Summary
Cor van Beuningen & Bernard Berendsen
Democratie, natievorming en ontwikkeling
Cor van Beuningen and Barend Berendsen question the rationale of promoting democracy as a means to foster peace, stability and development within the broader framework of international cooperation. They point at policy dilemmas causing uneasiness in the field of international relations. Such questions are posed in a global context dominated by 9/11, international security, the crisis of Muslim societies and the US led war on terror, including the regime change approach to promote democracy in the Middle East. Two factors undermine the role of the state in the promotion of human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles. First, the process of globalisation erodes the exclusive role of the state as the producer of law, policy and rights. Second, the connection between democracy and state with nation is becoming problematic as phenomena related to culture and ethnicity have divisive effects in the realm of state and politics. Historically, the project of a unified democratic state is connected to a collective identity of people sharing a common national founding myth, language, religion and ethnos. In fact, democracy is about moral attitudes and the moral or ethical capacities of the people, of the individual persons both in society and in government; about their willingness and ability to care for others, the environment and the future. Promotion of democracy therefore should pay more attention to civic engagement, trust and social capital, because they might not only be necessary preconditions for making democracy work, but for economic progress as well.