Why global democracy isn't a bad idea -Jun 19, 2003

Everybody believes in the centrality of democracy to a free and just society. In their own way.

Tony Blair believes in democracy: that is why he recently suspended the democratic process in Northern Ireland, to ensure that those he thinks would undermine the Good Friday Peace Agreement do not get elected.

Robert Mugabe believes in democracy: that is why he is defending his elected presidency by locking up, beating and torturing 'agents of international imperialism' who vote and lobby against him.

George W. Bush believes in democracy. That is why, notwithstanding the widespread (but not that widely publicised) corruption and mismanagement in Florida that narrowly shoehorned him into the White House, his administration is militarily occupying Iraq to protects its people from autocracy.

Above all, the US neo-conservatives believe in democracy: that is why they are now saying that they wish Bush to use 'all means necessary, up to and including force' to 'ensure the will of the people' in Iran.

There are, of course, many crucial distinctions to be made here. Everyone knows that Mugabe's version of 'democracy' is a sham. Many feel that Bush's democracy is, at best 'very well managed', and, at worst, heavily militarised, cunningly selective, and overwhelmingly utilitarian in its promotion of self-interest.

Regarding Blair, the situation is slightly less contentious. He genuinely wishes to see a democratic settlement in Ireland; that is clear. But he is not above using large doses of manipulation to get 'the right result'. Very few elected politicians, however principled, are.

As usual, the US neo-conservatives are most straightforward about all this. Not only are they prepared to argue that democratic means are not essential to what they call democracy. They are also certain that 'the will of the people' means, first and foremost, the interests of America (by which they mean the USA), its corporations and governors.

So the neo-cons are naturally convinced that if Iraqis, Iranians (or anyone else for that matter) wish to elect people who do not undermine US interests, that is fine. But if they want to elect anyone else, well that would be, by definition, 'undemocratic'.

'We the people', yes. 'You, the people?' Not necessarily…

It is easy to wax righteous about such distortions, of course. But it is also important to recognise that, to one degree or another, everyone is a disingenuous participant in 'the democratic game'. This is so partly because of the inherent contingencies of power.

Ask ‘Comical Ali’, or Alistair Campell, the British PM’s Press Secretary, to give him his proper name and title. He will tell you that riding the waves of public opinion to bring it to exactly the right temperature come election time is neither a passive nor a gentle process. ‘Get real, sonny.’

Just as important, however, is the widespread crisis of representation in increasingly complex, mobile, re-sizing, technological and atomised societies. Whose interests, precisely, need to be reflected by whom – and in what way, at what level, how, to what degree, with what checks and balances and with what overall impact and congruence? And is the basis of the democratic system the individual, or the person-in-community? And which community, defined how?

You can see why political theorists and psephologists soon retreat to the pub with sore heads! And why politicians who argue for blunt, vested, general and results-driven democratic mechanisms tend to win elections more easily.

For years, British proponents of Proportional Representation (an electoral tool-box for ensuring a better balance of interests in the voting system) have been pushing their arguments uphill – against the weight of complexity, variability and sheer impenetrability.

But the root difficulties will not go away. We have reached a watershed in the very meaning and credibility of democracy. Indeed, as LSE professors Mary Kaldor and George Monbiot have both pointed out in new books, the dominance and mobility of global capital and the need for global institutions to ensure some degree of fairness and access also opens up the question of global (as well as regional, national and local) democratic accountability.

As the row over the nascent EU Constitution shows, the idea of globalised democracy imperils deep-seated notions of 'sovereignty' among many people, most especially those who have grown up with an island mentality. It also flies in the face of neo-conservatives, whose basic view is that the only global, democratic institution we need to ensure world order is already there. It is called the USA.

Christian theologians often find it difficult to get a handle on these deep-seated problems of wider society. A French social theorist has commented, cynically, that 'God, at least in the practice of his followers, is only a very recent convert to democracy... and freedom of speech, human rights and the rule of law...'

Historically he is right. And there are currently many religious leaders who are continuing the resistance.

In fact it is one of the many ironies of the US religious right (who do, in theory, adhere to all these things) that they are propounding ideals derived not from Christian Scriptures, but from the modern enlightenment. Of course they can be read back into the Bible, but only with scantest respect for the boundary between text and context.

Stanley Hauerwas, who is sometimes called a ‘post-liberal’, is one of the smarter theological ethicists who recognises this. While commenting ferociously on the injustice and violence of the world from a Scriptural perspective, Hauerwas actually invests his political capital elsewhere. In the Church.

It is the embodied community of Jesus Christ, he says, that can and should model for human societies an alternative based on love and mutual obligation rather than ‘legalised freedom’ and (the new Bush doctrine) ‘bombing to make us good.’

Moreover, points out Hauerwas, the basis of the Church is not democracy. Or law, Or free trade. Or any of the other things we have been trained to consider ‘foundational’. It is the community-making love of God manifested in Jesus Christ. That is what constitutes its difference and defines its freedom.

He’s right, of course. In theory. In practice, the Church is often nothing like that. And besides, most people’s lives are ordered elsewhere. So while I concur with Hauerwas that the Church should get its house in order, I disagree when he accompanies this call with rhetoric about how ‘democracy, justice and freedom are bad ideas’. Only those who have these things can really afford to deride them.

Maybe Hauerwas needs to read some more Bonhoeffer. The German Lutheran theologian who wrote from a position of active resistance to Nazism knew that there is no substitute for the kind of ‘life together’ constituted by Jesus Christ.

But he was more than willing to acknowledge signs of that life wherever it was found in the world. And he worked tirelessly not just for the integrity of the church but for forms of worldly order that pointed towards life rather than death, freedom rather than oppression, justice rather than injustice.

Bonhoeffer (in spite of his patrician roots and preference for meritocratic leadership after the disaster of the Weimar) also knew that rule by popular consent, while not a 'biblical idea', is a much less than bad or un-christian one. In fact it can be the difference between life and death.

Which is why, among other reasons, we need to cherish it and develop it globally at a time when almost everyone – from governments, to corporations, to ideologists… and even to well-meaning social activists and theologians – seems to want to sideline it.

Their scepticism, though often self-interested, can help us tackle the huge problems of democracy. But if they lead us to bypass it there will be hell to pay.

Simon Barrow (www.simonbarrow.net) works for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, but is writing in a personal capacity. His background is in journalism, adult learning, politics and theology.