how democracy spread in the world
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The spread of democracy in the 20th century
During the 20th century the number of countries possessing the basic political institutions of representative democracy increased significantly. At the beginning of the 21st century, independent observers agreed that more than one-third of the world’s nominally independent countries possessed democratic institutions comparable to those of the English-speaking countries and the older democracies of continental Europe. In an additional one-sixth of the world’s countries, these institutions, though somewhat defective, nevertheless provided historically high levels of democratic government. Altogether, these democratic and near-democratic countries contained nearly half the world’s population.
The globalization of democracy, long a staple of American foreign policy, has created nations who no longer are willing to simply follow the lead of the United States in foreign affairs. In such a global environment, the United States finds itself acting in an increasingly undemocratic manner, pursuing actions that run contrary to the wishes of the international majority. To be fair, it must be noted that criticism of American actions hardly constitutes a revolt against American foreign policy; however, no longer can the United States be secure that its actions abroad will go unchallenged. - YaleGlobal
Among the least explored and most intriguing of globalization's many aspects is the globalization of democracy. By this I mean the spread of electoral politics to more and more countries. But I also want to highlight what I take to be a rising desire for more democratic or consultative relations among countries, including especially the United States.
The two phenomena are not necessarily related. An autocratic government can advocate multipolarity in world politics. China's rulers have been a case in point. Opponents of globalization who attack the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for being undemocratic do not always practice democracy inside their own organizations or in their dealings with others. I know this from personal experience as a journalist covering the "battle of Seattle" in 1999. Unelected activist leaders on that occasion successfully violated the democratic right of assembly of the delegates who had come to attend meetings of the World Trade Organization.
The United States represents a different sort of disconnect between national and international democracy. For Americans committed to democracy at home, it hardly follows that American foreign policies should be approved in advance by a majority of other countries. Nor have I noticed the American government abiding by international majorities when it comes to slowing global warming or prosecuting crimes against humanity.
"The course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others," said U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union message on 28 January 2003. As he spoke, globalizers and anti-globalists were returning home from, respectively, the World Economic Forum in Davos and the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre - mirror-image meetings that annually frame the pros and cons of international democracy.