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Advantages and disadvantages of inclusive multilateral venues: The rise and fall of the United Nations General Assembly resolution on new or restored democracies

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Abstract

Are the factors that lead states to increase their support for an international norm in a particular multilateral venue similar to or different from those that influence states to decrease their support? This article presents a case study of the rise and fall of a recurring United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on UN support for new or restored democracies. Domestic and international influences on the rise in support for the resolution from 1994 to the early 2000s include states’ interests in preventing destructive effects of authoritarianism, attracting resources, improving security, the UN’s flexible understanding of democracy, procedural legitimacy, and regional influences. However, the puzzle of states’ decreased support for the resolution after the mid-2000s is better explained by the emergence of an alternative, more exclusive venue, leading actors concerned with substantive outcomes to shift political attention away from the movement associated with the UNGA.

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Notes

  1. This UNGA resolution was considered annually in 1994–2000 and then biennially until 2012.

  2. See UNGA, A/RES/54/54B, A/RES/70/55.

  3. Sources for co-sponsorship UNGA, A/49/L.49/Add.1; A/50/L.19.Rev.1/Add.1; A/51/L.20/Rev.1/Add.1; A/52/L.28/Add.1; A/53/L.38/Add.1; A/54/L.33/Add.1; A/55/L.32/Rev.1/Add.1; A/56/L.46/Add.1; A/58/L.15/Add.1; A/60/L.53/Add.1; A/61/L.51/Add.1; A/62/L.9/Add.1; A/64/L.12/Add.1; A/66/L.52/Add.1. For the number of state delegations speaking on the agenda item: UNGA, A/49/PV.79-80; A/50/PV.55-56; A/51/PV.61; A/52/PV.51; A/53/PV.66-67; A/54/PV.64; A/55/PV.70-71; A/56/PV.83; A/56/PV.86; A/58/PV.57; A/58/PV.59; A/58/PV.62; A/60/PV.63; A/60/PV.78; A/61/PV.84; A/62/PV.44; A/62/PV.46; A/64/PV.41; A/66/PV.60; A/66/PV.121

  4. Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greece, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay (see footnote 5).

  5. UNGA, 16 August 1988, The Manila Declaration of 1988, issued on 6 June 1988, A/43/538, p. 4. See also Fineman, Mark. 7 June 1988. First Meeting Held in Manila: 13 “New Democracies” Confer on Goals, Woes. Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-06-07/news/mn-3860_1_manilaconference. Accessed 8/2016.

  6. Report of the Secretary-General, UNGA, Support by the United Nations system of the efforts of Governments to promote and consolidate new or restored democracies, 21 October 1997, A/52/513, para. 52, p. 8.

  7. Sources See the UNGA Provisional Verbatim records listed at Fig. 1 and Dumitriu (2003). Number of observers at the ICNRD conference in 1988 is unknown. Council for a Community of Democracies, www.ccd21.org (Accessed 2/2015) and list of Confirmed Heads of Delegation, Ministerial Conference in Ulaanbaatar, as of 25 April 2013. The number of states participating in CD conferences is lower than the number of states invited to participate. Information on participants at the 2007 CD Ministerial in Bamako was unavailable (127 were invited as participants, 20 as observers) (Barrios 2008, p. 1)

  8. On procedural legitimacy in other issue areas, see Finnemore (1996) and Coleman (2007).

  9. Statement by Ms. Tuya, Mongolia, UNGA, 29 November 1999, A/54/PV.64, p. 8.

  10. Statement by Mr. Bossière, France, on behalf of the EU, UNGA, 21 November 2000, A/55/PV.70, pp. 5–6.

  11. Statement by Mr. Mubarez, Yemen, UNGA, 11 December 2001, A/56/PV.83, p. 24.

  12. Report of the Secretary-General, UNGA, 21 October 1997, A/52/513, para. 27, p. 5. On the role of the Secretary-General in supporting democratic norm development, see Haack (2011).

  13. Statement by Mr. Yel’chenko, Ukraine, UNGA, 21 November 2000, A/55/PV.70, p. 7.

  14. UNGA, 7 December 1994, A/49/PV.79, pp.15–25; A/49/PV.80, pp. 1–26.

  15. UNGA, 7 December 1994, A/49/L.49/Add.1.

  16. Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Seychelles, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania.

  17. Author’s confidential interview with a diplomat to the UN, New York, 25 February 2014.

  18. Statement by Mr. Popescu, Romania, UNGA, 20 November 1996, A/51/PV.61, p. 18.

  19. Author’s confidential interview with a diplomat to the UN, Geneva, 21 May 2014.

  20. Statement by Mr. Wensley, South Africa, UNGA, 20 November 1996, A/51/PV.61, p. 13.

  21. Michael A. Lev, “Conferees aim to solve woes of democracy,” Chicago Tribune. 14 September 2003. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-09-14/news/0309140469_1_democracies-delegate-central-african-republic. Accessed 8/2016.

  22. UNGA, 19 October 2015, A/C.6/70/SR.11.

  23. UNGA, 11 November 2015, A/70/532.

  24. UNGA, 18 November 2011, A/66/PV.60, pp. 1–6.

  25. See UNGA, “Promoting and Consolidating Democracy,” 4 December 2000, A/RES/55/96.

  26. For example, UN Human Rights Council, “Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law,” 23 March 2012, A/HRC/Res/19/36.

  27. UNDEF, http://www.un.org/democracyfund/. Accessed 8/2016.

  28. Voting record search, www.unbisnet.org. Accessed 8/2016. The resolution was adopted without a vote in 1988, 1989, 2009, 2011, and 2013.

  29. UNGA, November 1989, A/C.3/44/SR.36, 40–42, 50.

  30. For more on this resolution, see Ludwig (2004), Kelley (2008), Hyde (2011). Kelley argues that states supported the spread of election observation because they sought legitimacy (2008, p. 249) and Hyde argues that states sought to send credible signals of regime type when international benefits supported democratic states (2011, pp. 13–19).

  31. Author’s confidential interview with a diplomat to the UN, Geneva, 21 May 2014.

  32. Author’s confidential interview with UN official, New York, 25 February 2014.

  33. On the salience of democratic governance in the UNGA, see Hecht (2016).

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Acknowledgements

For their helpful comments on previous versions of this work, I am grateful to Samuel Brazys, Max Cameron, Katia Coleman, Alex Dukalskis, Petru Dumitriu, Diana Panke, Lisa Sundstrom, the anonymous reviewers, and participants at the workshop, “Foreign Policy Changes and International Norms: Examining Internal and External Determinants” in Freiburg, Germany, in October 2014. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Responsibility for any errors rests solely with the author.

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    Catherine Hecht

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Hecht, C. Advantages and disadvantages of inclusive multilateral venues: The rise and fall of the United Nations General Assembly resolution on new or restored democracies. Int Polit 54, 714–728 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-017-0058-4

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