Despots Masquerading as Democrats

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12930438
AutoresK Roth (0000-0001-5106-2605, Human Rights Watch, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen1
Número1
Páginas140-155
Fecha de publicación2009-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Human Rights Practice (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1757-9619 • E-ISSN: 1757-9627
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jhuman/hun001
OpenAlexW2108086049
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11

Today, virtually every government wants to be seen as a democracy, but many resist allowing the basic human rights that would make democracy meaningful because that might jeopardize their grasp on power. Instead, governments use a variety of subterfuges to manage or undermine the electoral process. Their task is facilitated by the lack of a broadly accepted definition of ‘democracy’ akin to the detailed rules of international human rights law. But much of the problem lies in the fact that, because of commercial or strategic interests, the world's established democracies often close their eyes to electoral manipulation, making it easier for sham democrats to pass themselves off as the real thing. That acquiescence undermines the efforts to promote human rights because it can be more difficult for human rights organizations to stigmatize a government for its human rights violations when that government can hold itself up as an accepted ‘democracy.’ The challenge facing the human rights movement is to highlight the ploys used by dictatorial regimes to feign democratic rule and to build pressure on the established democracies to refuse to admit these pretenders into the club of democracies on the cheap

Acquiescence · Democracy · Government (linguistics · Human rights · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Rule of law · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Computer Science · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law