The United Nations Democracy Agenda by Kirsten Haack

Author:Kirsten Haack [Haack, Kirsten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Intergovernmental Organizations, Political Ideologies, Democracy, International Relations, General
ISBN: 9781847797483
Google: W2W5DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2013-07-19T04:02:37+00:00

Figure 5.1 Electoral democracies, 1988–2009

Figure 5.2 Freedom in the world, 1988–2009

Figure 5.3 Requests for electoral assistance, 1989–2005

The resulting challenges for the UN seemed clear: if democratisation was to be sustained and consolidated, and if the idea of popular sovereignty and democratic legitimacy were to take hold, the UN’s early focus on elections would not be sufficient. This lesson was further reinforced by experiences of UN peace-keeping missions such as those in Haiti and Angola, where elections did not lead to the envisaged results of peaceful political relations, but instead saw the contestation of election results and renewed political instability. New opportunities to address these issues and to enable a deepening and widening of the democracy agenda could be found in the development community. The new practice of governance support paid closer attention to state structures by addressing the quality of political rule and its execution. Governance, or ‘good’ governance, aimed at recreating the relationship between those governing and the people by introducing principles such as accountability, transparency and fairness – principles essential to democracies. The ideas and practices of the development community thus connected with those of the Secretariat. Indeed, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali had highlighted development as one of his key concerns throughout his term, and the call for a reformulation of the ideas and practices of peace, democracy and development, as well as the reconsideration of the foundations of international society, ran through his office as a key thread. These ideas found their clearest expression in his triptych of Agendas, the Agendas for Peace (1992), Development (1994) and Democratization (1996).

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