Democracy is a powerful idea with deep historical roots. Emancipatory in character, claims for democracy have instigated and responded to considerable social and political change, challenging established ideas of political rule and the nature of society. Yet active engagement in democracy support has long been anathema to the UN because democracy support in a world of sovereign states means intervention in domestic political affairs and, worse for some, the promotion of Western ideas. Despite this, today democracy has an international dimension. Some have claimed the existence of a ‘right to democratic governance’ (Franck 1992) in international law, while others declared...

In the twentieth century claims for democracy were made by many, yet few states became democracies. In the early twenty-first century democracy appears to be ubiquitous. Western European and North American states have been joined by former communist states and dictatorships in the ‘family of democracies’, while wars continue to be waged to depose dictators and to bring democracy and freedom to previously suppressed people. In addition to this, democracy can be found in classrooms or workplaces. Not all democracies are the same – a political system differs from a personal relationship – however, to deny the existence of democracy...

As the previous chapter showed, the role and place of democracy have always been expressions of its time and the historic, systemic constraints placed upon it. To understand the limitations of democracy in today’s international dimension, be that a ‘right to democratic governance’ or the promotion of democratic statehood through international organisations such as the UN, is to understand the limitations it faced in its historical development. As the UN is as much a result of its historical context and changes as it is a vehicle for them, many of these limitations lie in the philosophical or legal foundations of...

In the 1990s democracy gained an international dimension. Democracy became part of the UN agenda as the end of the Cold War promised not only an end to the stalemate between East and West at the UN, but also the possibility to pursue the liberal ideas which had underpinned the very idea of international organisation itself. Disregarding any explicit mention of democracy – indeed steering away from democracy – had served a vital political function during the Cold War, while interpreting principles such as self-determination in terms of sovereignty instead of democracy proved important for the identity construction of former...

The ‘internationalisation’ of democracy continued apace through the 1990s. Fukuyama’s claim that liberalism, and with it democracy, had prevailed over other ideologies appeared to come true as democracy became a major force in the new world order. Now with the support of the UN and UN missions as a broad platform for implementation, democracy became a cornerstone of what the UN did and how it expected to solve the problems it faced. The institutionalisation of an election-focussed democracy practice had been determined not only by existing practices but also by political expediency and the need to accommodate a potentially controversial...

The idea that democracy encompasses more than processes and structures has been expressed by the UN and its Secretaries-General on several occasions. However, while the three visions of democracy explored thus far – civilisation, elections, governance – have all found expression at the UN in both ideational and practice form, democracy as governance did mark a conceptual and practical endpoint for the UN democracy agenda. This chapter then takes a different turn and looks towards the future, analysing the shape a UN democracy agenda could assume if it developed a substantive vision of democracy. The construction of this new vision...

The idea of democracy clearly has been an integral part of the UN since its inception. Yet the meaning of democracy has evolved over time through its development and application as a UN practice. Definitions of democracy have been shaped in reaction to the organisation’s changing environment, be that in the context of decolonisation, ethnic wars or the process of democratisation (the Third Wave). In this sense, democracy, or the practice of democracy assistance, was part of an attempt at problem-solving. Because democracy served a purpose, its meaning (and the shape of the associated practices) would change according to the...