What are double standards?

Double standards are the name of discriminatory practices applied to the rights of certain races, peoples, communities, individuals. This term is used to assess negative phenomena in social science, journalism, economics, and, especially, in politics. Governments of different states that use similar approaches to evaluate opponents formally reject categorically discriminatory actions towards people who do not express loyalty, as well as their competitors in the struggle for a presidential seat or a seat in parliament.

In assessing the almost identical behavior of subjects, different laws, rules and principles are applied, depending on how profitable this attitude becomes for the person performing the assessment. The double standard is a broad concept that includes selective justice. In this situation, people close to the authorities, even in the case of high-profile crimes, go unpunished, and disliked citizens are in prison because of minor incidents or false accusations. The policy of double standards in the sphere of international relations often takes the form of accusations of all unwanted countries and their governments in violation of conventions, principles and obligations, the rights of citizens and the violation of human values.

Terminology

The term "double standard" appeared in the middle of the XIX century in the UK, and this phrase was used in relation to unequal moral requirements for women and men. In the USSR, the concept of "double standards" has been used since the 50s of the twentieth century to denote the class and racial inequalities characteristic of capitalist states.

In politics

Double standards in politics make it possible to influence the opinion of a certain part of the population. Thus, the government of countries sending troops to various hot spots, call their soldiers "liberator soldiers", and the enemy - "bandit formation." For example, in the USSR during the deployment of units to Afghanistan, tens of thousands of conscripts and officers were called liberators. When a decade and a half later, the United States and NATO began to conduct military operations in the territory of this state, the government of modern Russia accused them of trying to occupy a foreign territory because of mercenary purposes.

Double standards are most noticeable in assessments of observers monitoring the integrity of parliamentary and presidential elections in the CIS and third world countries. So, if the government of these states shares the Western model of democracy, the results of voting are recognized as even. And in situations where the leader or the winner is far from such an ideology, observers say about multiple violations during the electoral process and recognize the completed elections as dishonest and undemocratic.

This case is clearly visible when comparing the attitude of Western countries to Georgia and Belarus. So, the victory of the pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was called by the EU representatives the triumph of democracy, and such a vote in favor of the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is the result of intimidation of citizens and rigging of the results. Moreover, it was not taken into account that in both post-Soviet republics in prisons a significant number of political prisoners who disagree with the actions of the ruling regime are sitting, including politicians, journalists, just active citizens.

A similar situation concerns unrecognized republics. So, Western countries recognized the results of the referendum on the separation of Montenegro and its independence from Serbia, but still do not want to reconcile with the existence of such republics as South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria. This is explained by the fact that the EU and the US support their partners - Moldova and Georgia, and the fact of recognition of the separated territories harms the interests of these states.