The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance

Legitimacy in 1991 flows not from the barrel of a gun but from the will of the people. U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III I know what real democracy is, what democracy is worth. A thirty-seven-year-old Soviet lieutenant colonel who early on sided with anticoup forces More than two centuries have elapsed since the signatories of the U.S. Declara^ tion of Independence sought to manifest two radical propositions. The first is that governments, instituted to secure the “unalienable rights” of their citizens, derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We may call this the “democratic entitlement.” The second proposition, perhaps less noted by commentators, is that a nation earns “separate and equal station” in the community of states by demonstrating “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” The authors of the Declaration apparently believed that the legitimacy of the new Confederation of American States was not made evident solely by the transfer of power from Britain but also needed to be acknowledged by “mankind.” This we may perceive as a prescient glimpse of the legitimating power of the community of nations.