On 9th and 10th of December 2021 President Biden will receive representatives from „democratic“ countries for the „democracy summit“ he is eager to organize. For him this was already during the election campaign an important endeavor to underline the difference to countries like Russia and China. Certainly, one cannot speak of high democratic standards in these two countries. But there are many countries in our world, invited by President Biden, where democracy is far from being perfect. India and Pakistan, Serbia and Poland are countries where we see grave deficiencies in implementing democratic standards - especially under the present leadership.
Well, one has to recognize that President Biden is not so naive to think that all invitees are on the same democratic level. He recently said: „ No democracy is perfect, and no democracy is ever final. Every gain made, every barrier broken, is the result of determined, unceasing work.“
But important is not to make some principal declarations, but to meet the different challenges each and every country faces. From media freedom to respect for an independent judicial system, from implementing a human refugee policy to respecting minorities, many democracies fail and lack a clear engagement. And, of course, even countries which obviously cannot be counted as democratic are partners for democratic countries. If you think about the fight against terrorism, the fight for decarbonization and a global climate policy one cannot disregard and neglect the cooperation with non-democratic countries.
It is doubtful, that at a summit organized by the United States, the invited countries will lay open their deficiencies and promise to do it better in future. And the US would have to be the first to confess many deficiencies from a very strange election system, laws to make it even harder for disadvantaged citizens to cast their vote in some states to discriminatory actions by many police forces. So today it is as much a contest between democracies and authoritarian regimes as a fight between democratic and authoritarian forces inside different countries. And here there are especially the civil society like NGOs, who are taking up the fight for democracy and not so much the governments.
All in all, it would be very bad, if the US itself and the invited and participating countries would think that this summit is a confirmation of their democratic superiority. The worldly is much more complex as to be divided into the good half and the bad half.
Dr. Hannes Swoboda, President of the International Institute for Peace (IP), started his career in urban politics in Vienna and was elected member of the European Parliament in 1996. He was Vice President of the Social Democrat Group until 2012 und then President until 2014. He was particularly engaged in foreign, enlargement, and neighborhood policies. Swoboda is also President of the Vienna Institute for International Economics, the Centre of Architecture, the University for Applied Science - Campus Vienna, and the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute.