Theory and Reality of Democracy

This is a study of conceptualizations and applications of the idea of democracy in international and transnational politics (outside the confines of constituted political states, or outside a broadly understood domestic political sphere), which uses a politically realist methodology. This study provides a critical survey of current conceptual positions assumed in this area, and tests these against specific real world events, using the invasion and occupation of Iraq by a US-UK led coalition as a case study. Several aspects of this context are examined here, with a view to discerning how existing conceptualizations of democracy in the international/ transnational domain impinge upon and are tested by the real world. Ultimately this study focuses on the confusions and obfuscations that follow from conflating the normative connotations of democracy with the oligarchic multi-party elective arrangements that are denoted as democratic.