Sharing Sovereignty : Building Democracy by External Intervention

This analysis suggests the idea that shared sovereignty and neotrusteeships are the result of the paradoxes entailed by the promotion of democracy by external intervention. The goal of democratization and the democratic attitude of recent international interventions lead to some contradictory principles, particularly between the respect of selfdetermination and external control and between temporary engagement and protracted international interference. These contradictions affect the international administrators’ activities in the target-country. While they tend to concede powers to local political leaders in the light of the self-determination principle, they hold some essential power in order to foster the transition to democracy. While they are inclined to give back full independence, their prolonged presence is required to guarantee the process of democratization. The result is a balance between international and local power prerogatives which ends up in a de facto shared-sovereignty.