Rethinking Democracy Promotion: Towards a Dynamic Analytical Framework

The term “democracy promotion” is frequently used to denote any activity or effort that transnational actors from Western nations use to establish or reinforce democratic principles and practices in places where liberal politics is in decline or absent. At its heart, this conventional understanding of democracy promotion views Euro-American nations and non-governmental organisations such as think tanks as the benefactors, with countries and people in Latin America, Africa, and Asia imagined as passive recipients and beneficiaries of political assistance. This one-dimensional view of the practice of democracy promotion has blinded scholarly efforts in comparative politics and international relations to interesting and dynamic ways that democracy has been promoted and is being championed in a time when liberal politics faces acute threats in the West and beyond. This paper seeks to rethink the unidimensional understanding of democracy as Western benefaction that solely manifests in the form of electoral assistance, support for civil society, and parliamentary aid. Drawing on insights and ideas that have bolstered the fields of political performance and representation studies, this paper proposes that we go beyond thinking of democracy promotion as the “West’s burden” to ask open-ended questions like “Who promotes democracy?” And “Where, How, Why, and with What is democracy promotion done?” Centring these so-called journalistic questions expands our field vision to a range of actors, objects, sites, aims, intentions, and means by and through which democracy promotion is imagined and enacted. This paper develops and deploys this framework to analyse numerous examples of dynamic democracy promotion. These include President Volodymyr Zelensky’s framing of support for Ukraine as an ‘investment’ in democracy in his emotive speeches to the American Congress, European Parliament, and legislative institutions around the globe. The paper also analyses the implications of a street in New York being renamed to celebrate a democracy activist who was assassinated by Nigeria’s Sani Abacha during his murderous rule. The discussion also examines how Twitter, under Jack Dorsey’s direction, established its first African office in Ghana because the country is “a champion for democracy” that supports free speech and internet freedoms. By weaving the aspects of the framework through these and other cases, the paper brings this framework to life and presents it as a tool that can inform and inspire scholars and observers to think creatively about democracy and its promotion.