Internationale Politikanalyse Frieden und Sicherheit, Mai 2005 Michael Dauderstädt& Marika Lerch International Democracy Promotion: Patiently Redistributing Power T he promotion of democracy is enjoying something of a boom. Since the collapse of communism above all the US government’s reaction to the attacks of 11 September 2001 has given new impetus to this strat­egy. Of course, long-term approaches like the Ameri­can k~íáçå~ä=pÉÅìêáíó=píê~íÉÖó(White House 2002), which aim at global political and economic freedom, clash in the war against terror with short-term alliances with powers which do not share these goals in any way(for example, authoritarian regimes in allied Is­lamic countries). Nevertheless, democratisation remains a cornerstone of any strategy which seeks a reduction in violent conflicts in the world in the long run. Promotion of democracy or democratisation is diffi­cult. External actors’ possibilities as regards exerting an influence on political transition processes are limited, and there is no simple model of recipes, aims and in­struments to follow. The democratisation of previously authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes requires – to a very much greater extent than the implementation of human rights, which are frequently mentioned in the same breath as democracy promotion – a redistribu­tion and limitation of power, while the social, political and economic power structures in each country are different. At the same time, democratisation describes a process in which starting points and strategies must be constantly redefined and adapted, and tested for counterproductive effects. A systematic reappraisal of the instruments and possibilities of democracy promotion should therefore be carried out not íçéJÇçïå – that is, from the stand­point of the foreign-policy structures, instruments and aims of donor countries, which often have a tense rela­tionship with the power-political implications and the necessary costs of effective democracy promotion – but rather in terms of the experiences and knowledge of the democratisation process of the countries and regions concerned. From that no model of democracy promotion arises but rather a‘modular system’ whose elements must be chosen and combined always in ac­cordance with the individual case and in dialogue with the actors on the ground. The question of power dis­tribution and not only its institutional and ideological but also its socio-economic foundations is a more deci­sive and yet frequently neglected factor in this, which at the same time defines the starting points and the boundaries of external influence on democratisation processes. Democratisation: The Societal Foundations of Power Redistribution On analytical grounds democracy will here be defined rather narrowly as the legally constituted form of the state in which the state’s central power functions are occupied by representatives who have been freely and fairly elected at regular intervals from at least two competing parties by a majority of those entitled to vote. It therefore includes the two central mechanisms of competition and participation(Dahl 1971) which of course are variously mixed in contemporary(and his­torical) democracies. Competition implies above all the right to form political parties and press freedom, and participation the right to vote, electoral fairness and party access to public financing(Munck and Verkuilen 2002, p. 13). Democratisation Processes: Present Situation and History Democracy in its contemporary understanding is his­torically a relatively recent phenomenon. An important strand of global democratisation is the extension of participation rights to ever wider circles of the popula­tion and the establishment of further rights, including social rights(Marshall 1992; Tilly 2004). Early democ­racies(Greece, Rome, the Italian city-states, but also Great Britain and the USA in the eighteenth and nine­teenth centuries) were characterised by the limitation of democratic participation rights to property-owning male citizens who as a rule made up only a minority of the resident population of the relevant state.