Cooley, Alexander. "Countering Democratic Norms". Journal of Democracy, Vol.26, No.3 (2015): 49-63.

Cooley, Alexander. "Countering Democratic Norms". Journal of Democracy, Vol.26, No.3 (2015): 49-63.

• The period following the Great Recession of 2008 has been marked by a decline of the global currency of Western normative power, as economic decline and revelations about American actions in Guantanamo and the NSA have raise perceptions that the West is hypocritical and weaker than previously thought (49).
• There has also been a global decline in the prominence of beliefs about the strength of liberal democracy as a form of government (49). This is partially because the dominance of liberal democracy is a result of the ideological vacuum following the collapse of the USSR, a space now filled by the return of authoritarian nationalism (50).
• Although the counter-norms promulgated in opposition in the liberal order are varied, they generally fit a number of broad narrative based on the primacy of sovereignty and security as values opposed to the universalist human rights regime of liberal democracy, which is accused of being a front for Western imperialism (50).
• Security in particular has been a successful counter-norm in both Western democracies and abroad, as the rapid increase in the currency of security concerns in the wake of the 9/11 attacks has allowed for states to restrict liberal rights to maintain security concerns. In some states this has led to the total eclipse of the normative value of 'liberty' by concerns about 'security' (51).
• Claims about the diversity of civilizations, and the rationale that 'Western' norms of human rights and democracy should not be applied. This counter-norm is best institutionalized within the SCO, which promotes state sovereignty and non-interference as the dominant norms in the former Soviet Union (52).
• Some conception of 'traditional values', in opposition to the decadent and destructive norms of Western individualism, is another common counter-norm. This norm is most promulgated by Russia, who define their own national identity in opposition to common societal norms of Western expression and individualism (52).
• The back current of rising authoritarianism has been clearest in the field of NGOs, which have had their freedoms of organization become more restricted since the early 2000s. Following fears by authoritarian regimes that opposition groups or Western backers had used NGO networks to mobilize regime change during the color revolutions (53), new legal restrictions on NGOs have been introduced worldwide, which limit their ability to act, enforce difficult regulations, and stigmatize them as 'foreign agents' acting to subvert the native civilization (54).
• A study in Ethiopia found that after the passage of restrictive laws on NGOs, including outright bans on foreign financing, over 90% of NGOs originally involved in human rights issues switched to less controversial topics and more community services (54).
• As the process of curtailing the ability of independent NGOs to act, many governments have been promoting the creation of alternative civil societies based around government-organized NGOs [GONGOs]. Along the same line, autocratic regimes have created their own electoral monitoring organizations to counter those in the West, designed to give legitimacy to regimes which would be denied such under Western standards (55, 57).
• Contrary to typically scholarly opinion, which asserts that regional associations will serve to further democracy and liberal norms, a number of regional organizations created in the past decade have consolidated authoritarian gains by acting as structures to institutionalize autocratic practices, provide legitimacy, and coordinate anti-democratic actions (56).
• The rise of China and the Gulf states as potential investors and patrons for developing countries has also endangered typical Western strategies for promoting democracy in developing nations. Normally the West demands political changes and democratic reforms in exchange for development aid or grants, but China offers the same programs without the demand for political change, limiting Western power in the developing world (58-59).
• The success of China and the Gulf States as non-democratic world powers also provides a potential blueprint for authoritarian power to leaders across the world. As the potential of these states to supply patronage and financial benefits to a similar degree as membership in Western 'clubs' the ability of Western states to manipulate democratic change through selective membership will decrease (58). 
• Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and the West in general enjoyed a monopoly on global media, allowing for the production a small scope of liberal pro-Western narratives. Since the late 2000s, there have been an upsurge in the number of globally accepted media networks propagating narratives counter to liberal democracy and Western interests, with the key examples being Russia Today and Qatar's Al-Jazeera (60).
• The author believes that to push back against global democratic decline, the West needs to separate conceptions of the virtues of liberal democracy from the narrative of Western decline (60). To avoid this fate, the West has to resist the temptation to fight counter-norms by abandoning its commitments towards liberal democracy. While it is tempting to sink down to the level of realist politics, the West has to impartially support democracy worldwide, or else it will lose the moral high ground, as well as lose a part of what makes the West 'Western' (61).
• The author suggests that in an effort to promote democracy, the West should clearly state the conditions for a fair election and good practice, and demand that all of the election monitoring agencies follow these guidelines. Dr. Cooley further suggests that the West should explicitly tie international prestige to accomplishment of democratic achievements and civil liberties (61).
• Neither of these initiatives makes very much sense in the context of the problems expressed in the article. Since the purpose of counter-norms is to create alternative systems of legitimizing political actions, why these initiatives would not be subverted by alternative systems of legitimization is unexplained.