Diversity as a Challenge? Decolonial Perspectives on Democratization

Abstract

International Relations Theory and Democratization Studies seem to be a natural combination. Be it in the field of international economy, peace and conflict studies, or comparative policy analysis, democracy is the recurrent topic, the necessary condition, and favored outcome of all political process. While its theoretical and empirical foundations have been exclusively elaborated in the so-called West, the concept is used as a universal standard for case studies all over the world. This chapter draws from a specific moment of irritation with IR’s parochialism. In the first section, it questions the theoretical assumptions about ethnic diversity underlying the positivistic empirical strand of democratization literature. The main argument here is that those assumptions are translated into causal arguments about the factors that enable or hinder democracy, or into indicators that reproduce geo-epistemological divides. The second section of this chapter points to the dangers of accommodating diversity from a decolonial perspective—both in the sense of homogenizing political systems and by subsuming ‘different’ perspectives under the disciplinary mainstream. The notion of ‘border thinking’ is presented as a form of unlearning that helps detaching democracy from its exclusively Western origins. It is concluded that in order to study democracies today on an international level, a more differentiated field for comparative analysis is needed. The challenge to overcome a conceptual divide between allegedly ‘model democratic regimes’ and ‘emerging democracies’ is not only intellectual. Expanding the understanding of democracy also provides a practical tool for those engaged in promoting it actively around the world.