The fire out from the wire

In an earlier class, Prof. Flaherty offered that democratic countries do not wage war against one another, as a common argument in support of democratic development. This might seem un-American, but I do not believe in democracy being necessarily or essentially good. When I think of the United States' fledgling democracy, I associate it with slavery (blacks) and genocide (Native Americans).(*1) In time, democratic USA flexed its muscles rather questionably outside its borders to subjugate various parts of Latin America and Asia, and continued internally with segregation, inhumane work conditions, union busting, Chinese exclusion, red scare, and more Native American "removal". The beneficial difference American democracy made (and makes) to people living in and outside of USA seems rather limited. The "democratic peace" argument to me, even if it is fairly accurate, mistakes correlation with causation. So if the United Nations moves, as Richard Falk described in his essay The United Nations and Cosmopolitan Democracy: Bad Dream, Utopian Fantasy, Political Project, closer to having democracy as an element of political legitimacy for a sovereign state, I am skeptical.

On the other hand, greater democratic participation, via cosmopolitan democracy or otherwise, within the UN is an amazing development.(*2) Which seems contradictory: democracy is not necessarily or essentially good on a state level, but good in the UN. My reason would be because the UN is not a technically a law making body. If the UN made laws, it would have to be accountable to constituents of some sort, and like USA's democracy, these constituents would be dollar bills, or "market forces", "business presence", and "globalization", and not the constituents of human people.(*3) Without the stranglehold of big business, the UN can act for and embrace a much wider audience, or actually be democratic in a way a state's legislative body cannot. The UN does this in part by (a) engaging in discussion via conferences, summits, working groups, (b) the work of the UN Development Program and various monitoring/observer programs, and (c) relying on consensus rather than votes; most of these UN activities include heavy particpation by Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like Amnesty International, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, Radda Barnen, ICRC, etc. Otherwise, to borrow what Falk wrote about the UN but inverting and applying it to states, democratic states, whose legislative bodies do not address the needs of those who are not beneficiaries of market operations, is itself an expression of an undemocratic character, withholding attention to the concerns of peoples already not adequately represented.

Falk says "what happens after the global conferences is often indicative of the persisting role of geopolitics and statism in the implementation phases of the global policy process. UN conference 'plans of action' that read impressively are cast aside or selectively applied." In a sad way, the impotent plans of action shows democracy working. A true law making body would not touch any of those plans of action in the first place, nor invite NGOs as participants. The conferences, summits, UNDP, and so forth are Trojan horses of sort, not only providing an outlet for NGOs and the underrepresented, but bolster and developing their vital voices in general. (*4)

Democratic developments within the UN must have evolved while the economic interests were napping.(*5) Okay, that is unfair, because economic interests rarely nap. But the small idea of cosmopolitan democracy was somehow allowed to spark in the UN and it caught on fire. The backlash with the accompanying accusations of cultural imperialism and socialism are probably just the start as the economic interests catch up to close up democratic space opened in the UN.


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*1 In fairness, no matter what political structure the USA decided on, the treatments of the non white/male/propertied population would have likely remained the same; in other words, shitty.
*2 I don't believe the article gave a straight definition of cosmopolitan democracy, but googling suggests it means democracy where organizations like NGOs participate.
*3 At this point, I should say that I believe business interest should have and do offer a valuable voice in the democratic process, except, and this is the main problem, its voice and interests are disproportionately represented to the detriment of other interest groups.
*4 Simply, participation of NGOs (and therefore cosmopolitan democracy) is controversial in the sense that they supposedly are representative (for woman, for children, for environment, for workers, etc.) but at the same time they aren't elected. So questions of accountability as well as true representativeness arise.
*5 I'm using this very general term, economic interest, because I believe it is always about the dominant group's greediness; whether it is multinational corporations finding new venues to continue its race to the bottom or patriarchal structures keeping property rights from chicks.