Liberal Non-Democracies: The European Union and the United Nations
Channel: Salvatore Babones
Date: 25/04/2016

The European Union and (to some extent) the United Nations cherish democracy as a core value, but intergovernmental organizations like the EU and UN can suffer severe and fundamental democratic deficits.

Many of their member states (in the case of the EU, all of them) are democracies, but the organizations themselves are organizations of states, not of people.

As a result, though they often espouse liberal values, they do so through fundamentally non-democratic means.

They are thus open to criticism -- and heavily criticized -- for their undemocratic decision-making structures and perceived hypocrisy in promoting liberal democratic values.