On the first days of his tenure in office, President Biden announced that he would make the issue of democracy one of the leading topics of his foreign policy. This is not surprising, as the world is seen in terms of ever-deepening divisions over values. The great dichotomy has been renewed: democracy versus tyranny (dictatorship). Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has shown that it is impossible to build an effective international community with dictatorial and aggressive states.
This great dichotomy permeated international relations as early as the Cold War era. The liberty camp was often referred to as “Western democracies” and contrasted with “communist dictatorships.” Which, of course, was a simplification, because it swept under the carpet the problem of the functioning of dictatorships in the Western world, such as in Francoist Spain, Salazarist Portugal, military juntas in Greece or Turkey, not to mention quite dictatorial regimes in Latin America and Asia. Moreover, the socialist states proudly called themselves democracies in their ideology, and even of a higher order, because they were socialist democracies. This different quality was summed up by the commonly circulating anecdote that democracy differed from socialist democracy as much as a chair from an electric chair. Plenty of jokes existed on this topic (classic oxymoron: “Soviet parliamentarian”).
After the fall of communism, democracy without adjectives was adopted as an axiom in Europe, and foreign policy was pursued on the indisputability of the concept of democratic security. One of its constitutive elements is the thesis that democracies do not wage wars among themselves. Only the consolidation of a democratic system in countries that create a common security environment can provide a lasting guarantee of international security.
There was also no problem then (in the early nineties) with defining democracy. A thorough description of its requirements was included in the final document of the Copenhagen meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE adopted in June 1990 (i.e. during the lifetime of the USSR). It put democracy in the wider context of justice and the rule of law. It emphasized the obligation of periodic free elections, the representativeness of the government and its accountability to parliamentary bodies, respect for the constitution and rights by the authorities, separation between the state and political parties, the rule of law, civilian control over the armed and security forces, and the independence of the judiciary. It described the criteria for free elections and the political rights of citizens.
The aspect of free elections was in the center of political interest, and it is no coincidence that at the Paris summit in November 1990, the Office for Free Elections of the CSCE (later transformed into the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) was established. Indeed, in the first half of the nineties, post-communist Europe was learning to hold and win free elections. But on a large part of the continent, especially in the so-called post-Soviet area, democracy was very quickly identified with chaos and instability, and the post-communist elite (party appartchiks, “siloviki”) began to implement the mechanisms of mock democracy. This is how the so-called managed democracy came into being, the essence of which was the use of the power of public media, the so-called administrative resources, simple bribery and blackmail to consolidate power. The ruling parties began to fuse with the state again (becoming a trade union of the nomenklatura). And to justify the progressive authoritarianism, concepts of “sovereign democracy” and alike have been invented. The West reacted softly, if at all. It assumed that post-communist countries need time to build a democratic culture. Patience was also recommended in response to the lack of political reforms in China, or even in the Arab world. Democracy would inevitably come there with prosperity.
An expression of the soft strategy of promoting democracy as a foreign policy goal was the establishment in June 2000 in Warsaw (on the initiative of Minister Bronisław Geremek and Secretary Madeleine Albright) of the Community of Democracies. Over a hundred countries signed up to the Declaration adopted at that time. It repeated the catalog of democratic laws and practices known from the Copenhagen document, with modifications, of course. And it recognized that states may be at different stages of democratic development, but they should respect their sovereignty and not interfere in the internal affairs of other states. The declaration was signed, among others, by Azerbaijan and Russia. It was not signed by China and Belarus. There were Western states, which did not believe in the purposeseness of the initiative, predicting that it would only polarize the international community and undermine the mandate of the United Nations. Therefore, France and some other Western states did not sign a declaration at that time. In retrospect, one can see how wrong these countries were.
The Community of Democracies, however, did not mark any significant impact on international politics. A permanent secretariat (headed by the secretary general) was even created (in 2009), working groups were set up. But over time, there were not even enough candidates (States) to lead the movement. There is a large pillar of civil society at the Community. Support programs have been developed for the greater participation of women in political life and constitutional democracy in Myanmar. With known practical effect.
One of the reasons for the lack of political vigor within the Community was the changing and unclear US attitude to the initiative. The Bush administration saw in it a legacy of Clinton’s idealism. The war on terror made the promotion of democracy in the world an important task, but the republican administration’s policy was labeled as a “regime change” doctrine. In other words, democracy did not have to be promoted as much as planted (exported). Afghanistan and Iraq were the testing grounds. Despite the many billions put into building democracy there, the results were generally assessed very critically. The doctrine of exporting democracy has irrevocably discredited itself. “Gedanken sind zollfrei”, Martin Luther used to say, but ideas do not necessarily flow only in one direction and are not always good. Authoritarian ideas spread around the world and forced democracies to retreat.
In 2005, I headed the Polish delegation to the ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies in Santiago de Chile. I officially dealt with the Community and other initiatives promoting democracy before as director of the policy planning department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For this reason, I was even delegated to the conference of new and restored democracies, which was held in Ulan Bator in 2003. We arrived there late (due to an unplanned landing in Bratsk, we lost the connecting flight). Moreover, in the VIP lounge in Irkutsk, some high-level Mongolian delegation was saying goodbye before returning to the country, and the party gained such momentum that I had to join the celebration with a colleague, and the departure of the plane was significantly delayed.
In Santiago de Chile I was appointed co-rapporteur of one of the working sessions (together with Danilo Turk, then Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations for Political Affairs and later President of Slovenia). And as on global forums – the debates were boring, dragged on like guts with oil, bureaucratic newspeak dominated. Bad luck (for the official delegates) wanted George Soros to listen to the deliberations. At the end, he spoke with a crushing critique of the discussion. “What was that? This is how you want to promote democracy? Scandal! Shame! I will never be part of it again! ” And so on and so on. And after the session, together with Turk, we had to listen to Soros’ even more blunt tirade. Let me mention that it was my only (and quite unpleasant) meeting with Soros, despite the fact that the removed from power activists of the Republican Party in Armenia tried to impute to me from their ideological cavern that I was not the ambassador of the European Union there, but the ambassador of Soros. The magnitude of hate and aggression towards Soros in several countries (especially in Russia, but also in other dictatorial or authoritarian countries, or in Hungary) would prove that he was doing much better in promoting democracy than we in the Community of Democracies and similar initiatives.
The Arab Spring of 2011 revived faith in the progress of democracy in the world. But its long-term effects were once again a weapon of arms for opponents of an active pro-democratic policy. The democratic mechanisms in Tunisia have been maintained and the political regimes in Morocco and Jordan have been liberalized. Egypt, however, slipped back to tyranny, Syria was plunged into war and Libya into chaos.
To make matters worse, a creeping retreat from democracy was taking place in recognized democracies and successful transformations: in Hungary, in Poland. The banner of illiberal democracy was proudly unfolded there. The model of eastern despotism was increasingly taking shape in Turkey. Russia has moved towards a repressive dictatorship (not to mention Belarus). The digital surveillance served to strengthen the oppressive policy in China.
Many Western scholars and commentators have become defeatist. They began to proclaim the twilight of democracy, its unattractiveness to the making up of the prosperity gap in developing countries.
Post-Trump America looked at the need to mobilize pro-democracy forces in the world not so much in moral terms as in geopolitical terms. Even before Barack Obama’s rise to power, several prominent analysts and pundits associated with the Democratic Party were making plans to build a “concert” or “league of democracy.” It would create a concert of several dozen countries (even the phrase of “D-60 group” was used, which would function within the UN framework). The concert would not be an alliance, but it would serve to strengthen security cooperation between its members. Under Obama, no practical steps were taken to implement these ideas, despite the fact that some authors of these ideas took up positions in the US administration.
With the fall of Trump’s presidency, the idea of the Democracy League was revived. Its promoter was, inter alia, Antony Blinken, who took over as secretary of state in Biden’s government. Blinken (together with Robert Kagan in the article published in 2019) drew attention to the fact that there is no institution of any kind that would unite European and Asian democracies. In the face of China’s expansion (and Russia’s aggressive actions), democracies would require a global, emphatic perspective and new institutions that would shape a new shared strategic, economic and political vision. The organization he proposed (the league of democracy or a network of democratic cooperation) would take up the issues of cooperation in the field of military security, cybersecurity, terrorism, interference in election processes.
Other similar ideas even assumed the creation of joint executive and legislative bodies, permanent joint armed forces. And the most far-reaching demands called for the replacement of the United Nations by the new “federation of democracies”, at least in terms of collective security. Other ideas suggest building a league of democracy by appropriately expanding NATO membership and mandate.
All these ideas were born out of attempts to find an answer to the global challenge posed by the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia. They have a chance of success not only if they are well integrated into the existing infrastructure of international cooperation, including allied cooperation of Western countries and the global platform, especially the United Nations. In order to make a difference in the politics of its members, each elite club must provide real privileges (benefits) comparable to the benefits of membership in the alliance. Can the United States outline a convincing shape for the benefits?
In December 2021, President Biden convened the first Summit for Democracy. The participation criteria were stricter than in the Community of Democracies. The invitation was not issued, among others, to Turkey and Hungary. The decision was groundbreaking. After all, NATO and the European Union are structures that refer to common values. The absence of members (a member) of these communities at the Summit of Democracy was undoubtedly a blow to their image. But democracies must close ranks if they are to successfully rise to the challenge of authoritarianism.
But democracies must close their ranks if they are to successfully meet the challenge of authoritarianism. And the case of Russia in 2022 clearly shows that they must take action, that they will not get around it, that it is impossible to build a mechanism for solving global challenges without it. In this sense, Ukrainians in 2022 are fighting a battle not only for their own freedom, but for the future of the world. If Russia loses the war, it will open the way to building a new international order based on values, led by democracy. But on the horizon will remain a challenge more difficult than the Russian one – China.
Authoritarian states were effective in seeking symbolic and prestige goals in global games. Russia and China hosted the Olympic Games, the football World Cup, expo exhibitions. They have their representatives in key positions in international organizations of the UN system. They organized great conferences and cultural events. And dozens of countries sought their favours as part of development aid, investments or trade contracts. This must end. It’s good that Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup final has generated so much buzz. Why wasn’t it there when the Olympic Games or World Championships were awarded to China or Russia?
China and Russia have corrupted dozens of poor countries. What can membership in the League of Democracies give these dozens of countries in the name of opposing the expansion of authoritarianism?
