Spread Of Liberal Democracy Research Articles

To the End of History

More than 30 years have passed since the article and then the monograph by Francis Fukuyama about the end of history were published. The author repeatedly pointed out the incorrect interpretation of the main ideas expressed in the book. Fukuyama subsequently insisted that the end of history, understood as reaching the final point in the evolution of society through the spread of liberal democracy on a global scale, was articulated by him as a goal of development, and not as an already achieved result. The discourse around the idea of the end of history, thus, was formed partly against the author’s will. The idea lived its own life. Trends of the last few years have actualized a new wave of discussions about the end of history, but now — “The End of the End of History”. The processes of deglobalization, the strengthening of authoritarian political regimes and their influence on the world agenda, the victory of populist forces in elections in Western countries — all this is perceived by Fukuyama's critics as a sign of the end of the end of history. We believe that the conclusion about the end of the end of history is hasty. The authors developing this thesis build their arguments around criticism of the West. Accordingly, the end of history, understood as the total spread of Western-style democracy, was provoked by the West itself. At some points, such an approach will lead to correct results, but it must be borne in mind that we find ourselves in the trap of Orientalism, believing that the dominant right to interpret democratic discourse belongs to the West and depends on the West. A more relevant analytical framework could be the thesis that the characteristic of modernity is not the end of the end of history, but the erosion of the former dominance of the West in the discourse regarding the interpretations of liberalism in economics and democracy in politics.

Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order

The liberal international order, erected after the Cold War, was crumbling by 2019. It was flawed from the start and thus destined to fail. The spread of liberal democracy around the globe—essential for building that order—faced strong resistance because of nationalism, which emphasizes self-determination. Some targeted states also resisted U.S. efforts to promote liberal democracy for security-related reasons. Additionally, problems arose because a liberal order calls for states to delegate substantial decisionmaking authority to international institutions and to allow refugees and immigrants to move easily across borders. Modern nation-states privilege sovereignty and national identity, however, which guarantees trouble when institutions become powerful and borders porous. Furthermore, the hyperglobalization that is integral to the liberal order creates economic problems among the lower and middle classes within the liberal democracies, fueling a backlash against that order. Finally, the liberal order accelerated China's rise, which helped transform the system from unipolar to multipolar. A liberal international order is possible only in unipolarity. The new multipolar world will feature three realist orders: a thin international order that facilitates cooperation, and two bounded orders—one dominated by China, the other by the United States—poised for waging security competition between them.

Liberalism in Crisis: A Collapsing World Order

The four books reviewed here all share the perspective that the liberal world order, created and maintained by American power after the Second World War, is presently under considerable strain. The institutions which support it, whether in Europe or the United States, are currently in disarray. The liberal world order is defined through its promotion of the tenets of liberal internationalism, commonly understood as the desire for global free trade, the adoption of liberal economic policies and promoting the spread of liberal democracy. Liberalism, as a mechanism of organising global politics, has, these authors argue, weakened considerably, resulting in creeping instability and geopolitical uncertainty. The ramifications of this crisis for liberalism differ depending on the author. However, comprehending why the post-war Western liberal order is eroding and offering solutions to arrest its decline are common themes shared amongst the otherwise diverse arguments and analyses presented by each author. Sorensen�s A Liberal Order in Crisis offers the most direct and comprehensive engagement with these issues. For him, the present difficulties faced by Western powers have as much to do with tensions between differing conceptions of liberalism as with current global dynamics. Sorensen argues that post-war liberalism has oscillated between imposition and restraint, each with conflicting ideas of how international order should best be managed. After outlining the foundations of each variant of liberalism and tracing the shifts between them in the decades following the Second World War, Sorensen claims that neither imposition nor restraint provides the answer to the challenges faced by liberalism today. Liberalism today is paralysed, and the emergence of a �patchwork order�, in which liberalism is no longer predominant, is on the horizon (pp. 140, 166). Bisley, in Great Powers in the Changing International Order, develops the concept of great power managerialism to examine the role that �

Democracy promotion between the “political” and the “developmental” approach: US and German policies towards Belarus

Following the end of the East–West conflict, the global spread of liberal democracy became an important strategic objective in world politics. Primarily, the foreign policy of the US and EU (states) demonstrated the relevance of democracy promotion abroad. While Western democracies' policy objectives regarding democracy promotion go well together, an obvious difference between their approaches in this area has often been shown: a largely “political” approach of the US vs a “developmental” one of European states. Accordingly, this article focuses on recent tendencies in democracy promotion by comparing US and German policies in the European post-Soviet space in order to investigate the expression of both approaches in a strategically important region. It thereby analyses the pivotal case of Belarus, which presents a great challenge to democracy promoters. The study concludes that external democracy promotion in that part of the world does not show a clear differentiation between the two approaches, and suggests a few potential explanations to be explored in future research.

Mathematicians and the Nation in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century as Reflected in the Luigi Cremona Correspondence

ArgumentUp until the French Revolution, European mathematics was an “aristocratic” activity, the intellectual pastime of a small circle of men who were convinced they were collaborating on a universal undertaking free of all space-time constraints, as they believed they were ideally in dialogue with the Greek founders and with mathematicians of all languages and eras. The nineteenth century saw its transformation into a “democratic” but also “patriotic” activity: the dominant tendency, as shown by recent research to analyze this transformation, seems to be the national one, albeit accompanied by numerous analogies from the point of view of the processes of national evolution, possibly staggered in time. Nevertheless, the very homogeneity of the individual national processes leads us to view mathematics in the context of the national-universal tension that the spread of liberal democracy was subjected to over the past two centuries. In order to analyze national-universal tension in mathematics, viewed as an intellectual undertaking and a profession of the new bourgeois society, it is necessary to investigate whether the network of international communication survived the political, social, and cultural upheavals of the French Revolution and the European wars waged in the early nineteenth century, whether national passions have transformed this network, and if so, in what way. Luigi Cremona's international correspondence indicates that relationships among individuals have been restructured by the force of national membership, but that the universal nature of mathematics has actually been boosted by a vision shared by mathematicians from all countries concerning the role of their discipline in democratic and liberal society as the basis of scientific culture and technological innovation, as well as a basic component of public education.

US Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Success Story?

AbstractThe post-'9/11' revival of interest in US public diplomacy encompasses a wide variety of opinions, all overwhelmingly critical. In view of falling global favourability towards and the foreign policy challenges of the United States during this period, the purveyors of these opinions ultimately agree that US public diplomacy efforts are flawed and ineffective. Of these critical observations, it is interesting to track a thread of logic that yearns for the restoration of public diplomacy's Cold War-era standing, which holds that the spread of liberal democracy behind the Berlin Wall owes a debt to the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, that cultural exchanges with influential members of Soviet society helped to create the groundswell that undermined the communist regime, and that public diplomats made these outcomes possible by being equipped with the necessary tools of statecraft, as well as by wielding an important measure of influence over policy-makers. The fall of the Soviet Union merely underscores their notion that public diplomacy during the Cold War was a success. It would thus seem that the problems of today could be remedied by adopting lessons from the past. This article explores the viability of this claim by reviewing the ongoing debate on how the historical memory and lessons of Cold War-era public diplomacy may be applied to the challenges of the post-'9/11' era. Of particular importance is ascertaining the degree to which the Cold War's campaigns of information, influence and engagement could be viewed as a success. By subdividing public diplomacy's activities in these ways, greater potential exists to attribute these activities to more compelling determinations of success or failure.

Foreword

One of the striking features of today's globalizing world is the cross-border penetration of just about everything: goods, ideas, technology, culture, food, the English language and much more. For proponents of globalization, this greater interconnectedness holds great promise. In the post-Cold War era, few ideas have been more influential than the notion that the spread of liberal democracy and free markets could contribute to peace and stability. In such a world, countries would be interdependent, cooperation would increase, and state borders would matter less. Despite the great appeal these ideas hold, this is still a world defined by states and their borders. As Harvey Starr writes in his article that opens this issue, "Borders matter." States are defined by their ability to exercise a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within their territory. In many cases, however, border regions are unstable because states are unable to exercise control effectively or are competing for control. In such situations, the borders may not be able to hold back human trafficking, drug running, arms smuggling, and a host of other ills. The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were a stark reminder that more easily permeable borders allow the spread not only of beneficial ideas and goods, but also of terrorists and murderous ideologies. The masterminds of those attacks are now believed to be hiding in the lawless border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Iraq, porous borders have allowed support for the insurgency to stream in from Iran and Syria. Illegal immigration across Mexico's border with the United States remains an emotional issue in U.S. politics. As this issue went to press, the avian flu continued to spread across national borders into new countries, threatening a worldwide pandemic. Even in a globalizing world, therefore, it is useful to consider the role of borders in international relations. That is the theme of this issue ofSAIS Review. The issue opens with Starr's article, which explains why borders still matter in international relations and why we should pay attention to them. Stuart Elden then examines the changing norms of state sovereignty brought by the world's understanding that what happens within a state's borders cannot be that state's exclusive concern. We then offer a trio of articles addressing Iraq. Richard Schofield describes the history of Iraq's original border demarcations with Iran and Kuwait—fateful decisions that still have security ramifications today. Robert Bateman, an Army officer recently stationed in Iraq, examines the challenges of securing that country's borders. Alexander B. Downes, surveying recent efforts to resolve ethnic conflicts, concludes that partition is the only viable solution, one that he believes should be applied to Iraq. [End Page 1] The issue then explores several conflicts along national borders and issues that arise along those borders. Cyrus Samii examines the Kashmir conflict and outlines several steps the parties could take to ease tensions. Shireen T. Hunter provides a historical perspective on the complex and intractable conflicts along border regions in the Caucasus. Matthew J. Ouimet analyzes the 60-year-old conflict between Russia and Japan over the Northern Territories/Kuril Islands. Although most of the articles in this issue deal with land borders, territorial disputes at sea and control of sea-lanes are also important in international relations. James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara explore China's view of the strategic South China Sea and the implications for U.S. foreign policy. Kathleen Davis outlines the problem of cross-border trafficking of North Korean women into China. Perhaps the most striking example of the relaxation of national borders is in Europe, where members of the European Union have yielded progressively more sovereignty to the center with the aim of maximizing economic well-being. Even so, future widening and deepening of the union remain controversial, as demonstrated by last year's French and Dutch rejections of the constitutional treaty. How much further should the European Union extend its borders, and to what extent should member states pursue deeper political integration so that national borders matter less? Ioannis N. Grigoriadis analyzes...

Controlling Weapons in Turbulent Times

INTRODUCTIONA security dilemma problem in international relations refers to a situation where sovereign states, in the context of an anarchic international system, will arm themselves for fear of being dominated by their neighbours.(1) Security dilemmas can be mitigated, but mitigation can lead to two divergent outcomes--peace or conflict. A state can mitigate the security dilemma problem by balancing the armed power of its neighbours--levelling the distribution of power among states by building up conventional armed forces. On its own, balancing can have both positive and negative effects on and stability at the regional and international level. Unregulated, it can lead to periods of peace--the long peace in Europe in the 19th century and the Cold War period from 1945-1989 are good examples. Unregulated balancing can also lead to devastating regional and international conflict: The outbreak of the First and Second World Wars highlight this problem. Unregulated balancing is unpredictable, and as such unstable.(2)A security dilemma problem can also be mitigated by balancing power through regulated regional and international cooperation, especially through the creation of arms control regimes. Regulated balancing should, theoretically, increase chances of peace. The 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), and its subsequent modifications, has been a successful example of a rules-based balance of power mitigating significantly the security dilemma problem in Europe after the Cold War. The use of an international arms control regime (generally understood as a set of principles, norms, rules and decision making procedures)(3) can help significantly to mitigate the security dilemma problem by providing both an institutionalized forum for discussion and decision making, and by providing relatively unbiased information to the participants, removing that measure of uncertainty and unpredictability that traditionally taints relations between states. Taken in this light, the CFE has played an important role in ensuring stability in Europe after the Cold War, acting as its cornerstone.The CFE as a of European securityIt has been argued that the institutionalization of arms control in Europe played a relatively minor role in ensuring a peaceful transition, and the mitigation of the security dilemma, in Europe after the end of the Cold War. Critics highlight more important issues such as European integration, the spread of liberal democracy and capitalism into eastern Europe, or the evolution and enlargement of NATO as key explanatory variables. Others have argued that the CFE was only one of many contributing factors to the pace of disarmament in Europe after the Cold War.(4) The CFE is certainly not the sole factor contributing to post-Cold War stability in Europe, but without the hidden cornerstone of institutionalized arms control as embodied in the CFE (and more broadly through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Confidence and Security Building Measures, CSBMs), it would have been much more difficult to overcome the transaction costs associated with security cooperation on issues such as the enlargement of NATO and the so-far peaceful integration of Russia into a European security community. It would also have been much more difficult to facilitate the spread of democracy and capitalism into the former Soviet bloc if the security dilemma problem, as it was known during the Cold War, had not first been mitigated after the Cold War by the CFE. The continuing importance of the CFE as a cornerstone for security cooperation has been highlighted by the negotiations for the accession of the Baltic States into NATO, which will be discussed further on. Without the CFE, Russia would be much less amenable to having NATO arrive at its doorstep. All of these contributions to European security prove the merit of studying the CFE's past contributions and future role. …

‘Just follow the money’: the cold war, the humanistic study of religion, and the fallacy of insufficient cynicism

Contrary to studies that argue there is no direct link between Cold War era politics and the shift in the United States from confessional to tax‐supported Humanistic studies of religion, this paper explores whether such direct evidence does in fact exist. Focusing mainly on the National Defense Fellowships that were instituted by the US federal government soon after the launch of Sputnik, the essay concludes that there is considerable warrant for further investigations into the public and private funding that made the Humanistic study of religion a reality in the mid‐1960s to late 1960s. Given current worldwide political and military developments, and the manner in which some scholars of religion are arguing for the relevance of the study of religion for those wishing to ensure the spread of liberal democracy, it may now be the time to reconsider the Cold War history of our field.

Pax Democratica: The Gospel According to St. Democracy

The thaw of the Cold War ended the chess game between the superpowers and seemingly gave new momentum to the revival and spread of liberal democracy and its corollary, capitalism. Just as missionaries once offered Christianity to “save” colonised peoples, democracy has become the new gospel promising “salvation”. Both donor and recipient countries appeal to democracy, hoping that it will reverse decades of misfortune. Donor nations and multilateral financial institutions preach democratic governance. “Born again democratic” national leaders in the South who are intent on clinging to power attend to their sermons. None appear to have a genuine faith in democracy. While some nations and NGOs do give altruistically, most use foreign aid as another means of pursuing their national interest. Democracy is an elastic concept. Indeed it seems, at least at this point, that the new gospel of democracy is but a convenient tool used by different players for they own selfish reasons.

The Asian Values Debate: Implications for the Spread of Liberal Democracy

(2000). The Asian Values Debate: Implications for the Spread of Liberal Democracy. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 19-35.

Region and recalcitrance: Rethinking democracy through Southeast Asia

Abstract The spread of liberal democracy around the world has raised the risk of wishful thinking by students of democratization who hope that what they study will happen. One way of reducing this risk is to focus on regions that challenge the expectations and explanations of democratization. Four criteria can roughly measure a region's ‘recalcitrance’ in this regard: the extent to which it: (1) lacks liberal democracy, thus disappointing democ‐ratizers; (2) is diverse, thus making it hard to explain the lack of liberal democracy with across‐the‐board generalizations; (3) seems not to fit a particularly common expectation, e.g., that more well‐to‐do countries should be more liberal‐democratic; and (4) has leaders who have articulated a serious critique of liberal democracy. By meeting all of these criteria more fully than other parts of the world, Southeast Asia qualifies as the most recalcitrant region. The anomalousness of Southeast Asia is no reason for pessimism. But it does suggest that observers wou...

Liberal Democracy as a Global Phenomenon

I. The Worldwide Democratic Revolution and Its CausesIt being less than ten days after the collapse of the attempted coup by communist hardliners in the Soviet Union, the coup's outcome serves as a useful reminder of the vitality that the democratic dea has for people still living under authoritarianism. The anti-communist revolution in the USSR is of course not an isolated event. The single most remarkable macropolitical phenomenon of the past generation has been the global crisis of authoritarianism, and the spread of liberal democracy in its wake, as noted by Lucian Pye in his presidential addressto this convention two years ago. By my count, there were three democracies in 1790; 13 in 1900, 27 in 1919, and 62 today.This progress has not been linear or continuous, of course: there were 14 fewer democracies in 1940 than in 1919; democracies were overthrown throughout Latin America in the 60s and 70s. Many of the countries thathave become democracies in the past few years are very unstable or of uncertain commitment to liberal values, and it would not be surprising to see a number of them lapse back into some kind of authoritarian rule in the nearfuture, as Thailand has already done this past year. Nonetheless, th trend is there. The 62 countries I countas democracies have a combined population of 2.24 billion people, or approximately 44 percent of the world's population. Moreover, neither the Soviet Union nor China are counted among the 62, and if parts or all of either country democratizes successfully, half to two-thirds of the world's population could be said to enjoy democratic rights and liberties.

Liberal Democracy as a Global Phenomenon

I. The Worldwide Democratic Revolution and Its CausesIt being less than ten days after the collapse of the attempted coup by communist hardliners in the Soviet Union, the coup's outcome serves as a useful reminder of the vitality that the democratic dea has for people still living under authoritarianism. The anti-communist revolution in the USSR is of course not an isolated event. The single most remarkable macropolitical phenomenon of the past generation has been the global crisis of authoritarianism, and the spread of liberal democracy in its wake, as noted by Lucian Pye in his presidential addressto this convention two years ago. By my count, there were three democracies in 1790; 13 in 1900, 27 in 1919, and 62 today.This progress has not been linear or continuous, of course: there were 14 fewer democracies in 1940 than in 1919; democracies were overthrown throughout Latin America in the 60s and 70s. Many of the countries thathave become democracies in the past few years are very unstable or of uncertain commitment to liberal values, and it would not be surprising to see a number of them lapse back into some kind of authoritarian rule in the nearfuture, as Thailand has already done this past year. Nonetheless, th trend is there. The 62 countries I countas democracies have a combined population of 2.24 billion people, or approximately 44 percent of the world's population. Moreover, neither the Soviet Union nor China are counted among the 62, and if parts or all of either country democratizes successfully, half to two-thirds of the world's population could be said to enjoy democratic rights and liberties.