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Thinking Democracy beyond Regimes: Untangling Political Analysis from the Nation-State

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Claude Lefort

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Abstract

The United Nations (UN) first celebrated “International Democracy Day” on September 15, 2008. Resolution A/RES/62/7, which inaugurated the annual event, had been adopted by the General Assembly the previous November without a vote, but 2008 was chosen in order to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first International Conference on New or Restored Democracies held in Manila in June 1988. While general references to democracy have underpinned many of the UN’s ideals since its founding, the conference and the resolution can be seen as spanning the period from the initial introduction to the ongoing debates on “democracy” in the world body.1 The resolution is illustrative of important elements of these debates and what is brought into motion when democracy enters the international realm. On the one hand, it is indicative of democracy’s post-Cold War global conquest. In formal and practical terms, democracy is now widely held as the only political regime with universal appeal, a point which is reaffirmed by the resolution itself when it states that “democracy is a universal value based on the freely expressed will of peoples to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems and their full participation in all aspects of their lives” (A/RES/62/7). In support of this universal value, the UN has in recent decades increasingly engaged in a host of more direct “democracy promotion” initiatives, such as organizing and monitoring elections and assisting democratization efforts through the UN Democracy Fund, established in 2005.

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Notes

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Authors
  1. Marc G. Doucet
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aesthetics & Politics Program and the School of Critical Studies, California Institute of the Arts, USA

    Martín Plot (teaches) (teaches)

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© 2013 Marc G. Doucet

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Doucet, M.G. (2013). Thinking Democracy beyond Regimes: Untangling Political Analysis from the Nation-State. In: Plot, M. (eds) Claude Lefort. Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375581_12

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