Has the United Nations found the right formula for promoting democracy?

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The ideal of democratic governance underpins much of the contemporary work of the United Nations. The founding of the Organization was, in addition to being an alliance against aggression, premised upon the belief that stable, peaceful conditions within States underpin peaceful and stable relations between them. Almost half of UN members have requested its assistance in conducting elections. But an election does not necessarily resolve deep-seated problems, particularly when some of the situations in which the United Nations finds itself facilitating or promoting democracy, such as in Timor-Leste, Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan, are societies deeply traumatized by conflict. Democracy promotion and assistance are challenging tasks, and a range of difficult questions are raised: Can the United Nations help to build the foundations of democracy and have a substantive positive impact upon the development of democratic governance inside societies? In other words, can external actors bring democracy where there had been none? Has the promotion of democracy in post-conflict and divided societies had a significant role in conflict settlement and reconciliation? Are top-down government assistance programmes the most effective, or those that work with civil society and non-governmental groups? Are “international standards” of democracy and democratization sensitive to indigenous traditions and authority structures? The range of democracy assistance activities is wide, covering: organizing, conducting and validating elections; developing civil society and political parties; bolstering the rule of law, judicial institutions and security architecture; strengthening accountability, oversight and transparency; enhancing legislative training and effectiveness, and civic education; and protecting human rights. Bottom-up assistance focuses on strengthening civil society, public awareness and the capacity for societal deliberation. It is often implemented through local and international non-governmental actors. In contrast, top-down assistance is implemented through Governments, concentrating more on formal institutions and processes. The United Nations is involved in all such approaches. The normative basis is also wide-ranging, including the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other major human rights instruments. Until recently, these legal instruments did not imply an international democratic entitlement or a mandate for democracy promotion. However, the end of the cold war opened up a political space and an increased opportunity to address both democracy and human rights issues at the international level, and a growing acceptance of a wider conception of peace and security that includes issues of governance inside States. We must be realistic about what we can expect any international actor to achieve in terms of democracy promotion. It is reasonable to suggest that people have an inherent desire to have at least some control over their lives. Having a say in the organization of their communities would therefore seem to be a universal human desire. If the United Nations is facilitating this process, then it is quite possible that it would have a significant impact in helping a society move forward to democracy. But the conditions under which the United Nations works are of critical importance. The modest progress towards consolidated democracy in many countries in which it has been involved, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, as well as in Kosovo, seems to support this cautious conclusion. The social and economic context, the security situation and policies, and attitudes of powerful political actors are decisive factors. Yet even when democratic “convergence” occurs, democracy does not necessarily take root because of inadequate capacity and institutions, as well as a lack of trust and resources. This is where the United Nations and other external actors can have an enduring impact. Democratic processes can be expensive. It is important that the systems and processes that the United Nations supports in developing countries are not beyond their means. The 1994 transitional elections in Mozambique cost $64.5 million provided mainly by 17 donors, and amounted to a staggering 4.4 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.1 There have been concerns that international democracy assistance is donor-led and donor-dependent, and ignores affordability and long-term sustainability. Emphasis should be attached to a more modest bottom-up, demand-driven assistance. The UN approach to democracy assistance is sensitive to cultural peculiarities and generally politically impartial. The United Nations pursues its work with a view to building the capacity of communities to develop their own forms of participation and collective decision-making in the context of indigenous social conditions. Yet, no form of intervention is value-free. All substantial interventions have an impact upon the future of a political community, otherwise there would be no point in undertaking them. The concepts of national representation, equality, individual rights of citizenship, and secular and accountable forms of civil authority are premised upon the liberal vein of democracy. In some settings, this is a departure from traditional structures, including familial, clan and religious authority. We should not shy away from the fact that building democracy may require deep changes in societies and disruptions in the status quo, a process that can attract significant domestic opposition. The impact of external actors upon local politics is one of the most difficult questions relating to democracy promotion and assistance. In managing the local political situation inside a target State, UN actors and the international community in general are faced with the conundrum of influencing local politics to allow the people to have a proper choice. Most would recognize that it is not simply the process that matters, but also the results. Ideally, the design of the process will marginalize militants and encourage pluralism and inclusive politics. The United Nations can be in a difficult position as it deals with local political actors, some of whom may have dubious democratic credentials but are armed and thus cannot be ignored. It needs to draw on decades of experience in peacemaking and peacekeeping, as well as on its global authority to take decisions that will achieve its mandate. As is often the case, short-term objectives will inevitably triumph over longer-term goals. The constitution drafted by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia foresaw the problem of winner-take-all processes in post-civil-war situations and required a two-thirds majority for government formation. This solved the immediate problem of not triggering a return to war, but the provision has plagued Cambodia’s democracy ever since. In democracy assistance and promotion, the United Nations can find itself in the position of supporting various activities that may not all be perfectly complementary, especially in post-conflict societies. For example, the democracy that Burundi experienced, including the 1993 elections, had a questionable impact at that time. Indeed, elections may well have played a role in the ensuing instability and violence because they exacerbated an atmosphere of divisive political competition in a tense social environment. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Burundi between 1993 and 1995, reflected that “majority rule simply could not be sustained given the realities of Burundi’s political and security situation”, and “in many African countries, the introduction of democracy should be allied with a ten- to twenty-year transitional period of constitutional power-sharing. Democratic habits and traditions are not formed overnight.”2 While this may be unduly pessimistic, the challenges of building meaningful democracy in societies such as Iraq and Afghanistan in the short term are demonstrable. To ignore these challenges and insist upon democracy prematurely bring enormous risks. There is often pressure from the international community for countries in which the United Nations is involved to move towards democracy as a matter of priority, as if this is an end in itself. However, there is evidence that this can be in tension with other public needs—such as peace-building, reconciliation, efficient provision of public services, perhaps even economic reconstruction—especially in conflict and post-conflict situations. Ill-timed or poorly designed elections in delicate political situations can be hazardous, as the experience of Angola and Burundi demonstrates. They can exacerbate existing tensions, result in support for extremists or encourage patterns of voting that reflect wartime allegiances, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Iraq, elections may be divisive, highlighting political, religious and ethnic divisions. They could also exacerbate the insurgency, because the insurgents resist any public initiative organized under what they claim is an illegitimate interim government, they fear that a successful election will further marginalize them, and they judge that the inherent volatility of an election campaign in such circumstances will be a conducive environment for one of their goals: to foment civil war. But there are significant benefits to holding elections even when circumstances are not ideal: they are a step towards democracy and form a milestone in the post-conflict transition; they strengthen the sense of “ownership” among the public concerning the country’s political destiny, something that is desperately needed; and most important, elections will marginalize the extremists as most political actors, including some radical groups, participate in the political process and turn their backs away from violence. How then do we balance the impulse and pressure for democracy with local realities? Whatever the balance, promoting and assisting democracy in post-conflict situations is ambitious and sometimes hazardous. We must be aware of the limitations of such an exercise. The United Nations, for its part, must be wary of unrealistic mandates, but is nevertheless condemned to take on the most difficult cases the world has to offer.

Notes

1 Marina Ottaway and Theresa Chung, Debating Democracy Assistance—Towards a New Paradigm, Journal of Democracy, Volume 10, Number 4, October 1999, p. 102 2 Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Burundi on the Brink 1993-1995. A UN Special Envoy Reflects on Preventive Diplomacy, Washington DC, USIP Press, 2000, p. 71.0

Biography

Edward Newman (left) is an academic officer at the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo. Roland Rich is Director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions at the Australian National University. Both are editors of The UN Role in Promoting Democracy: Between Ideals and Reality, published by UNU Press. The book represents the findings of their joint research project. (www.unu.edu/unupress/new/ab-UNrole.html)