Underestimated Value? Analytic and Interpretative-Evaluative Importance of Democracy in the Research on International Relations, International Law and International Order

The article addresses the issue of democracy as a criterion in scientific analyses and interpretations of international relations, international law and international order. The paper provides the answer to several important questions of theoretical nature: 1) is it eligible making an autonomous criterion (or the element of particular set of criteria) of analyses and interpretations of other phenomena from democracy as a socio-political phenomenon?; 2) democracy as a criterion of analysis, interpretation and evaluation of what?; 3) how should we define a formal status of democracy criterion in the research on international phenomena?; 4) whether and what democracy brings to the understanding of international phenomena?; 5) is democracy as a criterion of analysis and interpretation “fated” for functioning solely in the domain of widely understood current of normative political theories, and if so, does it denigrate its status in the context of the nature of international relations?