Rethinking Democracy in the post-Bush Era
Thomas Carothers argues that the Bush administration's dabbling in democracy promotion has been very negative for the fortunes of the democracy promotion agenda. While consistent effort and funding has not been made available, the rhetoric of spreading democracy has also been closely attached to various aggressive foreign policy interventions, in Afghanistan and Iraq for example (Carothers, 2007). Without providing serious gains in terms of the spread and consolidation of democracy, by framing their actions and policies in the language of democracy the Bush administration has potentially done great harm to the larger democracy promotion agenda. Indeed, many countries around the world have now moved to restrict the scope of action allowed for democracy promotion agencies, viewing democracy promotion as little more than a thinly veiled method for the dominant actors to pursue narrow self interests (Carothers, 2005). At the end of President Bush's final term, it seems democracy promotion is far from the accepted international norm that McFaul suggested it was just a few years ago (2005). Many basic issues about the viability and desirability of democracy promotion remain heavily contested and unsettled.
However, given that the end of the Bush presidency opens up possibilities for a new foreign policy direction, it also creates space for a new approach to democracy promotion. It is our view that reformulating the democracy promotion agenda cannot end simply with a set of policies and practices revised at the margins. Instead of simply returning to business as usual, this is an opportunity to subject democracy promotion to not just more debate, but a qualitatively different kind of discussion. In considering the recent problems and shortcomings of democracy promotion, it is necessary to go beyond policy calibration, and reflect on whether more fundamental issues need to be addressed. We argue that a new wave of democracy promotion should open up discussion on the possibility of a radically new kind of democracy promotion. This in turn involves thinking hard about the very concept of democracy: what it might mean, what conceptions of democracy exist and what these might entail for democracy promotion. We believe there is something to be said for considering a plurality of conceptions of democracy when debating the future of democracy promotion.
The aim of this workshop is to investigate the possibilities that arise in the post-Bush era of democracy promotion for a (re-)examination of some crucial conceptual underpinnings. The workshop is motivated by a recognition that while debate continues to rage in political theory over what democracy does, can and should mean, such questions are largely overlooked or avoided when it comes to democracy promotion. Given that democracy promotion practitioners and scholars are concerned with the creation, institution and consolidation of democracy, the lack of sustained reflection on different models of democracy by these actors is surprising. What this workshop thus seeks to do is to excavate the conceptual foundations of democracy promotion, with the aim specifically on initiating debate on the relevance of alternate models of democracy in today's context. In so doing, the workshop seeks reconnect democracy promotion practices to ongoing discussions over different models and meanings of democracy.
Specifically, this workshop raises the question: is liberal democracy the only model of democracy that we should work with in designing democracy promotion? So far it has remained the predominant model in the eyes of most, if not all, democracy promotion agencies. Liberal democracy is taken as an achieved condition by those seeking to promote it, with alternate models of democracy being summarily discounted. Assuming this singular model of democracy is problematic on at least two counts. First, it runs the risk of shutting down political debate on an important and deeply consequential political concept; and second, it may lead to an overly unitary and de-contextualised approach to democracy promotion, and so to misunderstandings over why democracy promotion might fail or be contested in certain situations. These problems arising from conceptual premises of democracy promotion should in our view be addressed in re-designing the democracy promotion agenda.
This workshop seeks to consider what conceptual and theoretical resources are available for alternate models or variants of democracy to be considered in contemporary democracy promotion. In so doing it aims to contribute to and complement a European Research Council funded project 'Political Economies of Democratisation'. This project based at the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University seeks to analyse a variety of different conceptual lenses that democracy can be understood through, with an emphasis especially on pluralising ‘politico-economic models of democracy' associated with democracy promotion.
