The Rise and Fall of “Democracies vs. Autocracies”: Europe, China and the Transmission of a US Strategic Narrative

Technical Summary: The Rise and Fall of "Democracies vs. Autocracies"

Problem Statement
This paper investigates the adoption, transmission, and subsequent decline of the "democracies vs. autocracies" binary as a strategic narrative by the United States under the Biden administration. The authors address a gap in International Relations (IR) literature, noting that while the binary is frequently treated as a factual division of the international system or a tool for analyzing specific state outcomes (e.g., GDP, conflict propensity), few scholars have analyzed it specifically as a strategic narrative. The central problem is understanding how this narrative was constructed to shape domestic and international behavior, how it was transmitted to European allies, how it was received and contested by China, and why it ultimately collapsed following the transition to the second Trump administration.

Methodology
The study employs a qualitative documentary analysis grounded in the theoretical framework of strategic narratives developed by Miskimmon et al. (2013; 2021). The authors focus specifically on system narratives (defining the global political/economic order) and identity narratives (defining the narrating actor).

Data collection involved the analysis of:

• Primary Sources: Official US policy documents (National Security Strategies), speeches by the President, and statements by key political figures.
• Secondary Sources: Commentaries and analyses from academics, think tanks, and media.
• Comparative Scope: The analysis covers the US antecedents (post-WWII to present), the transmission and reception in the European Union (focusing on interventions by the European Commission President, Council President, and High Representative), Germany, and the UK, and the reaction in China (official white papers, state media, and academic discourse).

Key Contributions

1. Narrative Typology: The paper categorizes the "democracies vs. autocracies" divide not merely as an ideological stance but as a specific strategic narrative designed to construct a shared meaning of the past, present, and future to influence actor behavior.
2. Historical Contextualization: It traces the narrative's lineage, distinguishing it from the Cold War's "communism vs. capitalism" binary and the post-Cold War "complex security" narratives. It highlights the Biden administration's unique re-introduction of a global binary system narrative, contrasting it with the Trump 1.0 administration's focus on specific adversaries (China/Russia) without a global systemic binary, and the Obama administration's focus on diffuse threats.
3. Transmission and Reception Analysis: The paper provides a granular analysis of how the narrative was received differently across the "democratic" bloc:
   • EU/Germany: The narrative was largely adopted by leadership (e.g., von der Leyen, Scholz, Merz), particularly in the context of the Ukraine war, serving to unify the "West." However, it remained underdeveloped as a policy guide, with vague definitions of the "autocratic" other beyond Russia and China.
   • UK: Despite the "special relationship," the narrative was notably absent from UK government discourse and policy documents, even as criticism of China increased.
   • China: The narrative was met with a coordinated counter-narrative strategy. Chinese officials and scholars rejected the binary as a "false narrative" and a tool for US "discursive hegemony," promoting instead a multipolar worldview and "global initiatives" (GDI, GSI, GCI, GGI) as strategic counternarratives.
4. The Role of Contingency: The study demonstrates that the narrative's existence was contingent upon US leadership. Its immediate disappearance from both US and EU discourse following the 2025 transition to a second Trump administration (which explicitly abandoned the binary in its National Security Strategy) illustrates the fragility of such narratives when the originating power withdraws its support.

Results

• US Origin: The Biden administration successfully operationalized the binary as a "manifesto" for foreign policy, framing global events (e.g., the Ukraine war) as an existential struggle between two opposing systems.
• European Adoption: The narrative gained traction in the EU and Germany, particularly after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, becoming a central theme for leaders like Ursula von der Leyen and Olaf Scholz. However, it lacked the depth of the Cold War narrative, failing to clearly define the boundaries of the "democratic" and "autocratic" camps beyond the primary adversaries.
• Chinese Rejection: China effectively countered the narrative by framing it as a Cold War relic and a mechanism for Western hegemony. Chinese discourse shifted from sporadic academic critique to a state-sponsored "ownership battle" over the definition of democracy, promoting multipolarity.
• Narrative Collapse: The narrative proved highly dependent on the specific US administration. The shift to the second Trump administration, which rejected the imposition of democratic values and the binary framework entirely, caused the narrative to vanish rapidly from US policy and subsequently from EU discourse, despite the EU's initial persistence.

Significance and Claims
The paper claims that the "democracies vs. autocracies" binary was a strategic narrative intended to restore US global hegemony by constructing a unified identity for democratic states against a defined "Other." Its significance lies in demonstrating the limits of strategic narratives in a complex, multipolar world.

The authors argue that the narrative's failure to sustain itself reveals that:

1. Strategic binaries are difficult to maintain when they lack universal acceptance (rejected by China, inconsistently adopted by the UK).
2. The narrative was "underdeveloped" in Europe, failing to provide clear operational definitions for policy.
3. The narrative's collapse underscores that such constructs are contingent on the will of the originating power; when the US abandoned the binary, the "democratic" bloc's shared identity based on that narrative dissolved.

Ultimately, the paper concludes that in the face of weak reception and complex geopolitical realities, binary strategic narratives are inherently difficult to sustain as long-term guides for international order.