At Global Policy Forum democracy will be discussed as well

Russian political experts proceed to tell about the topics to be discussed at Global Policy Forum in Yaroslavl. On Friday President of ‘Policy’ and ‘Russian World’ Foundations Vyacheslav Nikonov identified the topics to be discussed at the section headed by him 'Democratic institutions in multiethnic societies'.

As a matter of fact all discussions will come to one issue: how intensive democratic processes are developing in culturally homogeneous and multicultural societies. ‘The general principle being the basis for a great number of scientists is the more society is aiming at homogeneity, the more simply they can create democratic institutions. And vice versa, the more society is multicultural, the more complex procedure of creating democratic institutions’, Nikonov said.

There are enough examples proving this maxim solely in Europe. The political expert paid his attention to development of East Europe following breakup of the Soviet Union. On the one hand such culturally homogeneous countries as Poland and Hungary easily enough treated this democratic transformation, but on the other hand in such countries as Yugoslavia democratic institutions were creating very difficult. And these problems have been existing till the present.

The example of West Europe is no less eloquent. It also shows difficulties in democratic counties connected with growth of their multiethnicity. ‘These difficulties are stipulated by great inflow of population from Islamic region of different culture. This population felt itself on the sidelines and burst up with social and cultural protests. Response is the growth of nationalism in the west countries’, Nikonov explained. He supposes people have started to talk of democracy crisis in Europe first of all because of multiculturalism that poses a great challenge to it.

And this challenge is sounding louder over the last decades, to a large extant as the political expert thinks, because of starting fight with terrorism having very significant cultural notion. The issues of radical Islam focused world attention. And that reflects on state policy in this direction. ‘The problems of democracy deficit in Russia are connected with this aspect as well. We all remember the case when governor’s elections were put off due to the tragedy in Beslan. War with terrorism contemplates the definite limitation in a view of security, and that always conflicts with spotless democratic standards’, Nikonov is asserted.

However, all rules have exceptions, and there are a lot of them. The political expert pointed out that culturally homogeneous countries such as North Korea could be totally antidemocratic. If we take such multicultural countries as Indonesia having about 540 main ethnicities, we will see that it is successfully going the way of creating democratic institutions. That is also referred to such countries of South East Asia as Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. They are strengthening their democratic institutions. Democratization is increasing in such multicultural continent as Africa. Following African states independence in 1960, since 1991 no one of them has have democratic authority shift. In a great deal of African states the elections are held and their results are recognized.

Thus the question ‘in what states of modern world democracy is strong or quite the opposite weak’ will be discussed at the section. ‘I totally disagree with the statement that multiculturalism is dead. It’s alive in Europe and more than that in the whole world. Globally it is only strengthening since cultural and ethnic consciousness is getting stronger’, Nikonov ended.

 

Author: Vitaly Petrov,

The ‘Russian Newspaper’, 29.08.2011

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