The Democracy Makers: Human Rights and the Politics of Global Order

World Plan of Action for Education on Human Rights and Democracy

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Those who control the means of production govern society. According to Ralph Miliband, economic dominance tends to instrumentalize political power to further its own ends Miliband, Political conflicts are conceptualized in terms of class conflict. The dominant classes form the ideas that make up the conscience of the masses.

All these theories of power and elites attempt to answer one major question: How does the unequal distribution of resources between types of elites and elites and masses affect democracy—and society?

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Except for some forms of Marxist theorizing, answers have mainly been sought at the level of the nation state. The challenge today is to further develop both approaches theoretically and empirically that concentrate on power but this time in a much broader context. Inequalities are produced at the global level and competition for institutional political power cannot be confined to nation states.

Moreover, the connectedness of global elites is transnational in scope. Their approach differs from many existing studies which primarily have described global elites by emphasizing how they are denationalizing themselves in pursuit of new forms of material and symbolic status. This new power elite, he estimates, has some 6. Sklair insists on the fact that this transnational social group is a class when defined in respect to the means of production and distribution. It is capitalist because it owns or controls—individually or collectively—the means of production.

Thus, a transnational capitalist class is sustained by its interlocked agencies, ranging from business, bureaucracy, and professions—or, as suggested by Kauppi and Madsen, by drawing on Mills, by a nexus of interrelated transnational power elites. A related sociological study is found in an analysis of development workers entitled The Globalizers Jackson, In his analysis of three decades of state building in Honduras, Jackson shows how the development community functions as a close-knit network of state building assistants who themselves have become policy makers.

Such a view ultimately draws on Peter M. What is certain, however, is that they are all globalizers that invest in different processes of globalization. The question Kauppi and Madsen raise is whether global elites can simply be understood in terms of denationalized globalizers as suggested particularly by Huntington and Rothkopf. In a way, these approaches seem to primarily add an elite component to existing theories and ideas of global civil society Meyer, or cosmopolitanism Beck, The approach is closer to the work of Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth In their analysis, global elites, like their historic national counterparts, are neither entirely international nor national, but rather transnational, and to varying degrees they rely on both national and international resources and capitals.

Kauppi and Madsen argue that transnational power elites consist of a variety of professional and semiprofessional groups like lawyers, economists, and security professionals who are often closely linked to more traditional elites in state and global political and financial institutions. They suggest that the operation of such elites is, for example, observable in the socio-professional structures that have had and continue to have an important but often neglected role in the structuring of global affairs.

Their claim is that professional turf wars have often had a decisive impact on framing the direction and form of institution and policy building. This is in part due to the ways in which the definition of the right expert knowledge has been one of main objects of contention in professional struggles. They readily admit that this does not provide a grand theory of the transformation of global power, but they insist that the approach provides a way to unpack what is most often taken for granted in most macro approaches to global actors, namely the power of institutions.

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Another way in which global actors influence politics is through institutions. All the theories mentioned so far, from epistemic communities and TAN to transnational power elites, involve institutions in different ways: In addition to these perspectives on institutions, according to many studies, these entities are also in themselves global actors. One problem with giving institutions agency is of course, as pointed out long ago by Weber, that only individuals can have intentions Madsen, a , p.

It is also for precisely this reason that all of the above theories focus on the individual or groupings of individuals as a way to also explain more institutional power. The power exercised by institutions has been a focal point of social science since its inception. Institutions gave authority and direction to the forms of morality that guided individual life and thus maintained the order of society. This focus on the integrative role of institutions has been replicated in scholarship on institutions as global actors.

There is no shortage of this type of scholarship. On the contrary, macro-theoretical approaches to institutions have been perhaps the most prevalent way of studying global actors. But as the debates in the preceding sections have demonstrated, a perspective in which the entire EU system or similar entities are seen as one solitary actor will face problems with explaining the agency of such organizations. This core problem is also reproduced in less system-oriented studies of concrete institutions as global actors.

In fact, most of the previously outlined studies of networks and elites attempt implicitly or explicitly to challenge institutionalist approaches to global actors on the grounds that they confuse the formal existence of institutions with their actual impact. As follows from the discussion of other global actors above, institutions are themselves composed of different elite professionals and consequently driven by competing normative perspectives on the ideal role of the institution itself.

Additionally, institutions are hardly sealed-off entities that develop through their own unique dynamics. They are situated in larger spaces in which other global actors, such as transnational networks, contentiously co-define their role in a competitive process driven by different forms of expertise.

Importantly, however, the fact that an institution can be disaggregated into different stakeholders and must be contextualized among its constituents in a wider field does not imply that institutions do not have distinct impact as global actors. On the contrary, the formal legal personality of institutions gives them a presence that has political and social ramifications: As such institutions themselves become, in the definition of this article, global actors whose very presence on the international scene are central to understanding how global spaces of politics, law, and economy were created and have transformed, as well as how they work.

This is reflected in the literature where analyses of institutions have been among the most dominant approaches across different fields of scholarship. While the theoretical foundation of these approaches vary, resulting in different perspectives on institutions as global actors, a number of highly influential studies, particularly in international relations IR but also in other disciplines such as law, have taken these entities as their starting point.

Approaches to institutions as global actors can roughly be divided into three categories. These approaches have been formed around classical IR positions of functionalism and realism as well as historical institutionalism. In what follows, we present each of these three perspectives and their relationships. As part of the critique of each perspective, in each subsection we will use the example of the International Criminal Court to demonstrate how each perspective yields very different insights on institutions as global actors and consequently gives rise to various forms of contestation from other studies of global actors such as those discussed in the preceding sections.

Functionalist studies have been prominent as explanatory models for the birth and development of international institutions and, at a later stage, as to explain their role as global actors.

In international relations, this perspective was developed in the aftermath of the Second World War by, among others, David Mitrany, who saw the emergence of a world federation as a function of the development of strong independent states for whom the development of new forms of cooperation simply made sense Mitrany, Building theoretically, although not always explicitly, on perspectives spearheaded by Talcott Parsons , functionalism aims to understand the impact of institutions as social systems with established sets of rules, forms of knowledge and preferred patterns of action through which they strive to influence the environment in which they are situated, normatively as well as practically.

In this perspective, the EU institutions, for instance, have been analyzed as a global actor through the activities they engage in. Functionalism has been criticized, not least by its theoretical counterweight organized around realism, for being overly proscriptive and normative in its analyses of institutions as global actors as tied to the official doctrine and concrete output, whether political, legal, or economic, produced by these entities.

Despite this criticism, functionalist perspectives have remained a strong undercurrent in the scholarship. Outside of IR studies, this is the case not least in legal scholarship of institutions as global actors, most often international courts. This scholarship is often doubly functionalist: This perspective is often mirrored in the position these scholars hold in the wider field. An emblematic example of such actors is Antonio Cassese, an eminent scholar of international law who became the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ICTY in Cassese, Although the larger political space in which this court was founded has also been included in analyses Schabas, , functionalist perspectives have become an ingrained part of the founding mythology of the ICC.

However, from the perspective of elite studies, as well as analyses of the networks active in this process, it is clear that this mythology was in fact a collective construction of the many forces that invested in international criminal law from the mids. In contrast, these studies—which build on realist and neo-realist theories most often associated with IR theory Keohane, —see institutions as global actors, but reverse the perspective found in functionalism to situate them in a context defined particularly by the dominant actors in world affairs, including nation states and powerful international organizations such as NATO.

As a result, the agency of institutions is constricted to the space left open and essentially defined by politics Shapiro, This does not leave much wiggle room for institutions as global actors as international contexts, in this perspective, are most often dominated by the power relations of raw politics as inscribed, for instance, in interstate relations. The cornerstone of realist approaches remains how the relative power balance between self-interested and antagonistic actors functions as a determining factor for what role these institutions can play as global actors. Returning to the example of the ICC, realist scholars have pointed out how this new global actor remains defined by its political context.

This context is characterized by national states that have remained skeptical towards the ICC, most prominently the US, which signed but later rescind the Rome Statute Bosco, In this wider context, realist studies have seen the ICC itself as an institution whose very design and consequently potential impact as a global actor is structured by international politics as driven by the strongest states Roach, They have moreover examined the much wider constituency of stakeholders in ICC, an example being the recent pushback against the ICC from African states Hansen, Although few would deny that the political dimension is a strong structuring factor in the life and potential impact of institutions on the global scene, the neo-realist approach has been criticized for not being able to adequately capture the more subtle but potentially hugely influential strategies devised by these global actors and the networks that opposed them Clarke, Similar dynamics have also been pointed out in the case of the Yugoslav tribunal in which realist approaches Bass, ; Hazan, related to analyzing the emergence of these institutions might have outlined the political playing field for this court, but could not capture the subtle mechanisms through which this institution eventually secured cooperation on a global scene of politics and thus paved the way for the creation of new and original case law Peskin, In contrast to both formalism and different forms of neo-realism, historical institutionalism builds on the development of institutions themselves.

This perspective is not completely unrelated to either formalism of realism and in fact incorporates elements of both, namely how political space formats institutions and how institutions themselves co-create their boundaries by following their own internal logic. To explain the development of this logic, the institution is studied in a wider field in which its foundational dynamics helps define how it evolves, something that is also referred to as path dependency.

In other words, the path dependency of institutions is shaped by their political mandate, as well as by the organizational formats, normative preferences, and professional balances inscribed in them. For historical institutionalism an important insight is that institutions do not just develop in isolation from other institutions. The explanatory model of institutional isomorphism that situates institutions in wider fields has also formed the basis for analyzing the creation of new international institutions and their development. Building on a perspective that situates individual institutions in a larger organizational field, these studies are related to other social science approaches that focus on the relations between stakeholders, such as in transnational elite studies inspired by Bourdieu Madsen, However, in contrast to these studies, in which elites and other social groups form the empirical core, historical institutionalism hinges analytically on the relations between institutions and their environment.

To understand the contribution of these scholars, we once again return briefly to the ICC in what will also serve to conclude this article on institutions as global actors. Although the emergence of a specific world culture around the ICC is perhaps debatable, scholars focusing on social movements have pointed to the wider field of stakeholders as an explanatory framework for understanding how the core crimes dealt with by this court were catapulted onto the international agenda Glasius, As this scholarship has further demonstrated, these groups formed an integral part of the social and professional DNA of institutions and helped guide their direction as global actors.

Institutions are composite entities whose concrete agency is crisscrossed with that of networks and elites that are formed around institutions. Due to their formal status and political mandate, the material status of elites is also tied to access to institutions and institutional power. As such, institutions are always both a result of the practices of other forms of agency and pivotal agents themselves, as they mediate access to symbolic and material status that can be reinvested on the global stage through the very technologies embedded in institutions.

Far from all institutions, even highly internationalized ones, are able to wield power as global actors. However, as vehicles of material and symbolic power, institutions form an important element of global regulation and politics alongside the networks and elites also engaged in these spaces. With the emergence of contemporary globalization, often used as a very broad term denoting a broad variety of different phenomena, a new set of global or transnational actors developed. Precisely the study of these global actors enables analyses of the actual networks, elites, and institutions that drive globalization.

Any investigation of the processes and practices that constitute this global space will come across the actors involved in defining them. As such, studying networks, elites, and institutions also provides a look into the very engines that drive globalization. Through their different and often conflicting perspectives on what the global is supposed to entail, the global itself becomes a contentious space in which different actors champion their own ideas and ideals.

The different studies of networks, elites, and institutions as global actors have contributed unique insights into the internationalized spaces of politics, law, and economy, to name only the most obvious, which emerged with the globalizing processes that gained momentum in the s. Outside of these contributions, the specific approaches involved in the study of global agents collectively demonstrate how these agents are constantly intermingled. One theoretical insight to be gained from this is that the global itself is composed of and driven by different forms of actors: Different forms of scholarship have crafted perspectives that are theoretically able to capture the concurrent streams of actors that collectively shape global spaces of politics, law, and economy.

One is different forms of systems theory inspired by functionalism that aim to capture the global as composed of different systems Teubner, ; Thornhill, These perspectives, however, underplay the importance and impact of global actors. Focusing on the system as an entity, agency all but disappears.

Competing perspectives that can capture the role of different global actors as well as the space that binds them together have been developed around the notion of social fields inspired by Bourdieu. In very different forms related to the study elites as well as institutions this concept has helped scholars situate global actors in relation to the space they are trying to influence. While these studies have focused on different forms of global actors as investigated in this article, the success of their perspective depends being able to capture how power and authority are constructed by and through a nexus of networks, elites, and institutions.

Ultimately, these global actors operate in the same space and the relation between them is pivotal for understanding the form and impact of the global processes they cooperate and compete to define. How context shapes the authority of international courts. A model of international judicial administration? The evolution of managerial practices at the International Criminal Court. Law and Contemporary Problems, 76 3—4 , — Stay the hand of vengeance: The politics of war crimes tribunals. Toward a new critical theory with a cosmopolitan intent.

Constellations, 10 4 , — The International Criminal Court in a world of power politics. Elite schools in the field of power. The European Union as a global actor. The rise of the network society: Economy, society and culture , Vol.

Mikael Rask Madsen and Mikkel Jarle Christensen

The Power of Identity: This Plan calls for methods which will reach the widest number of individuals most effectively, such as the use of the mass media, the training of trainers, the mobilization of popular movements and the possibility of establishing a world-wide television and radio network under the auspices of the United Nations.

Objectives The Plan strives to: Special efforts should be made to ensure that this information reaches young people; assist learners to understand the connections between economic conditions and access to rights and encourage educators to support strategies for change that are non-violent and democratic; increase the awareness of educators in all sectors and at all levels of the benefits of co-operation and co-ordination through networking and to assist them in building human rights education networks; encourage governments and the international community to provide and foster a culture of peace based on human rights; make human rights and the national, regional and international instruments that guarantee such rights more widely known.

Main lines of action The ultimate purpose of the Plan is to create a culture of human rights and to develop democratic societies that enable individuals and groups to solve their disagreements and conflicts by the use of non-violent methods. The challenge of making education for human rights and democracy effective and comprehensive world-wide will require: This can be done by practising the principle of equality and by developing participatory and inclusive learning contexts and curricula in response to the real needs of people.

Educational processes and methodologies must be models for what the plan wishes to achieve in society as a whole. It is also imperative that learning programmes include approaches which assist people to understand and analyse their relations with power as well as with leadership styles and abuses; the development of pedagogic research into the various aspects of education for human rights and democracy, taking account especially of present changes; the systematic revision of school textbooks with a view to eliminating xenophobic, racist, sexist and other stereotypes; the building of practical relationships or networks among individuals, educators, groups and institutions in particular through meetings and bilateral and multilateral collaboration; the strengthening of the commitment to identify and increase resources for education for human rights and democracy at national, regional and international levels.

It is essential that the action of NGOs is not impeded; special attention should be given to the design of cost-effective and sustainable educational programmes; a global commitment to increase resources for education for human rights and democracy as well as earmarking funds in development projects for this purpose. Levels of action The following levels of action should be emphasized: Teaching human lights and democracy in the curricula at all levels of the school system Aims: To build an integral and broad-based curriculum that is both pervasive across subject disciplines and taught as a separate subject so that human rights and democracy education is dealt with repeatedly throughout a person's basic education.

The theme of rights, responsibilities and democratic processes should also be woven into all or most topics of study and included in the values aimed at in school life and in the process of socialization. The focus should be on: Education for human rights and democracy in a non-formal setting Aims: To involve groups of adults and young people, including those not attending school, in out-of school education, through their families, their professional associations, work places, institutions, groupings, etc.

Programmes will aim at increasing the awareness of individuals in both formal and informal groups to their rights and to their responsibilities and to their full participation throughout society. Special attention will be given to reach all women whatever their current level of participation in public life. To achieve this aim, education for human rights and democracy will take place in specific settings and focus on certain groups including: Education for human rights and democracy in specific contexts and difficult situations Aims: To direct efforts to provide appropriate information and education to people in difficult situations where their rights are endangered.

In addition to the proposed objectives 1 and 2 above, attention should be paid to vulnerable groups as well as to potential and actual violators with a view to preventing abuse and to protecting the victims. The level of intervention for this education and protection will depend on: The type of situation, such as: The needs of specific groups, such as: It is to be noted that the early adoption of the United Nations draft declaration relating to the rights and responsibilities of individuals and organs of society to promote and protect human rights would be a major contribution to the implementation of this aspect of the Plan.

Research, information and documentation Given the essential role of research, information and documentation for the implementation of the Plan of Action and the United Nations Public Information Campaign for Human Rights, a major effort should be directed towards diversifying information resources, documentation and teaching and learning materials directed to meet the practical needs of teaching and training at different levels and for different audiences. It is equally important to strengthen existing national, regional and international information networks, to help build new ones where necessary and also to encourage the creation of local information and documentation centres so that suitable materials are collected and skills developed in gathering information and documentation through: Means would have to be found to ensure the availability of such material in local languages; support for research based on a global view of human rights, taking into account the close interdependence between human rights, development, democracy and environment.

The role of UNESCO is of particular importance in enhancing the quality of publications in the area of human rights education and for the best use and distribution of information, documentation and materials. Democracy is a universally recognized ideal and is one of the core values and principles of the United Nations. It provides an environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights.

Democracy has emerged as a cross-cutting issue in the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits since the s and in the internationally agreed development goals they produced. At that summit governments renewed their commitment to support democracy and welcomed the establishment of a Democracy Fund at the United Nations. The UN supports women's political participation, including efforts to increase the share of women elected into office and to build women's capacity as effective legislators once elected.

On 8 November , the General Assembly proclaimed 15 September as the International Day of Democracy , inviting Member States, the United Nations system and other regional, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to commemorate the Day. The International Day of Democracy provides an opportunity to review the state of democracy in the world.

Democracy is as much a process as a goal, and only with the full participation of and support by the international community, national governing bodies, civil society and individuals, can the ideal of democracy be made into a reality to be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. This was hardly surprising. In , still more than today, many of the UN's Member States did not espouse democracy as a system. Others laid claim to it but did not practise it. And yet, in the seven decades since the Charter was signed, the UN as an institution has done more to support and strengthen democracy around the world than any other global organization -- from fostering good governance to monitoring elections, from supporting civil society to strengthening democratic institutions and accountability, from ensuring self-determination in decolonized countries to assisting the drafting of new constitutions in nations post-conflict.

This brings home the fact that democracy is one of the universal and indivisible core values and principles of the United Nations. It is based on the freely expressed will of people and closely linked to the rule of law and exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms. People have a say in decisions that affect their lives and can hold decision-makers to account, based on inclusive and fair rules, institutions and practices that govern social interactions.

Women are equal partners with men in private and public spheres of life and decision-making, and all people are free from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender or any other attribute. In essence, therefore, democratic governance is the process of creating and sustaining an environment for inclusive and responsive political processes and settlements. It is also important to note that the United Nations does not advocate for a specific model of government, but promotes democratic governance as a set of values and principles that should be followed for greater participation, equality, security and human development.

The Secretary-General tasked the Democracy Working Group of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security — established in May — to ensure regular follow-up on the issue of democracy and, more specifically, on strategy development. Since its adoption, the Declaration has inspired constitution-making around the world and has contributed greatly to the global acceptance of democracy as a universal value and principle.

The Covenant is binding on those States that have ratified it.

International Politics of Human Rights

As of July , the number of parties to the Covenant was , which constitutes approximately 85 per cent of the United Nations membership. The political work of the United Nations requires that it promote democratic outcomes; the development agencies seek to bolster national institutions like parliaments, electoral commissions and legal systems that form the bedrock of any democracy; and the human rights efforts support freedom of expression and association, the right to peaceful assembly, participation, and the rule of law, all of which are critical components of democracy.

They resolved to strive for the full protection and promotion in all countries of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights for all and to strengthen the capacity of all countries to implement the principles and practices of democracy and respect for human rights. The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy.

In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights. This led to the articulation of several landmark resolutions of the former Commission on Human Rights. Since its establishment in , the Human Rights Council successor to the Commission has adopted a number of resolutions highlighting the interdependent and mutually reinforcing relationship between democracy and human rights.

Democracy deficits, weak institutions and poor governance are among the main challenges to the effective realization of human rights. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights OHCHR and the United Nations Development Programme UNDP seek to address these challenges through their advisory services and programmes, which focus on strengthening the legal framework for human rights protection and promotion institutional and legal reform ; capacity building for stronger national human rights systems; implementation of the Universal Periodic Review recommendations, promoting human rights-based approaches, including empowering vulnerable and disadvantaged segments of the society to claim their rights; advocacy, awareness raising and human rights education.

In transitional democracies and countries emerging from conflicts, OHCHR collaborates with national governments and actors to build a strong and independent judiciary, a representative, efficient and accountable parliament, an independent and effective national human rights institution, and a vibrant civil society.

Democratic governance, as supported by the United Nations emphasizes the role of individuals and peoples — all of them, without any exclusion — in shaping their human growth and the human development of societies. But individuals can only make such contributions when their individual potential is unleashed through the enjoyment of human rights. UNDP supports one in three parliaments in the developing world and an election every two weeks. In , UNDP programmes strengthened electoral processes around the world and helped register 18 million new voters. UNDP also works to foster partnerships and share ways to promote participation, accountability and effectiveness at all levels, aiming to build effective and capable states that are accountable and transparent, inclusive and responsive — from elections to participation of women and the poor.

OHCHR promotes democratic governance by providing sustained support to democratic institutions, including national actors and institutions involved in the administration of justice; enhancing the capacity of parliamentarians to engage in human rights protection, supporting civil society, facilitating constitution-making, and conducting human rights monitoring in the context of electoral processes.

Popular uprisings across the world were led by youth, women, and men from all social strata and are opening greater space for civic engagement in decision making. These events have reaffirmed the pivotal importance of democratic governance as a system premised on inclusion, participation, non-discrimination and accountability. In transitional democracies and countries emerging from conflict, OHCHR collaborates with national governments and other actors to confront the past in order to rebuild public confidence and restore peace and the rule of law.

OHCHR has actively supported transitional justice programmes in more than 20 countries around the world over the past decade. Its support includes ensuring that human rights and transitional justice considerations are reflected in peace agreements; engaging in the design and implementation of inclusive national consultations on transitional justice mechanisms; supporting the establishment of truth-seeking processes, judicial accountability mechanisms, and reparations programmes; and enhancing institutional reform.

The Council called upon States to make continuous efforts to strengthen the rule of law and promote democracy through a wide range of measures. Further to this resolution, OHCHR, in consultation with States, national human rights institutions, civil society, relevant intergovernmental bodies and international organizations, published a study on challenges, lessons learned and best practices in securing democracy and the rule of law from a human rights perspective. OHCHR also works to underline the close relationship between human rights and democracy within the United Nations system.

The round table discussed democracy movements and their characteristics in a number of States, including those involved in the Arab Spring. It underlined the importance of working with regional and sub-regional organizations when dealing with unconstitutional changes of Government, and when promoting democratic movements and democracies more generally. The spread of democracy around the world is one of the most significant achievements of our times.

Elections sit at the heart of this, making possible the act of self-determination envisaged in the Charter of the United Nations. During the subsequent era of trusteeship and decolonization, it supervised and observed plebiscites, referenda and elections worldwide. Today, the United Nations continues to be a trusted impartial actor providing electoral assistance to approximately 60 countries each year, either at the request of Member States or based on a Security Council or General Assembly mandate.

Electoral assistance is based on the principle established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the will of the people, as expressed through periodic and genuine elections, shall be the basis of government authority.

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Electoral assistance also recognizes the principles of state sovereignty and national ownership of elections, and that there is no single model of democracy. The main goal of United Nations electoral assistance is to support Member States in holding periodic, inclusive and transparent elections that are credible and popularly perceived as such and establishing nationally sustainable electoral processes.

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