Democracy in world politics

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Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General and Theories, grade: 1.0, The Australian National University, 0 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This text concerns itself with answering two central questions of the democratic principle in the current arena of world politics. The questions are: Is international politics ultimately all about power and interest, such that democracy should remain of marginal importance to international relations? And If democratic states are 'morally reliable', do we need democratisation of the international system itself, or can we just rely on coalitions of these 'reliable' states? The study of International Relations (IR) has long been concerned with Realpolitik, a form of political realism, which puts the self-help (military power) and survival (interest) motives of states at the centre of its inquiry to explain the structural realities of the anarchic international system, which is seen to exist under a constant threat of war. (Waltz, 1979) [Market] liberalism, on the other hand, opposes the realist tradition and aims for the emancipation of humanity. In the liberal tradition, the authority of democratic nations and the proliferation of free-markets are believed to need to extend to the international system, in order to bring about peace, security (Fukuyama, 1989) and happy consumers. The Neo-conservatives within the US administration seem to have embraced both realism and market liberalism and combined the two into a mesh that is hard to disentangle. Therefore, an obvious observation of the current era of US hegemony does indeed reaffirm that power and the interest of agencies in the international arena are prominent attributes of international politics. Powerful states, such as the US in Iraq, wage unilateral wars to secure their strategic interests and at the same time support market liberalism, while the biggest beneficiaries, multinational corporations (MNCs), smile broadly in the background. In this regard, it appears as if notions of democracy, power, and interest are not only juxtaposed, but are in fact feeding on each other, perpetuating but one form of democracy - that of market liberalism.