There is no human right to democracy. But may we promote it anyway?

• Author: Lister, Matthew

The idea of "promoting democracy" is one that goes in and out of favor. With the advent of the so-called "Arab Spring," the idea of promoting democracy abroad has come up for discussion once again. Yet an important recent line of thinking about human rights, starting with John Rawls's book The Law of Peoples, has hem that there is no human right to democracy, and that nondemocratic states that respect human rights should be "beyond reproach" in the realm of international relations. This is, for obvious reasons, a controversial view, especially given the powerful and important arguments purporting to show that democracies do significantly better than nondemocracies in promoting internal peace and equality, and in engaging in peaceful international cooperation. Both proponents and opponents of the Rawlsian view of human rights have argued that the view implies that democracies may not "promote democracy" in nondemocratic societies. But, given that all parties to this dispute agree that democracy is necessary for justice, and given the important instrumental goods provided by democracy, the Rawlsian view has seemed deeply implausible to many.

In this Article I blunt this challenge to the Rawlsian view by showing how, even if there is no human right to democracy, we may still rightfully promote democracy in a number of ways and cases. Showing this requires investigation of what it means to "promote democracy," and a more careful inspection of when various methods of promoting democracy are appropriate than has been done by most political theorists working on human rights. When we look carefully, we can see that in some instances acceptable forms of promoting democracy are compatible with the Rawlsian view of human rights, and that this view is therefore not vulnerable to the "instrumentalist" challenge. We also see how, if political philosophy is to be useful, it must be less abstract and look closely at actual cases.

INTRODUCTION

The idea of "promoting democracy" is one that goes in and out of favor. Like "nation building" and other related ideas, the desire to engage in this task waxes and wanes with world events, and with recent successes and failures. "Promoting democracy" was used as a justification for the war in Iraq, (1) casting the project in a bad light. The so-called "colored revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004 led to increased enthusiasm, but so far the results have been less than satisfying, especially in Ukraine, where the removal of one corrupt, at best illiberally democratic government has led to its replacement by other corrupt, at best illiberally democratic governments. (2) Many activities promoted or funded by the United States in Russia during the 1990s (some of which I shall discuss below) fall under the heading of "promoting democracy," though whether they have had any positive effect is, at least, debatable.

With the recent developments in the Middle East--revolution in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, and mass protests in Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria--interest in "promoting democracy" has understandably risen again. Whether democratic gains in the region can be solidified, and whether democracy will lead to improved human rights and stability in the countries in question, remains to be seen.

In this Article 1 shall argue that, while there is no human right to democracy, there are still good reasons to promote democracy--at least in many circumstances and that this may be done without unduly interfering with the rightful self-determination of nondemocratic societies, and without failing to respect them as full members in a just society of states. I will show that rejecting a human fight to democracy does not require us to refrain from promoting democracy in the appropriate circumstances. I will first give a brief characterization of the account of human rights favored here (what I will call a "Roughly Rawlsian" approach) and will explain why, on this approach, there is no human right to democracy. Secondly, I will look in more detail at the challenge to this account posed by arguments for a human right to democracy. I will argue that these accounts are not successful in establishing that there is a human right to democracy. But I will also show how, even on the Roughly Rawlsian account that I accept, we can see that there are often strong reasons to promote democracy. Given these strong reasons, if the Roughly Rawlsian account implied that democracy could not be promoted, ever, at all, or in any way, this would be a good argument against the Roughly Rawlsian account. However, I shall show that this is not the case. Compatible with the Roughly Rawlsian account, there are a number of ways in which liberal states can and should promote democracy in the full range of nondemocratic states, from the fully "decent" to the fully "outlaw" society. (3)

Establishing this, however, will require more care than many political philosophers looking at this issue have taken in the past to distinguish between different ways in which we might "promote democracy," and the varieties of cases in which each approach may be acceptable. Not every approach will be appropriate or acceptable when applied to different cases. For example, an approach that would be acceptable in a mostly "decent" society, that is stable and not in the process of transition may be inappropriate when applied to an "outlaw" society, and vice versa. I do not claim to provide anything like a complete taxonomy of state types or of methods for promoting democracy. Moreover, I do not claim to speak with great certainty about which methods are likely to be most successful, useful, or appropriate for given regime types. Answering these questions would require input from political scientists, historians, and experts on various states and cultures, as well as input from the members of the societies themselves. But I believe that the sketch I provide may help guide further inquiry by providing a framework for analysis, and by showing what types of considerations are relevant. Finally, I will show how the account ! develop disarms this important objection to the Roughly Rawlsian account of human rights. Once we see how this account is compatible with plausible forms of promoting democracy, all that remains are unacceptable demands that states be democratic. If demanding that states be democratic is unacceptable then the case for the Roughly Rawlsian approach, which rejects the imposition of democracy, is that much more solid.

DEMOCRACY, JUSTICE, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Democracy (4) has long had a close association with the idea of human rights and justice] Though I shall question the first association at a conceptual and practical level in this Article, the traditional association is clear and strong. (6) The connection with justice is even stronger. In almost every case imaginable today, a society must be democratic in some fairly strong sense if it is to be just. (7) While no society is fully just, lack of a substantial democratic system is a serious defect in a society, from the perspective of justice. (8) Given this, there is significant reason to favor a democratic government for a society whenever this is possible, on the obvious grounds that we ought to prefer a more just society over a less just one. If this is so, then there seems to be a strong prima facie reason for states that are able to do so to promote democracy and democratic reform in states that are not currently democratic.

Additionally, there are powerful instrumental arguments in favor of democracy. While the argument from justice noted above is best thought of as addressing intrinsic features of a just society, instrumental arguments for favoring democracy focus on the ways that having a democratic form of government can promote other important goods. (9) The two arguments are not completely distinct, in that it may be the case that democratic government is the best, or perhaps even the only, way to establish minimal guarantees of subsistence, equality, non-domination, and governmental responsiveness that are necessary for a just society. But, even beyond these points, we might think that democratic forms of government produce certain good outcomes which, while not necessarily intrinsically tied to justice, are still highly desirable. Certain ways of making government more responsive to the interests of its citizens might fit in here, (10) as might certain aspects of how democracies interact in the international order, assuming the claimed causal connections are in fact true. (11)

Given the above claims about the value of democracy, the essential elements of which I intend to accept for the sake of this Article, it seems as though we have good reason to "promote" democracy in nondemocratic societies. (12) However, we here meet a potential difficulty. In recent years, a number of political philosophers writing on global or international justice and human rights have argued that the idea of human rights is conceptually distinct from liberal conceptions of justice. Human rights, on this account, comprise an especially important moral and legal category, but one that is less demanding in many ways than a full conception of justice. (13) Human rights also demand that governments be responsive to their citizens in some significant ways, but do not require states to be democratic. (14) Understood in this way, human rights serve to mark the "bounds of acceptable pluralism" among societies. (15) While violations of human rights provide grounds for "intervention" of one sort or another, (16) at least when they are serious and widespread or systematic, (17) and may provide "foreign policy imperatives," (18) societies that respect human rights are taken to be "beyond reproach" (19) and full members in good standing in the international community. (20)

Accepting this account of human rights, as I think we should, raises several concerns or questions about our previously...