Navigating Internal Threats to Democracy in The Age of Autocratic Rule
Author: Munashe Mataranyika, Stanford Masters in International Policy ’23
A significant amount of Western international relations commentary on Putin’s war on Ukraine has predominantly focused on the threat autocratic policy decisions pose to the stability and durability of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, not only in the countries of interest but across the world. The notion that it is the West’s responsibility, and arguably that of the rest of the world as well, to challenge autocratic leaders in order to protect the democratic process is one that many specialists in the field would not immediately question. However, this brings us to a juncture at which we have to ask ourselves if democracy as we know it is truly under threat, and if so, from what direction does the biggest threat originate? Is the largest threat external, from undemocratic countries, or is it internal to the network of countries that already operate under democratic systems? While focusing on the relationship between race and conflict, I would submit that the internal threat to democracy in the West could potentially be as significant as that posed by undemocratic states, and the war on Ukraine presents us with a fitting case study with which to attempt to explore this idea.
What exactly is democracy? Larry Diamond in his 2004 lecture at Stanford University outlined four essential components that make up a democracy: a political system for the electing of officials and government, active civic participation, the protection of human rights, and a rule of law and due process that applies equally to all citizens[1]. When we consider countries that are undemocratic or perform poorly on democracy measures, we might think of how well they do with regard to the first component: a political system for the electing of officials. Therefore, we might operate from a bias in which we automatically weigh these components, placing primary importance on the first. That would then form the basis of the argument against autocratic governments in the international system, that their citizens do not have the liberty to freely elect officials that represent them and their interests. Or when they do, that choice is not respected, and the results are rigged to maintain the incumbent administration’s monopoly of power.
This is the contrast that has been presented particularly in Western media between Ukraine and Russia, with Zelenskyy and his government predominantly displayed as the defenders of democracy and justice while Putin is labeled a “war criminal” (President Biden[2]). In a sense, this perspective is not wrong. It would be hard to ensure that citizens can actively participate in politics and other aspects of civic life, have their human rights protected, and there be a rule of law that is maintained uniformly if the political system does not allow for the checks and balances required to guarantee the enforcement of these conditions. Therefore, it is not an inaccurate assumption that countries with free and fair elections for their government officials are also good at guaranteeing the other three conditions for democracy to their citizens; But how do we balance recognizing the importance of safeguarding civic participation with creating space for important discourse that productively questions and challenges the state of existing democratic institutions?
The West, that is the United States and its allies more specifically, has since the Second World War claimed the role of champion of democracy, complete with a crown of wild olive and statues in Zeus’ temple, while also operating as a global hegemon with military bases all around the world. It is from this position of power and victory that the West has condemned Putin’s decision to launch a large-scale invasion of Ukraine which began on the 24th of February. Western media outlets have presented and echoed in real-time the same sentiments that have been circulating among academics in the international affairs arena, that the war in Ukraine presents one of the greatest affronts to state sovereignty since the Second World War. Furthermore, it is not just Putin’s recent actions that have troubled the democratic world. From the use of digital surveillance, state control of the media, and the suppression of free speech to the use of force to quell perceived or real opposition to the state, undemocratic states have been deemed the epitome of what is wrong with modern global governance.
This position that the West has taken to promote the growth and stability of democracies globally is not inherently of negative value. However, democratic states, as they are currently, have a plethora of internal flaws that threaten the validity of this system of social governance. For example, systemic racism, which was a legitimate component of both domestic and foreign policy in the West up until the 20th century, still has effects on Western societies well into our present 21st century sociopolitical dynamics. This manifests through practices such as gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, gentrification, and redlining, not forgetting the legion of other issues that disproportionately affect communities of color such as environmental safety and mass incarceration among others. Therefore, while the vast majority of Western states are democratic, what we see is a democracy that has de jure equal access to free and fair elections but operates under a de facto system that disenfranchises its citizens through these systematic and structural pressures. It is therefore important that the discourse on these internal threats to democracy is constantly being brought to the fore, especially when conversations about human rights abuses in autocratic or undemocratic states are being explored.
To this end, the reports of black and other people of color being denied access to transportation and passage to exit Ukraine since the beginning of the war helps to illustrate this point even further. Personal testimonials online from Africans such as Jessica Orakpo who shared her story with the BBC detailed the extent of the inhumane treatment of black people in Ukraine. Africans were faced with racially xenophobic “Ukrainians first” messages by border patrols and other officials who specifically stopped black people and other people of color from boarding buses that carried people to the border, forcing people like Jessica to trek the nearly 12-hour journey to the Polish border[3]. Even upon arrival at the border, jarring videos surfaced of a mother and her nursing baby pushed to the side while white Ukrainians were allowed passage and reports of the mother and baby sleeping in the cold for days with nowhere else to go. The callousness and dedication to prejudice and racism even in the midst of war became the focus of several black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) academics writing on the issue. Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of western academic discourse largely ignored this flagrant violation of human rights against Africans and other BIPOC, even while crying out for the protection of the human rights of Ukrainians. Similarly, western media outlets barely covered the reports, aside from a few op-ed pieces mostly written by Africans, definitely incomparable to the manifold comments by mainstream media journalists and interviewees expressing how mortified they were at the death of “European people with blonde hair and blue eyes” (former Ukrainian deputy general prosecutor David Sakvarelidze on BBC News) from a “relatively civilized…city where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen” (CBS News correspondent)[4].
One of the most significant implications of this is that western global hegemony is undoubtedly undermined by these internal flaws in democracy, especially given that the global majority is not white. This has potential consequences for how countries of the global majority make their foreign policy decisions in that the US and its allies cannot continue to market Western democracy to developing countries as the better alternative in order to dissuade them from partnering with states such as China or Russia. Their cries against human rights violations, though valid, may, therefore, be directly compromised by what may be perceived as a lack of accountability for the internal human rights challenges mentioned above.
Taking as an example the proliferation of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 across several countries, which led to the creation of the social media campaign #ZimbabweanLivesMatter, we can see how the instability of racial dynamics in countries that present themselves as models of democracy can have a spillover effect in other countries, particularly those fighting against autocratic rule. This sort of spillover effect would be positive if it was followed by a change that reflected the democratic principle of the preservation of human rights. However, the contrary has proven instead to be true. In the United States, very rarely are police officers convicted for the death of black people and other minorities, even in cases where ample evidence is provided. Likewise, there were no tangible consequences for the inhumane treatment of black people at the Ukraine-Poland border, and the broader stance of silence employed by the West signaled even more so that this behavior was permissible even if shameful.
How then can we expect these inconsistencies to encourage and support the spread of the democratic process in undemocratic states? Can the Commonwealth deny Zimbabwe’s application to rejoin the organization or remove the Kingdom of Eswatini on the basis of human rights violations without holding the United Kingdom accountable for its allyship with the United States as well as for its own racism? This double standard and lack of accountability to BIPOC allows for other global superpowers such as China to appeal to developing countries with the aid they need without the additional moral code that the West usually attaches to theirs. If BIPOC people in democratic states suffer in ways that can be comparable to those endured by people in undemocratic states, then the entire argument in support of Western democracy falls apart. Ultimately, although these questions are more complex and nuanced than we could discuss here, it is perhaps becoming more and more apparent that the gospel of Western democracy needs significant reformation if it is to continue to be presented as the saving grace for people of the global majority.
A viable first step in addressing this would be to decenter global discourse on human rights from an ethnocentric perspective to one that prioritizes people of the global majority, BIPOC. Additionally, agents in the international system, including academics, political leaders, as well as formal and popular media need to hold democratic states accountable for the human rights abuses in their own countries while addressing those occurring in undemocratic states. Finally, there needs to be the amplification of BIPOC voices in international relations academia that can theorize, bring them into the spotlight, and provide language for the ethnic-specific challenges present in modern democratic governance.
Munashe Mataranyika is a Master’s in International Policy candidate at Stanford, specializing in Governance and Development. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oklahoma where she earned a degree in International and Area Studies with a concentration on Africa, and a minor in French. She is a Shelby Davis Scholar, a Rhodes Scholarship Finalist, as well as a fellow under the Susan R. McCaw Fund at Stanford.
Having been born and raised in Zimbabwe, Munashe’s interests are to explore comparative sociopolitics in developing countries from a post-colonial perspective. She has written on topics that reflect her academic interests such as climate change preparedness in the Southern African Development Community and the efficacy of Western-led counterterrorism in Africa. At Stanford, Munashe hopes to further study the varying dynamics of the impact of development, as both practice and theory, on governance and civil society across the African continent and within the Southern African region in particular.
___________________________________________________________________
[1] “What Is Democracy? | Larry Diamond”. Diamond-Democracy.Stanford.Edu, 2022, https://diamond-democracy.stanford.edu/speaking/lectures/what-democracy.
[2] Sam Fossum and Kevin Liptak, CNN. “Biden On Putin: ‘I Think He Is A War Criminal’”. CNN, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/16/politics/biden-calls-putin-a-war-criminal/index.html.
[3] “‘They Said If You’re Black, You Should Walk’”. BBC News, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-60573719.
[4] Staff, Al. “‘Double Standards’: Western Coverage Of Ukraine War Criticised”. Aljazeera.Com, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/27/western-media-coverage-ukraine-russia-invasion-criticism.
