Wider boost for Biden’s global democracy promotion agenda

US President Joe Biden has taken criticism for making “revitalising democracy the world over” a key goal of his administration. Yet this agenda may be taking stronger root across much of the West and beyond, including with business, and will outlive his administration, whether it ends in 2025 or 2029.

One example of the appeal of this message will be seen this week with the seventh annual Copenhagen Democracy Summit. This global event – the brainchild of former Nato secretary general and ex-Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen – will see keynote speakers from Asia-Pacific to the Americas.

These include European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen; European Council president Charles Michel; former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton; Republican US Senate leader Mitch McConnell; Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen and president-elect Lai Ching-te. But it will not just be politicians and activists in attendance.

The prominent business figure among the speakers is Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. This corporate discussion comes amid new research findings from the Copenhagen summit – the Democracy Perception Index 2024 shows that, for the third year in a row, economic inequality is still perceived to be the top threat to democracy worldwide, followed by corruption, and the influence of global corporations.

Governments, however, are not seen in the research to be generally living up to the democratic expectations of their citizens: only a little more than half of the people polled are satisfied with the state of democracy in their country. This is apparent not only in non-democratic countries, but also in multiple Western countries with a long democratic tradition.

The United States itself is a good example of this with former president Donald Trump being on the ballot again for Republicans. Trump, still tarred by the Jan 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters, has said he would be a “dictator from day one” of a second term of office from 2025.

The consequences of that Capitol Hill debacle are not just important domestically, but also internationally as they undercut US credibility. During Trump’s presidency, US foes across the world from Venezuela to Iran and Russia relished the disorder in Washington. In particular, the Jan 6, 2021 debacle was watched with glee by nationalist-populists across the world who try to defy calls for respect for the rule of law and democratic norms.

Other think tanks such as the US-based Freedom House have also highlighted on a regular basis in recent years the hostile environment across the globe for democratic government. One of the key challenges, especially following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is growing concern about the rising influence of it and other authoritarian and/ or autocratic states.

Yet, there are some in the US and beyond who prefer Biden not to over-emphasise democracy-based political rhetoric. They argue, for instance, that these ideas have a sometimes simple, binary distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and can sit awkwardly in a fast-changing, complex world of ambiguity and uncertainty where there is frequent need to work with states lacking democratic traditions, but with shared interests with the US.

Some critics favour instead an international approach based more on classic, quantifiable national interests, arguing that other states, especially developing ones, might be more likely to aspire to emulate the US because of its material prosperity, rather than on democratic virtues.

The implication is that Biden’s agenda could be best delivered by putting significantly more emphasis on new economic reform and infrastructure packages in Africa, Asia and the Americas. This includes via signature new initiatives such as the G7-backed Build Back Better World initiative to practically demonstrate US intent on offering investment for low and middle-income countries.

Yet, important as this economic agenda is, it is not mutually incompatible with a democracy agenda. Indeed, the values-driven, high-standard, and transparent partnerships of schemes like Build Back Better World to narrow the developing world’s huge infrastructure funding challenge can reinforce Biden’s wider agenda.

Not least, there is recognition that a broad, multi-faceted approach is needed to ensure that freedom and democracy flourishes. Hence why Biden needs now to embed his agenda to make democracy “more responsive and resilient” in the remaining period of his presidency.

Biden’s assertion that “proving that democracy is durable and strong” is a central challenge of the age is highlighted by the 2018 book, How Democracies Die, by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. The core concept of this study is that democracies, in recent generations, haven’t generally collapsed at the hands of a military coup or a revolution but with a slow, steady weakening of critical institutions.

In this key election year, the growing boost behind democracy promotion across the world is to be welcomed. Support for this longstanding agenda is one that will outlast the Biden administration in what may be a long battle for ideas in international relations in the years ahead.

The writer is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics