Human Rights, Democracy, and Development

I. Introduction

In the past decade, development, democracy, and human rights have become hegemonic political ideals. Regimes that do not at least claim to pursue rapid and sustained economic growth (“development”), popular political participation (“democracy”), and respect for the rights of their citizens (“human rights”) ¹ place their national and international legitimacy at risk. ² Without denying important practical and theoretical linkages, this article focuses on tensions between the logics of human rights, democracy, and development. In doing so, this article challenges the comfortable contemporary assumption that, as the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (adopted by the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights) put it, “[d]emocracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing.” ³

II. The Contemporary Language of Legitimacy

The link between a regime’s ability to foster development (prosperity) and the public’s perception of the regime’s legitimacy is close to a universal, cross-cultural political law. Whatever a ruling regime’s sociological and ideological bases, its sustained or severe inability to deliver prosperity, however that may be understood locally, typically leads to serious political challenge.

The ability to ensure democracy has much less regularly been a ground for determining a regime’s legitimacy. Most polities throughout history have rested authority on a divine grant, natural order, or tradition that legitimated hierarchical rule by those with superior virtue (defined by birth, age, wealth, skill, or power). For the past half century, however, most regimes have appealed to bottom-up authorization from “the people” rather than a “higher” source.

The idea that a government’s legitimacy is a function of the extent to which it implements and defends the natural or human rights of its citizens received its first major international endorsement in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ⁴ Since the 1970s, human rights has been a regular, if controversial, issue in bilateral and multilateral politics. In the past decade, human rights has joined democracy and development to complete a triumvirate of factors that indicate a government’s legitimacy, or lack thereof.

Democracy, development, and human rights have important conceptual and practical affinities. Most obviously, international human rights norms require democratic government. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration states that “[t]he will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.” ⁵ Democracy, although not strictly necessary for development, especially in the short and medium run, may restrict predatory misrule that undermines development. In addition, civil and political rights, by providing accountability and transparency, can help to channel economic growth into national development rather than private enrichment. The redistributions required by economic and social rights similarly seek to assure that prosperity is diffused throughout society, rather than concentrated in a tiny elite. Conversely, those living on the economic edge or with no realistic prospect of a better life for their children are much less likely to be willing to accommodate the interests and rights of others.

Interdependence, even synergy, between human rights, democracy, and development is both possible and desirable. However, realizing such affinities is largely a contingent matter of context and institutional design; it is not automatic or inevitable. For example, the people often want to do extremely nasty things to (some of) their “fellow” citizens. Vast inequalities in countries such as Brazil and the United States underscore the central role of politics in translating “development” (aggregate national prosperity) into the enjoyment of internationally recognized economic and social rights. Countries such as South Korea and Taiwan, not to mention most of Western Europe in the nineteenth century, suggest that development can be sustained for decades despite the systematic denial of civil and political rights.

Twenty-five years ago, most states justified routine violations of human rights not only by appealing to national security (as opposed to personal security) and cultural relativism (as opposed to universal human rights) but also by appealing to the “higher” imperatives of development and democracy (as opposed to the interests of particular individuals and groups). By contrast, in post-Cold War international society, arguments of interdependence are the norm. For example, a recent United...