Christopher Hobson

Democracy as Civilisation

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy has come to embody the very idea of legitimate statehood in international politics. It has done so largely through defining a new standard of civilisation, in which “democraticness” determines the limits of international society and helps to construct relations with non-democracies “beyond the pale”. Like the “classical” standard, this new version again reflects a considerable interest in the socio-political organisation of states. Central in this shift back to a more “anti-pluralist” international society has been the democratic peace thesis, which emphasises how the internal (democratic) characteristics of states influence their external behaviour. Against more optimistic interpretations, it is argued that the democratic peace is a distinctly Janus-faced creature: promoting peace between democracies, while potentially encouraging war against non-democratic others. Within the democratic peace, non-democracies become not just behaviourally threatening but also ontologically threatening. Non-democracies are a danger because of what they are (or are not). In sum, the argument presented is that democracy, positioned as the most legitimate form of domestic governance in international society, has become caught up and used in global structures of domination, hierarchy and violence. Thus, the role of “democracy” in international politics is much more complicated, and, at least in its current guise, less progressive than often portrayed.

The conceptual politics of democracy promotion

European Research Council, Political Economies of Democratisation, ERC grant number 202 596.

Liberal Democracy and Beyond: Extending the Sequencing Debate

The extreme optimism that shaped the nascent democracy promotion community in the 1980s and early 1990s has been strongly tempered by an increasing number of setbacks to the global expansion of democracy. Zakaria’s influential ‘illiberal democracies’ argument was an early example of this trend towards a more uncertain outlook about democracy’s prospects. His argument was useful in focusing attention on the conceptual underpinnings of these practices. Despite the promising starting point, Zakaria reached limited and conservative conclusions, essentially calling for the revival of a Whig approach: liberalism first, democracy later. Furthermore, his conceptual analysis was overly restricted: democracies are liberal or they are illiberal. This article challenges, revises, and extends Zakaria’s arguments, by examining alternative models of democracy that lie both within and beyond liberalism. It is argued that in contrast to Zakaria’s suggestion that democracy promotion may need to be delayed or deferred, considering different democratic models offers a more optimistic prognosis, as the way forward is not through abandoning the support of democracy, but, instead, potentially through advancing a different form of democracy, one more suitable to a precise local context.

Towards a Critical Theory of Democratic Peace

The Democratic Peace research programme remains a prominent and influential strand of International Relations theory. It occupies a central place in the discipline, both as a dominant version of liberal internationalism, and as a supposedly paradigmatic case demonstrating the strengths of positivist scholarship. Nonetheless, Democratic Peace scholarship has been challenged by recent real world events, notably the belligerent behaviour of democratic states during the so-called ‘War on Terror’, and the use of its findings to justify the US led invasion of Iraq. In this regard, Democratic Peace research has struggled to deal with the ethical and practical consequences of its work, as the focus has been on empirically observable and testable problems that fit within the remit of positivist social scientific practice. Responding to this state of affairs, it is argued here that there is a pressing need to further extend and pluralise existing scholarship by incorporating approaches which commence from different ontological, epistemological and methodological starting points. While there are multiple possibilities, Frankfurt School Critical Theory has great potential to contribute to an expanded research agenda. The article outlines what a Critical Theory approach to the study of Democratic Peace would entail, highlighting the substantial contribution it can make.

Addressing climate change and promoting democracy abroad: compatible agendas?

This inquiry focuses on how climate change might intervene with the democracy support agenda. On first glance it may seem unusual to combine these issues, but as will be shown, they are increasingly impinging upon each other. The inquiry considers how climate change raises questions for all the major components of democracy promotion: the end itself, the means used to support democratization, and the actors involved. In regards to the ends of democracy assistance, if democracies fail to adequately respond to global warming, the desirability of this form of rule could be weakened, especially if China is perceived as representing an attractive alternative. In terms of means, environmental disasters could directly impact upon democratization projects that are instituted, as well as worsening ‘donor fatigue’. As for the actors involved, the moral authority of industrialized democracies is likely to be questioned due to their historical culpability and present failure in making serious progress in reducing emissions. By examining these issues together it can be seen that climate change could pose an increasingly significant challenge to the democracy promotion agenda.

The Limits of Liberal-Democracy Promotion

One of the few unambiguously positive outcomes of the George W. Bush years is a greater interest in the practice of democracy promotion. However, the expansion of scholarship in this area has not been matched by an equal expansion in its scope. There continues to be an overwhelming tendency to focus exclusively on empirical case studies and policy prescriptions, usually informed by a set of unstated liberal assumptions. Nothing is necessarily wrong with this per se. The problem stems from the lack of attention directed toward the larger theoretical and conceptual frameworks that inform and shape these practices. Responding to this state of affairs, this article examines the way certain theoretical tendencies and commitments have helped give rise to many problematic aspects of liberal democracy promotion. It is necessary to challenge the restrictive framework that currently dominates. It is argued that to do so entails rethinking, extending, and pluralizing the way democracy itself is conceived.

A forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East: US democracy promotion and the ‘war on terror’

Following the 11 September terrorist attacks, a belief has emerged that one of the root causes of Islamic extremism lies in the repressive nature of the regimes that populate the Middle East. Thus the spread of democracy has become a major component of the Bush administrations ‘war on terror’ Previously dismissed as Wilsonian idealism, the promotion of democracy is now considered a strategic necessity to address the threat posed by terrorism. Despite the significant role democracy promotion has played in the present foreign policy of the United States, the focus has tended to be on the more controversial policies of preventive warfare and coalitions of the willing. The purpose of this article is to help rectify this imbalance by examining the role the promotion of democracy plays within the current administrations foreign policy in the Middle East. It considers the logic behind Americas ‘forward strategy of freedom’ in the Middle East as well as the likelihood of this strategy succeeding.

Human security and Japan's triple disaster: Responding to the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis

1. Human Security Comes Home: Responding to Japans Triple Disaster Paul Bacon and Christopher Hobson 2. The Politics of Human Security in Japan Paul Bacon 3. Mismanaging Risk and the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Jeff Kingston 4. Hidden Insecurities: The Workers of Fukushima Dai-ichi Christopher Hobson 5. Human Security as a Military Security Left-Over, or as Part of the Human Condition? Paul James 6. Human Security and Life Recover: Lessons from the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and the 2011 Triple Disaster Mayumi Sakamoto 7. Towards a People-centred Housing Recover after the Triple Disaster Elizabeth Maly 8. An Ageing Society and Post-Disaster Community Security Junko Otani 9. Post-disaster Recovery and the Cultural Dimension of Human Security Akiko Fukushima 10. What Role for Nuclear Power in Japan after Fukushima? A Human Security Perspective Paul Bacon and Mai Sato 11. Towards Human Security: Climate Change and the Military Role in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response Andrew DeWit 12. Life after the Triple Disaster: Human Security and the Future Christopher HobsonThis chapter brings a human security lens to bear on the energy-mix question in post-Fukushima Japan. In particular, two of the four elements of human security identified in the 1994 Human Development Report (HDR), prevention and people-centeredness, are mobilized. We trace developments in Japan’s post-Fukushima nuclear politics through the demise of DPJ rule to the advent of the LDP government, and evaluate the current nuclear energy strategy of the Abe administration. Using a human security framework, we consider the economic security dimension of the arguments for and against the use of nuclear power, and weigh the result of this consideration against a concern with the six other elements of human security identified in the 1994 HDR. We conclude that the risks and threats to human security engendered by the use of nuclear energy outweigh any benefits that could reasonably be argued to accrue from its use. The notion of prevention, so central to the concept of human security, performs a further ‘trumping’ function, in leading us to put a premium on the downside risk of the use of nuclear energy.

Introduction: The conceptual politics of democracy promotion

European Research Council, Political Economies of Democratisation, ERC grant number 202 596.

Democracy, democratization and the death penalty

One of the most significant global trends of the last few decades has been the movement towards ending the death penalty. Describing this as the ‘age of abolition,’ Garland observes that, ‘what was once an unproblematic institution, universally embraced, is fast becoming a violation of human rights, universally prohibited’. 1 This surge towards de facto and de jure abolition has approximately coincided with the worldwide shift towards democracy, inaugurated by the ‘third wave’ of democratization. 2 The significant overlap in the timing of these two global movements has led many scholars to conclude that democratization has had a positive impact on the abolitionist cause. 3 Despite glaring counter-examples – most notably the United States – abolitionists regularly argue that the death penalty contradicts basic democratic principles. From this perspective, it is perhaps not so surprising that democratization has often been accompanied by partial or full abolition. Within the death penalty literature this correlation is taken as relatively robust. Notably, Neumayer has argued that the global trend towards abolition has been driven primarily by political factors, with