Despots Masquerading as Democrats

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12930438
AutoresK Roth (0000-0001-5106-2605, Human Rights Watch, autor correspondente)
Ano2009
Volume1
Fascículo1
Páginas140-155
Data de publicação2009-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Human Rights Practice (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1757-9619 • E-ISSN: 1757-9627
EditoraOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jhuman/hun001
OpenAlexW2108086049
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11

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