Political Science and

International Relations
Global Concerns - Democracy

Arvind Singh Rajpurohit

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 GLOBAL
CONCERNS
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DEMOCRACY

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DEMOCRACY AS A GLOBAL CONCERN
• The relation between democracy and global civil society.
world politics is manifold. At the
conceptual level, a number of schools • The more specific literature on
democratic peace theory deals with
of thought can be distinguished. the relation between political regimes
• Drawing on works from classical and and international conflict.
contemporary political philosophers • At the practical level, two main ways to
from Immanuel Kant to Jürgen think about the relations between
Habermas, these schools address the democracy and world politics can be
classical contentions between liberal distinguished.
and communitarian, representative
and participative, and procedural and 1. one can examine the extent to which
decision-making processes within
deliberative models of democracy. international organizations are
• These debates are linked to questions democratic.
of authority and legitimacy in world 2. one can look at how world politics affect
politics and are also addressed in the political regimes at the nation-state
level, such as domestic democracy.
literature of global governance and
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 Democratic Interventions
• A democratic intervention is a military intervention by external
forces with the aim of assisting democratization of the country
where the intervention takes place.
• Examples include intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Democratic intervention has occurred throughout the mid-
twentieth century, as evidenced in Japan and Germany after
World War II, where democracies were imposed by military
intervention.
• States engage in democratic intervention for a variety of reasons,
ranging from national interests to international security.
• Proponents of democratic intervention acknowledge the
superiority of democracies to autocratic regimes in facets of
peace, economics and human rights.
• Criticisms of democratic intervention surround the infringement
of state sovereignty of the country where the intervention takes
place and the failure of democratic intervention to consider a
nation’s cultural complexities.
• Western liberal democracies like the United States (US) are in
favor of democratic intervention while other countries such as
China , Iran and North Korea view it as a mechanism of
furthering the hegemony of an intervening stateArvindaPSIR
Democratic deficit in global governance
• Deliberative democracy theorists
harshly criticize the IMF and World
Bank for their lack of
accountability. Stiglitz, being one of
them, argues that the World Bank
and IMF both suffer from lack of
accountability.

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 Impact of globalization on democracy
• Globalization has a great impact on promoting
democracies and perhaps the most available
evidence will be based on the infusion of
democratic values and human rights into the
regional and international institutions. For
instance, the EU requires democratic
governments only to apply for membership and
more importantly to promote the democratic
values and norms through their foreign policy.
• Democracy is accelerated through globalization
by the most important tools of communication
between states and the people. Trade, foreign
investment, finance, migration, environment,
and culture are the tools which help in
promoting democracy by creating more
integration.
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Globalisation Undermining democracy
• The wars, COVID19 financial disasters, democratic state instead of aiding its
recessions, and important security expansion. It is believed that it
issues and dilemmas are rising in undermines the essential requirements
democratic states in the west and east. of state autonomy, patriotism and
Globalization is introducing new national identity.
international dangerous problems to • Globalization is causing the decline of
states and to the idea of sovereignty the nation state, as governments no
and it undermines the democratic longer have control over their
norms by making them weak and economy, their trade and their borders.
vulnerable compared to other political Now, trans-national companies are
regimes. becoming increasingly imperative to the
• For instance, the Asian economic crisis economy, and the state is becoming
of 1997 showed that countries that had obsolete. This supports the argument
more democratic links with the west that globalization is reducing the power
had suffered the most and that was a of democracy and the state, resulting in
warning which showed that hollow democracy. Jens Bartelson
globalization is dangerous.
• Post-modern and Radical theorists see
• Many scholars such as Jens Bartelson globalisation as an excuse for
would agree with the idea that interventionism and promoting geo-
globalization poses a threat to the political aims.

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 Reverse wave of democracy
• Huntington notes the existence of both waves of democracy
formation and “reverse waves” of anti-democratic reaction.
• During the cold war, the erosions of democracy occurred by
means of coups. Currently, the erosions of our democracies
are being inflicted by democratically elected leaders.
• Democracy is being eroded from within its very institutions:
in Hungary, Prime Minister Orban has ordered the detaining
of refugees and asylum seekers he has described as “Muslim
invaders”.
• The role United States has played in the decrease in faith in
democratic institutions should not be underestimated.
Former President Donald Trump has alienated the
international community with his tariff wars and talk of
removing the US from key international organisations and
treaties. Finally, the outgoing president’s shocking attempts
to overturn his election loss—culminating in his incitement
of rioters who stormed the Capitol as Congress met to
confirm the results in January 2021—put electoral
institutions under severe pressure.
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 Reverse wave of democracy
• In Belarus and Hong Kong, massive prodemocracy
protests met with brutal crackdowns by
governments that largely disregarded international
criticism.
• The Azerbaijani regime’s military offensive in
Nagorno-Karabakh indirectly threatened recent
democratic gains in Armenia, while the armed
conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region dashed hopes
for the tentative political opening in that country
since 2018.
• Recently released Global State of Democracy
Report, 2021, the number of countries moving
towards authoritarianism in 2020 was higher than
that of countries becoming more democratic.

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 Democratizing Globalization:
• Jan Aart Scholte: According to him one of the first democratizing
moves to make is to move away from the notion of a neoliberal
model as the single answer for the entire world. We need to say
that "other worlds are possible“.
• Strategies :
➢ New Social Contract: There is a need to deliver on political or civic
reforms or develop a new social contract that closes the gap between
what people want and what governments currently deliver. This can be
done by designing responsive, inclusive, accountable, and transparent
institutions oriented towards achieving sustainable development.
➢ Strengthening Institutions: Rebuilding existing institutions by updating
practices in established democracies, building democratic capacity in new
democracies, and protecting electoral integrity, fundamental freedoms
and rights, and the checks and balances essential to thriving democratic
systems. Jan Aart Scholte
➢ Strengthening Civil Society: Preventing the rising authoritarianism and
democratic backsliding can be done by investing in education and by
supporting independent civil society, combatting disinformation and
supporting free and independent media that facilitates the growth of
democratic cultures, values and practice.
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 GLOBAL DEMOCRACY
• Global democracy is a field of academic study and
political activism concerned with making the global
political system more democratic.
• Along with global justice, global democracy has also
been critical to the emergence of international political
theory .
• Global justice scholars tend to focus on how burdens
and benefits should be distributed by international
institutions, and Global Democrats probe how political
power can be legitimated beyond the nation-state.
• Global democracy is therefore concerned with how
transnational decision-making can be justified and
who should be entitled to participate in the formation
of global rules, laws, and regulations.
• The notion of a global democratic deficit—in which
individuals are removed from transnational decision-
making in problematic ways provides reasons to pursue
global democracy.
 Postmodern Global Democracies
• Jan Aart Scholte proposes that global democracy is best
envisioned through a new approach, which he labels
"postmodern global democracies”.
• His approach responds to inadequacies of two current strains
of thought on global democracy —statism and
cosmopolitanism.
• Statism is the view that “global democracy is best achieved
through multilateral collaboration among democratic
nation-states”, whereas Cosmopolitanism suggests that
“global democracy is optimally realized by elevating pillars
of Western liberal democracy from the national to the
global level”.
• Among Other things, Scholte contends that both of these
perspectives fail to account for the social structures and
characteristics of global governance that dominate the
current global environment.
• He argues that in the contemporary world, global connections are greater than
ever before, collective identities are often non-territorially based, supra-state,
sub-state and non-state actors as well as states are global regulators, and the
western-modern state is critically looked upon by some cultural views.
• Scholte suegests that instead of the vision of global democracy put forward by
statism or cosmopolitanism, global democracy should be built on five principles
1. Transcalarity recognizes that "democracy is not achieved at one or the other geographical
'level’, but through fluid mobilizations across scales".
2. Plural solidarities as a principle tells us that "an individual can embrace multiple
solidarities and that the relative weight of these attachments can fluctuate," and thus
there is no one demos but a plural demoi behind global democracy.
3. The principle of transculturality requires that within all cultures or life-worlds global
democracy "be practiced in ways that are meaningfully democratic within each of these
multiple life-worlds".
4. Egalitarian redistribution recognizes that truly democratic rulemaking requires not only
legal and moral equality of persons, but also economic equality.
5. Eco-ship "would embed democracy in a concern with ecological integrity"
HUMANE DEMOCRACY
• What is humane democracy, and how
does it differ from the concept of liberal
democracy?
➢In a nutshell, liberal democracy has political
goal of protecting individual rights, on the
other hand concept of humane democracy is
envisioned to promote humanity's higher and
nobler ethical ideals such as building
solidarity, upholding diversity, and enhancing
the capabilities of all, beyond protecting
individual rights.
➢The ethical ideas of humane democracy are
comprised of diverse and rich moral values of
all humanity.
UN and Democracy
• As per Kofi Annan, democracy as an international issue goes far beyond its
direct connection to international peace. Where domestic peace has
broken down, the international community must be able to assist in its
restoration. In this work, democratic governance, and the realization of
human rights, are essential. The UN not only can offer essential help in
repairing democratic breakdowns in domestic peace but also must explore
democratic principles at the global level.
• Democracy provides an environment for the protection and effective
realization of human rights. These values are embodied in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and further developed in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrines a host of political
rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful.
• United Nations activities in support of democracy and governance are
carried out through the Unites Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations(DPKO), the Department of Political affairs(DPA)
and the office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), among
others. Such activities are inseparable from the UN's work in promoting
human rights, development and peace and security, and include:
➢Assisting parliaments to enhance the checks and balances that allow democracy to
thrive;
➢Helping to strengthen the impartiality and effectiveness of national human rights
machinery and judicial systems;
➢Helping to develop legislation and media capacities to ensure freedom and
expression and access to information;
➢Proving electoral assistance and long term-support for electoral management bodies;
➢Promoting women's participation in political and public life.