The Current Column

Are democracies in the “Global North” capable of learning?

Mutual learning to rethink democracy promotion

Nowack, Daniel
The Current Column (2024)

Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), The Current Column of 11 November 2024

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Bonn, 11 November 2024. The US presidential election on 5 November was the final act in the ‘super election year’ 2024. Although there are still more elections to come, none of them will have the same far-reaching significance as this one. Donald Trump‘s election victory throws a dark shadow over a super election year that many observers up until that point had viewed as being more positive for the global state of democracy than had been feared at the start of the year. In many earlier elections across the globe, voter turnout was comparatively high, manipulations failed to have an impact and citizens held their governments accountable.

Now, however, the citizens of the world’s hitherto leading democracy have elected an anti-democratic populist to office for the second time. The fact that this was able to happen, despite Donald Trump making no attempt to conceal his dictatorial ambitions in the run-up to the election, shows how deep the crisis of liberal democracy has become in countries of the “Global North”. Irreconcilable social polarisation and inequality, disinformation, a low level of civic education and a disenchantment with politics are engendering indifference towards the survival of democratic institutions; they are even leading to a fascination with authoritarian rule and to a delight in the wanton destruction of democracy. The United States is no exception here; it is in fact a prime example of similar developments in other democracies of the “Global North”.

A twofold challenge for democracy promotion

The crisis of democracy in the “Global North” is not only damaging the Western idea of liberal democracy itself. It is also exacerbating a twofold structural challenge for the international promotion of democracy. Firstly, it is undermining the “Global North’s” legitimacy to disseminate liberal democracy as a political model throughout the world – a legitimacy that is in any case acutely fragile. Survey data show that citizens in African countries are divided on democratic conditionality in development cooperation. Research also suggests that citizens in recipient countries prefer development cooperation projects in other sectors over democracy assistance-projects. Secondly, the crisis in liberal democracy highlights the fact that democracies in the “Global North” need democracy promotion themselves – the doctor has become the patient, so to speak.

A way out: rethinking democracy promotion

One way of addressing this twofold challenge is to infuse international democracy promotion with more joint planning and dialogue through practices of mutual learning. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we think and do democracy promotion to efface the boundaries between ‘the domestic and the foreign‘ and between ‘the Global South and the Global North’. The concept of mutual learning is not new in development cooperation. It stems from South-South cooperation but has increasingly come to include South-North learning in discourse and practice. Practical examples are often only found outside traditional cooperation structures, however, usually at municipal level, for instance in city twinning arrangements.

Mutual democratic learning could be implemented in democracy promotion by developing, setting up and implementing an intervention such as a deliberative citizens’ assembly jointly both in the “Global North” and in the partner country in the “Global South”. This would give the “Global South” more say in implementing and designing democracy promotion. By adding non-Western concepts, it would also revitalize the marketplace of ideas as to how to shape democracy and would boost the legitimacy of democracy promotion. It would enable countries of the “Global North” to familiarise themselves with innovative democratic processes and democracy variants, and to try them out – after all, democracy is a constantly evolving idea. Even though mutual learning needs new structures and mandate reforms, the potential is obvious. Together, the “Global South” and the “Global North” could find innovative ways to further develop democracy in its functioning as a political order.

Historical examples of South-North learning in the participatory dimension of democracy also show that the “Global North” can learn from the “Global South”. The first participatory budgeting initiatives were introduced at the end of the 1980s in Brazil, for example. Since then, this form of political participation has spread throughout the world: up to and including 2020, there were around 14,000 participatory budgeting processes, many of them in the “Global North”. Other democratic innovations that are currently becoming more widespread also find similar preceding institutional arrangements that already existed in the “Global South”.

The rise of illiberalism and authoritarianism is challenging democratic societies around the globe. Adopting and implementing mutual learning approaches can offer an opportunity for international democracy promotion to protect and strengthen democracy in both the “Global South” and the “Global North” – by helping to explore future variants of democracy that counter democratic fatigue and help overcome the fascination with authoritarianism.