By the People

...Likewise, while Plattner calls Russia’s autocratic course “the gravest setback for democracy in the postCold War era,” he rejects the very idea that a Russian “model” exists at all...

...Yet in less than two decades, the global balance of power had undergone a dramatic shift, as dictatorships, juntas, and Politburos collapsed in practically every region of the world, in most cases to be replaced by elected governments with a commitment to free speech and a range of civil liberties...

...Plattner warns that the ability of Europe to grapple with its emerging “diversity” dilemma is hampered by the increasing infl uence of a corrosive form of multiculturalism that demands a subordination of national identity, and democratic governance, to a “oneness” with immigrants...

...On the one hand, globalists believe that the world’s transnational problems— terrorism, AIDS, drugs, climate change—should be dealt with through networks in which international agencies, transnational nongovernmental organizations, and sovereign states, each compete for power and authority...

...Though he doesn’t directly say so, it is, one suspects, in part due to America’s belief that sovereignty is integral to democracy that Plattner remains confi dent about the future strength of American democratic institutions, despite the current high level of polarization and the country’s involvement in an unpopular war—a war, he notes, that has damaged the ability of the United States to mount an effective democracy promotion policy...

...Once again, critics have begun to doubt whether a government of free institutions is viable for all cultures and to question the wisdom, and even the morality, of an American policy to expand democratic freedoms to countries under autocratic rule...

...In the wake of the suspension of constitutional rights by India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi, Moynihan was driven to lament that Liberal democracy on the American model increasingly tends to the condition of monarchy...

...While Russian offi cials have concocted phrases like “sovereign democracy” to describe the system that has evolved under Vladimir Putin, Plattner correctly insists that the essence of Putinism is simply the accumulation of power by the leader and his associates...

...Democracy, they declared, might function well in Western Europe and much of the Englishspeaking world, but as a method of governance it was utterly unsuited to the societies of the developing world...

...He also expresses doubts that the EU, with its emphasis on law and negotiation over force, will be capable of coping with states like Russia that are animated by traditional power politics...

...He adds that, in ethnically mixed African societies, the usual practice was for one group to dominate the others through repression and without niceties like freedom of the press or the rule of law...

...Equally important are his admonitions about the dangers to democracy in a “borderless” world...

...While this new kind of internationalism has gained adherents, especially in Europe, it has been rejected in the United States...

...Others were writing similarly, if less fl amboyantly, about freedom’s perilous condition...

...Democracy’s current distress is due to the increased repression of current autocrats, not the repudiation of freedom by the new democracies...

...By contrast, communism, the principal alternative to liberal democracy, seemed on the march, having retained in toto the global empire it accumulated after World War II while gaining additional power in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America...

...Yet Plattner’s argument remains convincing even in light of these setbacks...

...There is, Plattner contends, no emerging alternative to liberal democracy, save for the dead-end idea of anti-Americanism...

...Democracy Without Borders is a collection of essays written by Plattner since 1992, when he became founding editor of the Journal of Democracy, a publication of the National Endowment for Democracy...

...It is where the world was, not where it is going...

...BY ARCH PUDDINGTON During the middle 1970s, the condition of global freedom had reached so discouraging a state that even Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a man known for his bullish optimism about the strength of Western institutions, seemed ready to write the obituary of the democratic idea...

...The subject that Marc Plattner addresses is the state of democracy, and the democratic idea, in the years that have followed the end of communism...

...And the release of Democracy Without Borders is well timed...

...Plattner pointedly refutes the proposition that America acts as a rogue superpower that ignores universal principles and multilateralism...

...With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1992, Francis Fukuyama would confi dently write that there was no viable political alternative to Western liberalism as a principle of government...

...To the contrary: Americans, he says, are committed to universal ideals of democracy and human rights, but “hold that their implementation should be the business of democratically elected and accountable national governments...

...He is, by contrast, less certain about democracy’s future in Europe, in part due to a democracy defi cit in the functioning of the European Union, and in part due to its diffi - culty in integrating non-European immigrants and a potentially severe demographic crisis that looms in the coming decades...

...Though not a polemicist—indeed, he goes out of his way to give all sides their due—Plattner does have strong opinions, which are reinforced by his ability to distinguish between facts Arch Puddington is director of research at Freedom House...

...It is for this reason, and not due to a rejection of universal norms, that the United States has declined to ratify the various climate change agreements, or the International Criminal Court...

...Where, he asks, are the “wise and benevolent” despots whose rule will be more effective, and humane, than would be the case under conditions of democracy...

...Plattner’s analysis is measured and clearly articulated...

...In the nineteenth century, a holdover form of government, one which persists in peculiar or isolated places . . . but has simply no relevance to the future...

...Fareed Zakaria, he notes, could muster just one example of a polity in which good government and civil liberties went hand in hand with unelected leadership: Hong Kong under British rule...

...For the globalists, the nation-state enjoys less moral authority than does global civil society...

...While Plattner is unimpressed by the illiberal democracy theory, he takes seriously the threat to democracy— or, at least, democracy as we understand it—posed by the erosion of national sovereignty that is the inevitable byproduct of globalization...

...Thus, he dismisses claims that Western liberal democracy faces signifi cant competition from either a Chinese or a Russian model...

...Plattner believes that this emerging debate between traditional liberal internationalists and the advocates of a new globalized internationalism will have profound implications for the future of democracy, self-rule, and accountability...

...Furthermore, Plattner notes that far more often than they have contributed to civil strife, elections have actually played a signifi cant role in resolving civil wars, pointing to such disparate locales as Liberia, Nicaragua, and Mozambique...

...Plattner’s reasoned and basically optimistic argument is particularly important at a moment of confusion about democracy’s condition and schadenfreude over the failings of the Bush administration’s efforts to bring freedom to the Middle East...

...While the proposition that (as more than one critic has put it) “democracy is not for everyone” has not won majority endorsement, it is certainly up for debate...

...Plattner is also unimpressed by the contention, most notably identifi ed with Fareed Zakaria, that elections and democracy can actually undermine freedom and security in certain societies, especially those with ethnic or religious differences...

...and real trends on the one hand and superfi cial theorizing on the other...

...He predicts a coming divide between those, especially in America, who support the traditions of liberal internationalism, with its emphasis on cooperation between sovereign states, and globalists, who are increasingly pressing for the creation of supranational institutions with the authority to override the democratically-arrivedat decisions of nation-states...

...He adds that Americans will fi rmly resist the surrender of sovereignty to international bodies whose decisions are infl uenced by dictatorships and autocracies...

...In the 21st century, Plattner seems to say, threats to democracy can come from both traditional despots and the benevolent advocates of global governance...

...While China has gained considerable infl uence in East Asia and other parts of the world—a development that, in itself, should concern us—Plattner stresses that no country is emulating its unique blend of Leninist political control and statedriven capitalism...

...First postulated a decade ago, the “illiberal democracy” theory has acquired new credibility in the wake of the coming to power via elections of Hamas and the more recent, and thoroughly tragic, events in Kenya...