Opening of the Third Summer University for Democracy
Speech by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe
Strasbourg, 30 June 2008
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Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to Strasbourg and to the Third Summer University for Democracy, which brings together the students from the 16 Schools of Political Studies based throughout Europe.
This being a University, I have decided to take a scholarly approach in preparing my opening remarks. As a result, you will receive the first public presentation of my classification of democracies.
In broad terms –make that very, very broad terms – my work is modelled on the classification of species by the Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus – otherwise known as Carl von Linné. The main differences are that my classification is considerably shorter on detail, and that it is not written in Latin. But it is work in progress, and I may revise it a bit in months and years to come. Therefore you should not hold your breath in waiting for the Latin version.
As a tribute to Linné, I divide political systems into four kingdoms.
The first is the kingdom of non-democracies or, in other words, dictatorships. It is a dying breed, but not yet completely extinct, even in Europe. Dictatorships are easily identified. A very good test is the European Convention on Human Rights. A real dictator is likely to display a genuine and enthusiastic antipathy, disrespect and downright hostility towards most, if not all, human rights and civil liberties guaranteed in our Convention.
On a more positive note, we could say that dictators are not total hypocrites. They do not like democracy, and they do not like human rights. And they are not ashamed to show it. But their passion for transparency only extends this far, and it does not include the more gruesome details of their rule and even less so the amounts held in their bank accounts in other countries.
At the other extreme of my classification system is the kingdom of perfect democracies, which are immune to any risk of an authoritarian relapse. I must admit that the chapter on the kingdom of perfect democracies in my future book will be very, very short. It is for one simple reason - perfect democracies do not exist. You will often hear claims to the contrary, but my advice to you would be to treat such claims in the way Carl Linné treated the unicorn, the dragon and the mermaid.
Between the two, but closer to the kingdom of dictatorships is the kingdom of camouflage democracies. This one is particularly interesting because it has a direct equivalent in Linné’s classification. Camouflage democracies are similar to animals who have learned to mimic many different characteristics and behaviours in order to protect themselves from predators.
In the case of camouflage democracies, the term predators should not be taken literally. The predators in this case are to be understood generally as people determined to exercise their democratic rights.
A camouflage democracy has a parliament which looks like the parliament in a real democracy. It has laws which look like real democratic laws, and it has politicians who make all the right noises and behave almost like real democrats. But a closer look will reveal the fact that what we are dealing with is not a real democracy, but a Potemkin democracy.
The fourth and last kingdom in my classification of political systems is the kingdom of imperfect democracies. This is, by far, the biggest group and includes many member states of the Council of Europe.
This being the biggest kingdom, and for the sake of logic and clarity required by this scientific approach to my work, I have decided to divide it into two groups.
In the first group we have countries with a long democratic experience. They have been working on their democratic muscles for decades, developing impressive democratic fitness.
When they are in good health and unspoiled by populism, these longstanding democracies function well. However, one should mention their tendency to be overly self-confident and even arrogant. Never shy to criticise others, they react very badly if someone dares to question or criticise their democratic fitness and good looks.
They are so convinced of their good health that they have a tendency to ignore what they regard as minor infections – such as extraordinary renditions for example - which may quickly turn into a more serious threat to their democratic well-being.
In the other group are countries with a more recent democratic experience. They are countries which were starved of democracy for decades, and they are at different stages in their recovery from malnutrition. At the Council of Europe, they have all received proper advice about diet and exercise, but some of them occasionally relapse into their old authoritarian habits.
In short, our democratic health is as precarious as it is precious. We must all remain vigilant regardless of whether a country has been a democracy for a decade, a century or several centuries. The problems may be different, but nobody is immune from the risk of a relapse into authoritarianism.
At the Council of Europe we work with all our member states to defend and extend freedom. We provide blueprints for democracy. We help our member states to create democratic institutions and to adopt democratic laws. But at the end of the day, what makes the difference between a phoney democracy and a real democracy is political culture and political will. At the end of the day, what makes a difference is people. In fact, it is people like you who make the difference.
