Conference paper

DEMOCRACY: WORLD MODEL OR NATIONAL TRADITION?

Werner Becker ; Zentrum fuer Philosophie und Grundlagen der Wissenschaften, Giessen, Deutschland

Abstract

The author criticizes the universalism of democracy as a world model. He argues that World War One has been insufficiently explored from the perspective of the clash of two democratic concepts. The outcome of that war heralded the longterm victory of the Franco-American universalist concept of democracy over the traditional British concept of democracy. This greatly influenced the political and philosophical understanding of democracy as the universalist elements of democratic constitutions have prevailed, while the awareness of the historically evolved institutions of democracy has been suppressed. The author shows that the emergence of fundamental rights had nothing to do with their universalist natural-law version since in England and Germany there have been pre-forms rooted in the specific legal traditions of those countries or regions. Since the creation of a world democratic state is not feasible, there is no genuine significance of the universalist democracy. In his conclusion, the author promotes the acceptance of the traditional concept of democracy modelled after the British democracy, which would strengthen the UN and international law. This would be particularly important in today’s circumstances and conducive to the acknowledgment of various traditions and consequently to a variety of systems of government.

Keywords

democracy; national tradition; First World War; world model; universalism

Hrčak ID:

22928

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/22928

Publication date:

16.7.2004.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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