Democracy and human rights: Reappraising the rhetoric of “interdependence and mutual reinforcement”

The relationship between democracy and civil and political rights is often assumed to be self‐evident. What is often less obvious is that between democracy and economic and social rights. The emergence of China and India (two countries with divergent attitudes to democratic governance) as global economic powers has revived the debate about the relationship between democracy and both human rights categories. This short article is thus an attempt at assessing the strength of these relationships.