For the countries of Central Asia, which are located in a geopolitically charged region, the issue of creating democracy is also of geopolitical importance. Political scientist Farhod Tolipov shares his thoughts on the results of the Summit for Democracy, specifically for CABAR.asia.
On December 9-10, at the initiative of US President Joe Biden, a virtual Summit for Democracy was held. A meeting with such a high-sounding name has become a unique phenomenon in modern world politics. In fact, the issue of democracy from domestic politics, one might say, completely entered the international arena, also acquiring a geopolitical dimension along the way. The Summit for Democracy was prompted by an interesting thesis voiced by Biden: “democracy is the best way to ensure the development of societies, and the last 50 years of freedom throughout the world have been steadily declining … Democracy is an action,” and inaction is not an option, it is necessary to renew democratic principles every generation. So, here we see a trinity of goals: 1) democracy is the best political system in the world; 2) it must be protected from the onset of autocracies; 3) democracy is not some kind of static state, but a continuous process of (self-) improvement and (self-) renewal. Thus, this meeting was both a message to the world community and a setting of a practical and global task.
Representatives of 110 countries, as well as non-governmental organizations, individual democratic leaders and activists were invited to the summit. Practically more than, so to speak, half of the world was covered by this summit. Despite the scale of the event, some observers, experts, and the media, as well as politicians began to talk about bias and unfairness in the choice of participants.
For example, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova expressed Moscow’s negative position in relation to the summit. “The United States will give the participants of the Summit for Democracy the “honorary right” to serve American interests,” she wrote on the Telegram channel. I wonder if Russia was invited as the 111th participant, would it also declare to serve American interests? And what does this service mean? Doesn’t this sound offensive to all the other participants who, according to this statement, are so irresponsible as to not notice that they are “playing to the tune” of the US?
And the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov himself assessed the summit as follows: “A course has been set to create new dividing lines in international affairs. This time in the context of the confrontation between a group of countries that imagine themselves to be the arbiters of the destinies of mankind, and other members of the world community.” He also stated that the purpose of this summit is “to divide people, countries into democratic and non-democratic.” Such a statement sounds in the style of the old principle: “creating the image of the enemy.” After all, the world is really divided into democratic and non-democratic. Can we not see a real, and not an imaginary, fundamental divergence between democracies and autocracies?
Lavrov, also mentioned that the idea of the US democratic summit raises many questions, including the question of why democracy in the American sense should be considered as the ideal form of society. He called this US initiative a “get-together” and one of Washington’s “most odious projects.” Two answers at once suggest themselves in this connection. Firstly, at the summit there was no talk at all about the American understanding of democracy, neither Biden, no one else spoke about it. Giving democracy an American identity is a gross distortion of the summit’s purpose. It ignores a very serious and openly declared goal – to discuss the idea of renewing democracy (if you wish, American democracy). Everything else is, apparently, speculation. Secondly, the “get-together” happens in a narrow circle (like the verdicts of the “troika”), but not at all in such a composition, when half the world is present. It is hardly possible to take seriously the thesis that 110 countries of the world will only listen to what Biden will say at the summit and completely agree with him on everything. Democracy is strong, among other things, precisely because it is based on the principle of pluralism, not single-mindedness.
Moreover, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin stated that “The summit for democracy organized by the United States provokes division and confrontation in the world, seriously damaging the unity and cooperation between countries.” In fact, as mentioned above, schism and confrontation have existed in the world for a long time, the world is far from unity. It is no coincidence that, apparently, the question arose of creating a new world order on democratic principles. Of course, this summit will not provide exhaustive answers to all questions related to the idea of strengthening and renewing democracy, but an attempt to create a symbolic alliance of democracies can become a harbinger of either a global ideological struggle between democracy and autocracy, or a global reform of the world system on a democratic basis. The first scenario may look more realistic, the second more illusory.
In both scenarios, we notice that democracy takes on a geopolitical dimension. It is noteworthy that criticism, bordering on indignation, about the summit was mainly expressed only by the big powers, and the small countries did not particularly position themselves in this matter. In fact, in such situations, we most often observe precisely, so to speak, a skirmish between the great powers, which other countries observe without much activism. Consequently, the geopolitization of the problem of democracy is nothing more than a continuation of the global rivalry of the great powers.
In due course, George Kennan, the author of the concept of deterrence, called for the United States, in its rivalry with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, to create a positive image of itself constantly and consistently as the most progressive and best political system and create more supporters and allies. An analogy with this now suggests itself in the sense of global rivalry (and not bilateral rivalry between the United States and the Russian Federation or the United States and the PRC) between democracy in general and autocracy in general.
In this context, for the countries of Central Asia, which are in a geopolitically charged region, the issue of creating democracy also has geopolitical significance. All former Soviet republics, including Russia, 30 years ago after gaining independence, proclaimed a democratic choice of their development path, in which they apparently succeeded to varying degrees. At the same time, well-known international organizations monitoring human rights and freedoms and the quality of democracy in the countries of the world, such as Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and others, in their annual reports put the countries of Central Asia in low ratings.
The Central Asian countries were not represented at the summit, and this is understandable. Their choice of an unambiguously democratic path of development dictates them in practice to develop a real democratic process. Surely, they do not share the resentment that comes from Russia or China about the summit for democracy. They are undoubtedly FOR democracy, but they are NOT democracy yet.
In October 2021, presidential elections were held in Uzbekistan. The existing loyal political parties again, as in the previous elections, played a game called “Presidential elections” and were unable to nominate worthy candidates or present strong alternative programs. There is no real opposition party in the country. Nevertheless, for all its artificiality, the “party struggle” is gradually generating a pluralistic environment and accustoming public opinion to more active participation in the country’s political life.
How quickly and confidently Uzbekistan will carry out democratic reforms will be shown by the second term as President Sh. Mirziyoyev. It must be admitted that there is also resistance to the reforms of the conservative forces. The situation is similar in other Central Asian countries. For these former Soviet republics, the question is not about resentment of the emerging alliance of democracy, but about becoming part of that alliance. However, as one can see, this is not just a normative issue, but a geopolitical one.
The Summit for Democracy coincided with the awarding of the Nobel Prize on December 10 to Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper. Here are some excerpts from his speech:
“The world has stopped loving democracy.
The world has become disillusioned with the ruling elites.
The world is drawn to dictatorship.
The people for the state or the state for the people? This is the main conflict today.”
As D. Muratov stated at the ceremony, journalism in Russia is going through dark times now. “Over the past few months, more than a hundred journalists, media, human rights activists and NGOs have received the status of “foreign agents”. In Russia they are “enemies of the people”. Many of our colleagues got unemployed. Someone is forced to leave the country…” What would M. Zakharova answer to this?
Regardless of the attitude towards the Summit for Democracy, it has become a sign of the times. Probably, sooner or later, the fundamental issue of the struggle between democracy and autocracy should have been openly raised on the international agenda. Some countries may be indignant, others will be participants, others will think, but the relevance of the problem is quite overdue.