The last three decades of the twentieth centurywitnessed the global spread of democraticinstitutions. In 1974, when the Portuguesedictatorship was overthrown, there were only 39countries classified as democratic by Freedom Houseout of a total of 145 countries. By 1997 this hadincreased to 117 out of a total of 191 countries. Inother words, whereas roughly a quarter of thecountries in the world were classified as democraciesin 1974, this had increased to over 60 per cent by 1997(Diamond 1999). Democratisation spread fromSouthern Europe (1970s) to Latin America and EastAsia (1980s), and to Central and Eastern Europe andAfrica from 1989 to the early 1990s. Although some ofthese countries have moved out of the democraticcategory, others have joined them, especially post-conflict countries, where elections are often held asan exit strategy for the international community.Samuel Huntington (1991) dubbed this recent spreadof democracy as the ‘third wave’ of democratisation.1

In this Chapter, I argue that the spread ofdemocratic institutions has to be understood in thecontext of globalisation. Common rules andprocedures provide an institutional basis for theglobal connectedness of states. This is whatCondeleezza Rice is hoping for; to create partners forthe United States on the global stage. But the spreadof rules and procedures is not the same as the spreadof substantive democracy, by which I mean thepossibility for ordinary people in different parts of theworld to influence the decisions that affect their lives.Despite the spread of formal democracy, substantivedemocracy is under erosion everywhere, in the UK as

well as other countries. I argue that this hassomething to do with globalisation. If we are to renewthe democratic process, then it is not just a matter ofspreading the formal procedures of democracy, it alsorequires new fora which provide access for ordinarypeople to all levels of governance (local, national,global) and a new responsiveness at all levels ofgovernance to public debate and deliberation, as thequotation from Joseph Stiglitz makes clear. In otherwords, it requires the possibility of negotiating aglobal social covenant.

Interestingly, most of the literature on what isknown as democratic transition focuses on thenational level. Within the globalisation literature, thereis a lot of discussion of the global democratic deficitbut this is rarely taken into account in thedemocratisation literature. This is why the gapbetween formal and substantive democracy is usuallyexplained in terms of the legacy of authoritarianism orthe weakness of democratic culture, despite the factthat the gap characterises older Westerndemocracies as well as newly democratic countries.

In developing this argument, I start by elaboratingthe distinction between formal and substantivedemocracy. I then discuss the spread of formaldemocracy and argue that this has to be understoodprimarily as a process of global integration, the way inwhich the practices and institutions needed toparticipate in the global market and in global decision

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CHAPTER 2

DEMOCRACY AND GLOBALISATION Mary Kaldor

1 The first two waves, both of which ended with a reverse wave,were 1828 to 1926 and 1943 to 1964.

Our international engagement, our democracy promotion, our development assistance, our public diplomacy - all of these efforts are vital to our nation's defense and well-being. […]When democracy is in retreat, America isvulnerable; and when democracy is on the march, we are more secure.[…]And so when we talk about it amongsenior staff, I don't ever talk about the competition or the conflict between our democracy promotion and ourinterests. I think you would be hard-pressed to hear that I've ever said that, because I see them as one.

Condoleezza Rice 2007

With domestic actions being increasingly constrained by international actions, individuals can only meaningfullyparticipate in the decisions that affect them, if these international processes are democratic.

Joseph Stiglitz 2007

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making are constructed. The various techniques ofdemocracy promotion determine the terms ofintegration. The more bottom-up the approach, themore the emphasis is on dialogue and communication,the more favourable the terms and the greater thepossibilities for substantive democracy. Global civilsociety, I suggest, is the mechanism for reconcilingnational and global levels and deepening substantivedemocracy. In the last section, I will discuss the need fora global framework for democracy and some of thesteps that could be taken to advance substantivedemocracy at different levels.

Formal versus substantive democracyA few years ago I undertook an evaluation of the EU’sdemocracy programmes in Central and EasternEurope. This included organising seminars in whichparticipants were asked what they understood by theterm democracy. When a seminar was organised inBrussels, the participants firstly emphasisedelections, and secondarily, institutions like anindependent judiciary, the separation of thelegislature from the executive, or even an active civilsociety. When the seminars were organised in thenewly democratic Central and East Europeancountries, the answers were much more subjective.‘It means that bureaucrats are our servants, even ifthey do not realise it’, said a Polish woman. ‘It meansthat we have to take individual responsibility fordecisions and decide for ourselves what we thinkabout political issues instead of following what we aretold’, said a young Georgian. And a Romanian girltalked about the new opportunities to choose a life, tobe able to travel and to follow one’s own interests.

This difference between democracy as a set ofprocedures or institutions and democracy as theexpression or framework for a more subjective notionof freedom has been widely discussed in the literatureon political thought. There have always been varyingusages and definitions of the term ‘democracy’. AsGeorge Orwell pointed out:

[N]ot only is there no agreed definition but theattempt to make one is resisted from all sides…Thedefenders of any kind of regime claim that it is ademocracy and fear they might have to stop using theword if it were tied down to any one meaning. (1957: 149).

For de Tocqueville, democracy had essentially twomeanings: one was a political regime that wasaccountable to the people and defined in terms of arange of institutional and procedural mechanisms;the other was a condition of society characterised byits tendency towards equality. This societaldemocratic condition, the ‘habits of the heart’, couldnot be reduced to the formal institutional aspects ofdemocracy. He travelled to America to observe thissocietal condition and was much impressed by whathe called ‘democratic expedients’ such as livelynewspapers, local government and above all, thepractice of association. According to de Tocqueville ‘ifmen are to remain civilised or to become so, the art ofassociating together must grow and improve in thesame ratio as the equality of conditions is increased’(1945: 118).

By formal democracy, I mean the framework ofrules and institutions that provide the necessaryconditions in which members of a community canshape their own lives to the extent that this does notconflict with others (Held 1995). These institutionsencompass an inclusive citizenship, the rule of law,the separation of powers (executive, legislature andjudiciary), including an independent judiciary capableof upholding a constitution, elected power holders,free and fair elections, freedom of expression andalternative sources of information, associationalautonomy, and civilian control over the security forces(Kaldor and Vejvoda 1998). By substantive democracy,I mean a process, which has to be continuallyreproduced, for maximising the opportunities for allindividuals to shape their own lives and to participatein and influence debates about public decisions thataffect them. D

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This difference between procedural andsubstantive democracy is paralleled by two otherdistinctions often drawn in democratic theory. One isthe distinction between popular or direct democracyand liberal or representative democracy. Athens is theparadigmatic example of direct democracy, whileliberal representative models emerged at the end ofthe eighteenth century in Western Europe and NorthAmerica (Held 2006). The latter was often called therepublican model because it drew on the experienceof Republican Rome and the city states of Italy. Untilthe twentieth century, democracy tended to beequated with direct democracy. For this reason,political theorists were sceptical of democracybecause they feared that if every citizen participateddirectly in decision making, it would lead to what wenow call populism, decisions based on fear andprejudice rather than the public use of reason. Theliberal democratic model was supposed to resolvethis problem by electing representatives who wouldengage in rational debates about key decisions. Therepresentatives were not supposed to expressparticular positions or special interests; they weresupposed to debate the public good. In his famousspeech to the electors of Bristol, Edmund Burkepointed out that:

Parliament is not a Congress of Ambassadors fromdifferent and hostile interests; which interests eachmust maintain, as an Agent and Advocate, against otherAgents and Advocates; but Parliament is a deliberativeAssembly of one Nation, with one Interest, that of thewhole; where, not local Purposes, not local Prejudicesought to guide, but the general Good, resulting from thegeneral Reason of the whole. (Burke 1774)

The other distinction that parallels that betweenformal and substantive democracy is that betweendemocracy as a method and democracy as a goal. ForJoseph Schumpeter, democracy was viewed as arelatively efficient method of choosing a government,which he likened to a steam engine or a disinfectant.He defined this method as ‘that institutionalarrangement for arriving at political decisions inwhich individuals acquire the power to decide bymeans of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’(1961: 269). The idea that political contestation is likelyto produce the best outcome in terms of decisionmaking is the political counterpart of the economic

idea that competition in the marketplace will lead toeconomic efficiency. This Schumpeterian view ofdemocracy contrasts with the idea that democracy isan end in itself, a process through which individualscan realise their aspirations.

Liberal representative models of democracy andthe notion of democracy as a method of choosing agovernment tend to emphasise procedures andinstitutions both as defining characteristics ofdemocracy and as safeguards against what Kantcalled ‘democratic despotism’. But while proceduresand institutions are the necessary condition forsubstantive democracy and while it seems true thatnothing better than the liberal representative model ofdemocracy has been invented, these are not sufficientto ensure that individuals can influence the conditionsin which they live. Undoubtedly, attempts to representthe ‘social condition’ as the pre-eminent ‘substantivevalue’, as in the former Communist countries, led totyranny in the twentieth century. On the other hand,formal procedures can easily be subverted or‘hollowed out’ without an underlying normativecommitment to democracy embedded in society.

The global spread of democracy The ‘third wave’ of democracy gave rise to greatoptimism in the 1990s and ideas like FrancisFukuyama’s ‘end of history’ expressed the convictionthat the world was finally discovering that liberalrepresentative democracy, combined with freemarkets, constituted the best possible system ofgovernance. As Gia Nodia, a Georgian democracyspecialist, put it:

The most basic contention that lay at the basis of third-wave optimism was the notion that democracy is now theonly “normal” political regime – the only game in theglobal village, if you will. At the end of the day, democracyis the only political regime that is fully compatible withmodernity. (quoted in Carothers 2004: 193).

Yet despite the spread of democratic institutions,there remains a big gap between formal andsubstantive democracy. Many of the countriesclassified as democracies perform poorly on FreedomHouse’s freedom scores, which are made up of acombination of political rights and civil liberties. Inmany countries, democratic procedures that havebeen specified in laws and constitutions are onlyD

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partially implemented. Thus newly emergingdemocracies may be characterised, in varyingcombinations, by a weak rule of law, the lack of anindependent judiciary, limitations on freedom ofspeech and association, ethnic or religious exclusion,election fraud, and presidential domination. Theseprocedural weaknesses are often associated withsubstantive weaknesses, including the tendency forpolitical parties to extend control over differentspheres of social life in ways that limit politicalparticipation, especially in former Communistcountries; a tendency for the government to controlthe electronic media and restrict registration of NGOs;a politicised and clientilistic administration; variousforms of racist or xenophobic sectarianism which mayprovide a basis for populism; and a widespread senseof personal insecurity that undermines the ability andreadiness to debate public issues owing to inadequatelaw enforcement and an undeveloped judiciary.Participation is also often limited, as evidenced by lowvoter turnouts, low membership of political parties,and widespread apathy, disillusion and cynicism.Indeed, the introduction of democratic procedures,especially elections, may lead to conflict, state failureand/or elective dictatorship, and only a very fewcountries in Central and Southern Europe or SouthAmerica have escaped this fate.

Thomas Carothers, in a widely quoted article, ‘TheEnd of the Transition paradigm’, suggests that mostso-called transition countries have actually entered a‘political grey zone’ characterised by two broad types– ‘feckless pluralism’ (Latin America) or ‘dominantpower politics’ (the post-Communist world, Africa andthe Middle East) (Carothers 2004: 193). A number ofother terms have been used to describe these types ofpolity, including illiberal democracy, pseudodemocracy, cosmetic democracy, façade democracy,semi-democracy, or virtual democracy.

The gap between formal and substantivedemocracy is usually explained in terms of the legacyof authoritarianism. And this is an important factor. Theanomie, submissiveness and passivity of individuals,the experience of patronage and clientilism, thesuspicion of parties, politicians and bureaucrats, thepervasiveness of exclusivist ideologies – these can allcontribute to a profoundly distorted and traumatised‘societal condition’. But one or two authors point outthat the gap, while larger in newly emergingdemocracies, can be found in older democracies as

well. Thus Carothers talks about the ‘syndrome of post-modern fatigue with democracy and perhaps politicsitself’ (Carothers 2004: 150). So the legacy ofauthoritarianism cannot be the whole explanation.

Others point to the ‘simultaneity’ problem - thefact that the transition to democracy is taking place atthe same time as the transition from a statist plannedeconomy to a market system. The introduction ofeconomic liberalisation and privatisation has often ledto dramatic falls in income and deterioration in publicservices, as well as increased inequality. These allcontribute to dissatisfaction with the political class(see Bozoki in Kaldor and Vejvoda 1998; also Elster,Offe and Preuss 1998).

But what is rarely discussed in the literature on‘transition’ or newly emerging democracies is theglobal context. Those who write aboutdemocratisation tend to analyse the process almostentirely within a national or comparative framework.Yet the spread of democratisation has coincided withthe speeding up of the process known as globalisation– growing interconnectedness in political, economic,or cultural spheres. Theorists of globalisation point tothe global democratic deficit which results from thespeeding up of globalisation (Archibugi, Held andKöhler 1998). In the context of globalisation,democracy, in a substantive sense, is undermined.This is because, however perfect the formalinstitutions, so many important decisions that affectpeople’s lives are no longer taken at the level of thestate. Democracy assumes congruence between thestate, the people, the economy and territory. Yet thiscongruence no longer exists. Increased migrationmeans that ‘the people’ cross boundaries and live inmulticultural global cities. The economy isincreasingly global, shaped by the decisions of globalcompanies, free floating speculators, andinternational financial institutions. States have to takeinto account a range of international agreements,which constrain national choices (Held et al. 1999).

This applies to all countries to a greater or lesserdegree. What is the meaning of elections when, forexample, decisions about the size of budgets,environmental regulations, or war and peace aretaken in Washington, Brussels or New York? In otherwords, is not the gap between formal and substantivedemocracy that we observe in the newly emergingdemocracies merely a symptom of globalisation thataffects all democracies at national level? D

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The spread of democracy, it can be argued, is botha consequence and a cause of globalisation. Theopening up of authoritarian states resulted frommarket pressures, increased communication (travel,radio and television, and more recently mobile phonesand the Internet), and the extension of internationallaw. In the 1970s and 1980s, the failure of the statistmodel of development, the drying up of economic aid,and the growth of indebtedness, contributed togrowing disaffection and to demands, often fromoutside donors, to introduce democratisationmeasures to legitimise painful economic reforms. Insome countries, for example Communist countries,frustrated bureaucrats saw an opportunity totranslate political positions into economic wealth.These impulses towards democratisation from abovewere paralleled by pressure from below ascommunication with the outside world helped tonurture nascent civil societies especially under therubric of human rights laws, formally adopted by non-democratic states. But while economic, political,technological and legal interconnectedness may havecontributed to democratisation, the processes ofpolitical and economic liberalisation, in turn, furtherspeeded up global integration.

Indeed, it can be argued that the spread ofdemocratic procedures is essentially a form of globalintegration. It is a way in which the institutions andpractices necessary to participate in the globalsystem are established. These can range fromregulations governing foreign investment and trade,to the political legitimacy required to be considered aserious actor in the various fora of global governance.The Human Rights Report of the British Foreign andCommonwealth Office argues that the increasedcommitment to democracy promotion is driven by atwin logic ‘because it is the right thing to do andbecause we have a direct interest in building theconditions for sustainable global security and

prosperity while fostering reliable and responsibleinternational partners’ (quoted in Youngs 2006: 212).

Whether global integration also leads tosubstantive democracy, however, depends onwhether individuals are able to influence the terms ofglobal integration. In many cases, the newly emergingdemocracies are offered standard recipes fortransition, all of which are adopted by competingpolitical parties. Indeed the language of transition isoften reminiscent of the language of authoritarianism,as supposedly technical solutions are offered to socialand economic problems and the pain of transition istreated as merely medicine needed to reach somepromised utopia. The Communists called on people totighten their belts and work harder so that they couldattain socialism; nowadays people are told much thesame things in the hopes of reaching the nirvana ofcapitalism. Citizens experience their rulers as distantand manipulative as in former times. Moreover, thelack of choice in the new democracies often leads toan emphasis on religious and ethnic difference as away of winning votes in the absence of any progressivealternative to the standard transition recipe.

There are, of course, important differences amongthe newly emerging democracies. Some countries,especially in the Balkans and Africa, havedisintegrated under the impact of liberalisation. IanBremmer’s book The J Curve (2006) suggests that it isduring the transition from authoritarianism todemocracy that the risk of instability is greatest. Othercountries in Southern and Central Europe areconsidered relatively successful. Part of theexplanation has to do with specific legacies andexperiences in the past and part has to do witheconomic factors. But if we understand the spread ofdemocratic institutions as a form of globalintegration, then these differences also have to dowith the terms of global integration - the extent towhich newly emerging democracies are able to shapetheir position in the global system. And these, in turn,depend on the various instruments through whichdemocracy is developed. The more that democraticinstitutions are introduced as a result of pressurefrom above, the less favourable the terms are likely tobe. Conversely, the more that democracy is theoutcome of the actions of individuals wanting toinfluence the conditions of their lives, the better theterms of global integration and the more substantiveis democracy. Joining the EU was very important forD

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Central and Southern European countries because itstrengthened significantly their ability to influence theterms of their integration in the global system.

Techniques of democracy promotion During the Cold War, the left were generallysuspicious of democracy promotion; it was seen aspart of Cold War rhetoric and neo-colonialinterventionism. The general presumption during thisperiod was one of non-interference in the internalaffairs of other countries. In the 1970s and 1980showever, peace and human rights groups becameincreasingly active in opposing dictatorships,especially apartheid and the military dictatorships inLatin America. Those opposed to the Cold Wardivision of Europe began a strategy of ‘détente frombelow’, linking up with opposition groups in EasternEurope (Kaldor 2003a).

The typical approach of Western activists was tosupport local civil society groups - the AfricanNational Congress (ANC) in South Africa, humanrights groups in Latin America, groups like Solidarityor Charter 77 in Central Europe - both morally andmaterially, helping with literature and campaignmaterials, publicising their cause, protecting localdissidents through public disclosure, demonstratingor travelling to the region in solidarity. The debateswith local groups led to the development of jointstrategies including pressure on Westerngovernments to use various instruments to opposerepression and dictatorship. Hence the sanctions onSouth Africa, the human rights legislation introducedin Congress in relation to Latin America, and theinsistence on respect for the Helsinki Final Act inEurope. These were all examples of what Keck andSikkink (1998) call the ‘boomerang effect’.

Even before the 1989 revolutions in Central andEastern Europe, Western governments andinternational institutions joined the bandwagon. Thedemocratisation of much of the post-Communistworld further reduced the international resistance togovernmental involvement in democracy promotion.The difference between the approach of governmentsand international institutions and the approach of civilsociety groups has to do with the mix of democracypromotion tools. Broadly speaking, it is possible todistinguish three types of tools.

The first type of tool is administrative.Administrative tools consist of coercive pressure by

governments and international institutions on othergovernments; they are pressures ‘from above’. Theyinclude Neo-Conservative efforts to bring about‘regime change’ as in Afghanistan and Iraq, sanctionson South Africa, Iraq, Serbia and North Korea, as wellas various forms of conditionality attached to aid. TheEuropean Union always attaches a democracy clauseto agreements with third countries. During the 1990s,international financial institutions (IFIs) insisted onpolitical and economic reforms as a condition for loans.

The second type of tool is money. It has beenestimated that some US$2 billion a year is spent ondemocracy assistance, mainly by the United States andEurope, though it is increasing and the true figure isprobably much higher (Youngs 2006). Democracyassistance tends to cover such areas as elections andelection monitoring, security sector reform, justiceincluding transitional justice, public service reform,support for political parties and parliamentaryinstitutions, public service reform, local government, andsupport for media and civil society. US assistance is bothpublic and private – the Open Society Foundation(founded by George Soros) is probably the biggest singlefunder of democracy programmes. After 9/11, the USincreased official democracy assistance from $800million in 2000 to $1.4 billion in 2005 (Mathieson andYoungs 2006). European funding is primarily public. TheOrganisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) calculates that the EU spendingaccounts for some 1.4 billion Euros a year .

The third type of tool is communication anddialogue. Essentially this means engaging bothgovernment and civil society in debates amongthemselves and with outsiders. This was mainly what D

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the peace and human rights groups did in the 1970sand 1980s and it is also sometimes the job ofdiplomats. As the EU’s External AffairsCommissioner, Chris Patten put great emphasis onpolitical dialogue within the EU framework.

The effectiveness and/or benefits of differenttechniques have never been systematically assessed.There are, however, many criticisms of currenttechniques. It is often argued that the administrativeand financial techniques are counter-productivebecause democracy cannot be imposed or boughtfrom the outside. External military intervention candestroy regimes but it cannot build democracy - theconsequence is more likely to be state failure, as inIraq or Afghanistan. Sanctions, as in Iraq, Serbia orNorth Korea, weaken the state and, simultaneously,allow the state to mask its weaknesses by helping tomobilise political support against the externalenemies who impose sanctions. Money may lead tothe formation of artificial NGOs which squeeze thespace for genuine grassroots initiatives. It may fostercorruption or train people who then use their newskills to find jobs abroad. It may discredit those whoreceive the funds who may then be accused of being‘enemies’ (see Chapter 4 of this volume).

A related criticism is that administrative tools andmoney are directed less at the democratic processand more at establishing pro-Western governments.Thus the United States favoured its own expatriateallies in Iraq, while it failed to respect the results ofelections in Palestine because they were won byHamas. The sanctions on Serbia and Iraq were notaimed at promoting democracy as such, rather theywere about foreign policy goals: the elimination ofweapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and stoppingethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo in the case ofSerbia. The repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia orUzbekistan are not subjected to the same kind ofexternal pressures because of their pro-Westernorientation. Indeed, the more muscular approach todemocracy promotion often conflates pro-democracywith pro-Western.

There is much in these arguments but they are notalways true. Sometimes military intervention can helpprovide security and the conditions for a politicalprocess that can lead to democracy; the UKintervention in Sierra Leone in 1999/2000 might beone such example. Sanctions do seem to have workedin South Africa and it often said that targeted

sanctions against Milosevic and his cronies were amajor reason for his capitulation at the end of theNATO bombing. Funding for independent radio inSerbia or for young people’s resistance movementslike Otpor (Serbia) or Pora (Ukraine) helped tocontribute to the colour revolutions. Moreover, whilePora was pro-Western, this was not true of Otpor. Thesuccess of sanctions against South Africa, it can beargued, was because they were a response to civilsociety pressure and could not, therefore, be used bythe South African government to mobilise publicopinion against those who imposed the sanctions. InSierra Leone, civil society strongly supported both theBritish and the United Nations interventions.

What is really important, however, iscommunication. It can be argued that theempowerment of civil society comes not fromresources or capacity building but from access todecision-makers and participation in publicdeliberation. There are no blueprints for democracypromotion. While experiences and methods can beoffered, what fits any particular situation is a complexpolitical set of compromises that are the outcome ofan ongoing process rather than externally providedstandard recipes.

When the US and the UK invaded Iraq in 2003, theyassumed that they would be welcomed. They hadtalked to exiles and to politicians in Northern Iraq - therelatively free Kurdish part of the country. But they hadnot talked to those in Iraq who were at the timeoffering other advice. These included undergroundmovements and parties such as the Al Da’wa Party(Shi’ite Islamist), the Communist Party, the GeneralUnion of Students (GUSIA), and the League of IraqiWomen who did a lot to support the widows of thevictims of Saddam’s regime. There were also artistswho met and talked at the Hewar (Dialogue) gallery,established by a well-known artist who left the Ba’athParty at the time of the invasion of Kuwait. TheWednesday group, composed of current and ex-Ba’athists, met every Wednesday to discuss politicaland intellectual issues even after one of theirmembers was arrested and executed (Said 2005).Among both Sunni and Shi’ite clerics, there were thosewho were trying were to create more open spacewithin the mosques by leveraging Saddam’s emphasison religion in the last few years of his rule, in a strategyreminiscent of the Catholic Church in Poland.2

These underground groups were suggesting aDE

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strategy similar to the opening up of Eastern Europe.For example, they proposed that the UN run the oil-for-food programme instead of allowing it to bechannelled through the government, which hadturned the programme into a device for the rulingclique to sustain their incomes. They also favoured thereturn of the weapons inspectors, not merely becausethis would be more likely to bring the weapons ofmass destruction (WMD) programme under control,but because the presence of the inspectors madethem feel more safe. The worst atrocities would not,they believed, be carried out under the noses of theinspectors. They pointed out that the 1991 ceasefireresolution not only covered security issues like theelimination of WMD but also commitments to humanrights and political pluralism. They suggested thatthese commitments should receive more emphasis;for example, human rights monitors could haveaccompanied the weapons inspectors (Kaldor 2003b).

This is not to say that communication necessarilymeans taking local advice. Often that advice is conflictingand may involve special pleading. But communicationand dialogue are both key to empowering civil society andshaping democracy strategies. Money and administrativeinstruments can be useful where they are a response tobottom-up demands. But they are less likely to beeffective where they are based on exporting particularmodels of democracy or supporting particular pro-Western factions.

Communication has to be ongoing and continuousif ‘opening up’ is to lead to substantive democracy. Itis not just a matter of communicative engagementdesigned to bring about a-once-and-for-all ‘regimechange’. Rather the toppling of dictators is onemoment in the continuous process of constructing thepractices and institutions needed for globalintegration. Whether this makes things worse, forexample through the spread of ‘new wars’ ortransnational crime, or whether it makes thingsbetter, by leading to substantive democracy, dependson the extent to which pressure from below ismobilised to influence the terms of global integration.For example, can civil society mobilise together withcounterparts in other countries on issues like debtrepayment, trade agreements, or the terms ofmembership in international organisations like theCouncil of Europe or NATO? In other words,communication has to cover broad global issues suchas social justice, human rights, environmental

responsibility, and not just the issue of formaldemocratic institutions.

The role of global civil societyThe Neo-Conservatives often point to Israel as theonly democracy in the Middle East. One can quibbleabout the claim. Should not Turkey or Lebanon becounted as democracies, even if, in the case ofLebanon, it is organised on a consociational basis?Elections are held in Iran, even though, in the lastelections, many reformist candidates weredisqualified. All the same, there is no doubt thatelections in Israel are more free and fair thananywhere else in the Middle East, and debates in theKnesset and in Israeli civil society are as lively asanywhere else in the world. Palestinians often say thatthey have learned about democracy from watchingIsraeli television. Yet what does it mean to have ademocracy based on an exclusive notion ofcommunity, that is to say an exclusive Jewish state? Amuch more extreme example is South Africa underapartheid. Mamdani (1996) argues that during thecolonial period in Africa, civil and political rights werereserved for the Europeans while a coercivereinvented tribal law was imposed on the ‘natives’.South Africa, under apartheid, he argues, representedthe generic case of this type of dualism betweencitizen and subject. During the apartheid years, whiteSouth Africans held free elections and debated amongthemselves and claimed they were the only

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Pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong, China

2 Members of the Council of Sunni Clerics whom I met in May2004, told me how they had come to the conclusion that theycould never defeat Saddam Hussein through a coup; instead,from 1999 onwards, they developed a strategy, together withtheir Shi’ite counterparts, of slow strangulation (Kaldor andSaid 2003).

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democracy in Africa, even though blacks wereexcluded and repressed.

These examples highlight a more general problemwith democracy. Representative democracy isnecessarily exclusive. It is territorially based andwhether citizenship is based on residency, as in civicnotions of citizenship, or on race and ethnicity, as inthe examples above, it necessarily excludes non-citizens, those who are not permanent residents orthose of a different ethnicity. In a world whereterritorial boundaries matter less and wherecommunities are no longer congruent with territory,the exclusive character of democracy helps to explainthe limitations on substantive involvement indemocracy. Should not Iraqis, for example, be able tovote in American elections? Should not Britishcitizens be able to influence conditions in Pakistansince so many minority groups in the UK come fromthat country.

In contrast to democracy, civil society is no longerterritorially bounded. Like democracy, civil society isone of those terms that has very many definitions andthe discussion about definitions is part of what civilsociety is about. I define civil society as the mediumthrough which social contracts or bargains arenegotiated between the individual and the centres ofpolitical and economic authority. Civil society is aprocess of management of society that is ‘bottom-up’rather than ‘top-down’, and that involves the strugglefor emancipatory goals. Civil society, of course,includes reactionary groups as well – peoplestruggling to preserve traditions or those who haveexclusive agendas – but it is the site where all theseissues are debated and negotiated. Civil societymakes possible governance based on consent whereconsent is generated through politics. Substantivedemocracy is only possible where procedural

democracy is accompanied by and indeed constructedby a strong and active civil society.

Up until 1989, the definition of civil society wasterritorially bounded. Moreover, civil society wasconsidered to exist only in part of the world – primarilynorth west Europe and North America. Thereinvention of the concept of civil society in the 1970sand 1980s was linked to the wave of new socialmovements that developed after 1968 – thegeneration described by Ulrich Beck (1998) as‘freedom’s children’. These movements operatedoutside formal party politics and were concerned withnew issues – gender, environment, peace and humanrights. They were harbingers both of more radicaldemands for democracy – autonomy, participation,self-organisation – but also growing globalconsciousness, the sense of a common humanity.They also made use of the emerging infrastructure ofglobalisation - air travel and improved informationand communications technology.

The language of civil society that expressed theseaspirations was reinvented simultaneously in LatinAmerica and Eastern Europe, in societies strugglingagainst authoritarianism and militarism, although theEast European discourse is better known. In bothcases, there was a similar emphasis on humandignity and on ‘islands of engagement’. Theintellectuals in both regions understood civil societyas something distinct from the state, even anti-state,a rolling back of the state in everyday life. And theylinked this idea with transnational concerns –opposition to the Cold War and to National SecurityDoctrines that were prevalent in Latin America, andthe belief that the reinvented concept of civil societyhad global relevance. In both cases, these ideasexpressed a practical reality: on the one hand, thegrowth of international legal instruments that couldbe used to criticise the state and, on the other hand,involvement in transnational networks of activists withNorth America and Western Europe, which helped toprotect these islands of engagement and throughwhich these ideas were debated, refined andexported.

At a moment when democracy at a national levelappears to be ‘hollowing out’, the informal politicalsphere is increasingly active through NGOs. Thisincludes those operating at local levels and those withglobal brand names like Oxfam, Human Rights Watchor Greenpeace, as well as a new wave of global socialD

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movements like the Social Forums, the anti-warmovement or Islamist and other national or religiousmovements.3 Moreover new types of informal policymaking are being pioneered on big global issues likesocial justice, climate change or war. These are beingtackled through consumer practices (fair trade orcarbon miles) or through volunteering (deliveringhumanitarian aid, acting as civilian monitors).

Democracy in a substantive sense depends on thepossibilities for closing the gap between the politicalclass chosen on the basis of nationally based formaldemocracy and global civil society. On the one hand,this would mean that efforts to establish democraticprocedures at local and national levels should be theoutcome of debates at local levels although externalmodels, ideas, and experiences could be taken intoaccount. In other words a substantive democracy in agiven territory is the outcome of a social contractnegotiated among those territorially definedindividuals who are constructing a democracy, eventhough they are influenced by or have links withexternal actors. In this situation, external actors canhelp to provide the political space needed fordomestic deliberation. On the other hand, closing thegap would also mean that any agreements aboutdemocratic procedures reached at local and nationallevels should be supplemented by a process ofnegotiating a global social contract, necessary tocreate the conditions for substantive democracy at thelocal and national level. Substantive democracy is onlypossible if people live in a relatively secureenvironment so that they make decisions without fearand without coercion and if they have some controlover the allocation of resources or are able to takepreventive measures in the event of environmentalrisks. In other words, they need to be directly involvedin deliberation about the big global issues of our time- human security, social justice, or climate change.

Deepening democracyWhat are the practical implications of this argumentfor those attempting to deepen democracy, to

enhance substantive democracy at local, national andglobal levels? What would count as substantive asopposed to procedural democracy? What would itmean to promote democracy as an end in itself,rather than in order to make America safe or toimprove the functioning of global markets?

First of all, administrative tools and money need tobe guided by communication, by debates at local,national and global levels. The aim of substantivedemocracy promotion is to help create and protectpolitical spaces where projects and procedures can bediscussed and negotiated. Bureaucrats tend to favour‘capacity-building’ and measurable outcomes. Yet themost important role that outsiders can play isfacilitating discussions and meetings and respondingto local agendas. This may mean less rather thanmore funding. But it does require more ambitiousefforts to create channels through which ordinarypeople and the associations they form can haveaccess to political authority at all levels.

At global levels, this means new forms ofaccountability for multilateral institutions –mechanisms through which organisations like theIMF, the World Bank, or the United Nations have toengage with and take seriously local opinions. Atnational levels, it means fostering interactionsbetween governments, municipalities and civilsociety, helping to overcome taboos, bringingfactional groups together, stimulating a notion ofpublic interest, and empowering those organisationsthat are engaged in public policy like gender issues orhuman rights, as opposed to sectarianism. Capacity-building assistance has been poured into Iraq andmuch has vanished through security costs andcorruption. Yet what is really needed in Iraq is a broaddialogue, especially involving those groups like theIraqi women’s network or humanitarian organisationsthat are outside the current factional intrigues.

Secondly, governments may not be the bestinstitutions for imposing administrative measures orspending money because they are more likely to beguided by national self-interest and to favour particularfactions, whatever Condoleezza Rice may say aboutAmerica’s interests in democracy. Administrativemeasures should only be adopted within a multilateralframework and after civil society consultations. Moneycould be better spent at arms length by independentpublic bodies, who are accountable to civil society. TheUN Democracy Fund, established in 2005, is a possible D

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3 For information and mapping of global civil society, see the annual Global Civil Society Yearbook series: Global CivilSociety 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004/5, 2006/7, the first four editionsof which are available at http:www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/researchgcspub.htm and more recent editions are availablefrom Sage Publications.

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model for such an approach, provided that it is relativelyautonomous from national governments and EU andinternational institutions, and that it includesrepresentatives of civil society in emerging or potentialdemocracies, as well as from donor countries, in itsdecision-making processes.

The evaluation of democracy assistance is anothermechanism for ensuring that assistance is guided by‘bottom-up’ concerns. Instead of formal benchmarks,stakeholder meetings including recipients and theirpeers could be used to assess the utility andeffectiveness of democracy assistance. Suchstakeholder meetings also represent ways to fosterdebate about democracy promotion in specific contexts.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, democracypromotion means imaginative responses to demandsfrom global civil society. The best form ofempowerment is success, the knowledge thatengagement leads to meaningful outcomes. Actiondesigned to fulfil an emerging global social contractor covenant - the consequence of numerous debates,campaigns and arguments taking place all over theworld - offers a political project that can help to recastdemocracy at local and national levels. A goodexample of what is meant by this is the enlargementof the European Union. The European Union can beunderstood a new type of multilateral organisation ata regional level, promoting, as it were, regional publicgoods. Membership of the European Union for newlyemerging democracies has become an appealingpolitical project that does take democracy forward. Inthe same way, a global social covenant could offer apolitical project for ‘civilising’ globalisation andpressing for global public goods like resourceredistribution or global action to tackle climatechange, which represents an alternative to backward-looking sectarianism.

Democracy promotion that merely coversprocedures is a necessary condition for democracy in asubstantive sense. But the ‘political grey zone’ that hasbeen created so far is unsustainable. The alternative todemocracy in a substantial sense is not a return toclassic authoritarianism; closed societies are no longeran option (see Chapter 5 of this volume). Rather it is thepolitics of fear based on various forms of populistexclusion, state weakness and, in the final instance,‘new wars’ and terror. The London bombing illustratedwhat might be described as the ‘perverse boomerangeffect’ when disaffected minorities make common

cause with those with similar nihilistic politicalpositions elsewhere. Reinvigorating democracy, both athome and abroad, means both a bottom-up process ofcommunication and, at the same time, taking seriouslyan ambitious global agenda.

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