(Re)building Political Society: the UN and Democratization

Abstract

Democratization — and, in a wider sense, domestic transition and consolidation — is a major movement: perhaps the most significant political issue at the turn of the millennium. While democracy appears to be the ‘fundamental standard of political legitimacy in the current era’,¹ the concept is also evolving in parallel with the changing sociopolitical environments found within and between political communities. One of the most striking characteristics of this evolution is the understanding that democracy is no longer — if it ever was — an issue confined to territorially enclosed communities, in terms of the inputs, consequences, prospects and indeed limitations of democracy. The United Nations is playing an important role in this process in an increasingly ‘post-Westphalian’ world, as a promoter and facilitator of democracy, in the context of transnational forces that are conditioning and transforming norms of governance at all levels. This role deserves greater attention: both the positive and negative aspects.