In a column I also linked to yesterday (but discussing a different issue), Martin Jacques sets up a neat implicit distinction between the democracy of the UN, on the one hand, and the Western nations put in an 'uncomfortable' position by this democracy, on the other. True, Jacques says that the UN can lay claim only to 'a semblance of democracy', but the contrast he draws is nonetheless sloped in the way I have indicated: democracy at the UN, and the unhappiness of Western nations with some of its results.
It's strange that in making this particular contrast he fails to note two other circumstances which might be thought relevant to it. One, there is a significant number of non-democracies at the UN, sending representatives to the world body on the basis of no serious democratic mandate from their populations. Without striving for comprehensiveness or any kind of ranking, why don't I just say: Burma, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Syria, Iran, China, Congo, Sudan, Libya, Vietnam, Egypt... That'll do. The democracy of a body so constituted leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the national representatives there 'represent' only corrupt and/or brutal cliques. Two, grouped behind Jacques's phrases 'western countries' and 'western nations' are, by and large, governments that do have a democratic mandate from their electorates. Not worth noticing, however, if you've thrown your authorial commitment behind the vision of a global shift of influence away from the (bad) West.