Democracy's international challenges

CEPS Conference ‘Democracy’s international challenges’
Brussels 17 June 2008

Talking Points Andre Wilkens

While I do not agree with McCain’s proposal for a League of Democracies (which was already discussed here), it has started a debate about the value of Democracy and how to defend it. What I think we need is a Re-Think.

Definition: I support the need for a definition of what we mean: Democracy Promotion/Assistance/Building/Strengthening. Democracy Promotion has become the synonym for Democracy Export and Regime Change, including through the Rule of Force. I would go for a broader definition which looks at the building of sustainable open societies. Democratic institutions and processes are part of this but cannot be reduced to it.

Context: The world is dramatically different from the late 90’s/early 2000, the high time of Democracy Promotion. Mark Leonard and others have described this very well. This is the biggest challenge to democracy promotion. It seems to me that new times require also a review of the old approaches. But what we see is a re-brew of democracy promotion minus Bush.
One of the biggest challenges is the economy. The happy marriage between democracy and capitalism is now challenged by the happy marriage of non-democracies and capitalism. the currently democratic West is loosing its economic dominance and, potentially, the ability to set economic and social standards. In the new world order the West will also have less money available to promote its objectives while Russia and China have set up policies and structures to promote their own models.
In this new world we have to think ‘out of the box’ of democracy promotion. We have to find new ways to build sustainable open societies. This may take longer than in the 90’s democracy boom years and it may be through new approaches, e.g. climate and energy policy, migration, information technology.

EU integration: EU integration, incl. expansion of the EU, has been a very successful, and sustainable, way of building open societies. The creation of the EU was probably one of the biggest idea ‘Out of the Box’ ideas of the last century – building peace, stability, prosperity on steel, coal and bureaucracy. Democracy is a vital organ of the European model. Without democracy the system will collapse, but as humans do not fall in love with another human’s vital organs but the sum of things, so does the European model need more than a vital organ to attract others.
European Integration is not finished (Turkey, Western Balkans and even the unfinished business of democracy building in the new EU members) and is probably the area where the EU has the most to win or loose. ENP was an interesting, but possibly failing, approach to extend the EU model without offering membership, but we should make the most of it.

Democracy Promotion starts at home: This has to be one of the key lessons of the last 8 years. The double standards in defining democracy and how to apply it has cost the US, but also the EU, much credibility in promoting democracy in the world. Guantanamo, Patriots Acts, Torture, extra legal tricks to operate outside the democratic system, growing racism, organized crime and corruption, restriction of media freedoms: We have a lot to improve. Therefore strengthening democracy needs to happen not only abroad, but also at home. However, many organizations, governmental and non-governmental only look abroad.
Internal and external policies are nearly always linked. For the European model to be attractive it has to work and deliver at home.

An integrated and value driven interest policy: Do we need a separate democracy promotion policy, assistance and institutions? Is it not better to have an integrated foreign policy which is driven by Western core interests? Rather than segregating democracy promotion and assistance, we should make the building of sustainable open societies our core policy interest. Open Societies are better political and economic partners, also when it comes to energy and raw materials. We should evaluate whether our external policies, incl. trade and aid, assist democratic developments or hinder it. This is not necessarily about conditionally but about a credible (ethical) external policy. As on climate policy, we should lead by example.

Funding: Democracy assistance usually means giving money to NGOs to implement the donors’ agenda. Does this still work? Are NGOs the most effective way to promote sustainable democracy? Can and should we sub-contract democracy promotion to NGOs?