BBC: As international broadcasters begin a season of films about the strengths and weaknesses of democracy - Why Democracy? - the BBC's Paul Reynolds looks at what it means today.
The triumph of democracy in the 20th Century was so great that it is curious that doubts have gathered around it today.
Its success can be judged by recalling the words of the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, who told Western ambassadors in Moscow in 1956: "History is on our side. We will bury you." He could not have been more wrong. It was the Soviet Union itself that was buried in 1991.
All this led to the famous, infamous perhaps, statement from the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama in 1992.
"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such," he wrote.
"That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
Too optimistic?
The end of the Cold War did see the rapid spread of democracy, especially into the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe. The European Union advanced to the Russian border. Democracies managed to assert individual rights and create prosperity.
And yet, even as he wrote, some critics felt that Fukuyama was being too optimistic - that the world would in due course resume its weary way.
Some alarms did go off. In the former Yugoslavia, majority voting in the component parts of the federation led not to a democratic agreement but to war. It was a lesson that democracy is about more than majority voting and that defining a majority is not always straightforward. The issue is currently an active one in Kosovo.
There have been disappointments: in the West, Russia is now felt to have strayed too far back to autocratic ways. Africa has not advanced as much as had been hoped - except for the shining example of South Africa. And the great prize of China remains elusive.
The recent crackdown in Burma shows that the struggle for democracy often has a high price.
And there is the threat from al-Qaeda and its followers. This goes beyond a disagreement over foreign policy. Osama bin Laden himself called on the United States to convert to Islam to avoid continued war. Still only two cheers for democracy (more)
BBC:
Newsnight, tonight, will be asking “Why democracy?
It is to be hoped that the Newsnight team will draw the right conclusion!
Mark Alexander
