia and Indonesia to the uprisings of the Arab Spring, have produced little more than a form of manipulable procedural democracy. Those that have succeeded have achieved this through a combination of favourable civil-society changes and the political and social maturation of societies that allows them to understand democratic values, practices and institutions as not threatening but complementing their traditional referents for cultural identity and beliefs about what might constitute the ‘common good’.
The promotion of democracy has long been a central focus of the United Nations. Indeed, in its 2015 resolution on sustainable development, the General Assembly reaffirmed that “democracy and good governance” are essential for achieving global peace and prosperity. Democracy requires a level of trust and tolerance that makes it possible to resolve intractable conflicts by peaceful means and provides an environment where respect for human rights can flourish. However, the emergence of democratic governments and institutions is far from guaranteed. Even where the conditions are right, the process of democratisation is often fraught with dangers and setbacks. As the experience of post-World War II democracies in Europe and Latin America shows, democratization is not a simple, linear process that leads automatically to stable political regimes. Instead, a democracy is the outcome of a complex social and political evolution that typically takes decades to fully mature and become self-sustaining. Among the most basic prerequisites for a country’s democratisation is economic development, which produces an educated middle class that has the interests and capabilities to pressure their government to adopt democratic reforms. This has been one of the driving forces behind the success of democratisation in countries as diverse as Britain, the United States, Brazil and South Korea. While economic development has been a key factor in the rise of democratic states, there are also important factors that can derail the democratisation process. For example, a high level of economic inequality exacerbates conflict between the rich and poor and can lead to authoritarian tendencies on both sides. Another factor is the level of public education, which can increase citizens’ ability to understand and assess a range of competing factual claims and normative viewpoints. However, not all countries have the capacity to invest in education and, as a result, it is difficult to predict whether a particular country’s democratisation process will be successful. Another critical variable is the extent to which a society is willing to accept and implement democratic principles, including universal suffrage, in the face of opposition from powerful interest groups that have traditionally had access to power. This is the most challenging aspect of a democratisation process. It is why many attempts at democratisation, from the revolutions in Yugoslavia and Indonesia to the uprisings of the Arab Spring, have produced little more than a form of manipulable procedural democracy. Those that have succeeded have achieved this through a combination of favourable civil-society changes and the political and social maturation of societies that allows them to understand democratic values, practices and institutions as not threatening but complementing their traditional referents for cultural identity and beliefs about what might constitute the ‘common good’.