Should Democracy Be Promoted or Demoted?

Ray · 01-13-2008, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Should Democracy Be Promoted or Demoted?

In his second inaugural address, on January 20, 2005, President George W. Bush used the word "freedom" 25 times, "liberty" 12 times, and "democracy" or "democratic" three times. Bush did not enter the White House with a mission to promote freedom around the world. As a presidential candidate, he put forward a modest foreign policy agenda that eschewed nation building. The events of September 11, 2001, however, radically jarred his thinking on the nature of international threats and triggered a fundamental reevaluation of his administration's national security policy that elevated democracy promotion as a central objective of his foreign policy agenda.

In the years since the September 11 attacks, the rhetorical attention devoted to promoting freedom, liberty, and democracy has greatly outpaced actual progress in advancing democracy. To date, democracy has failed to take hold in the two countries in which Bush ordered the forcible ouster of autocratic regimes, Afghanistan and Iraq….

Nor did toppling these dictatorships send liberty rippling through the greater Middle East as some Bush officials and supporters had hoped. Instead, autocratic regimes in the region have used the excuse of terrorism (Egypt, Pakistan) or the alleged threat of U.S. invasion (Iran) to tighten autocracy. Outside this region, some countries have made some progress toward developing democracy, such as Georgia and Ukraine; but just as many, including strategic countries such as Russia, have moved toward greater autocracy….In sum, Bush's new attention to democracy promotion has not resulted in more people living in freedom.

Not surprisingly, many in Washington, both on the Left and on the Right, are pressing for a change in U.S. foreign policy objectives….Among foreign policy elites, only those at the extreme on each end of the political spectrum advocate completely abandoning democracy promotion as a U.S. foreign policy objective. Instead, skepticism is largely couched as "realism" and a return to a greater focus on traditional U.S. national security objectives. From this perspective, democracy promotion should take a back seat to strategic aims such as securing U.S. access to energy resources, building military alliances to fight terrorist organizations, and fostering stability within states.

Although focusing on the more traditional goals of national security is important, a zero-sum trade-off does not exist between these traditional security objectives and democracy promotion. Moreover, the Bush administration's mixed if not disappointing efforts to promote democracy in the past few years do not mean that democracy promotion should be downgraded or removed from U.S. foreign policy priorities. The United States should promote democracy, but there are new strategies and better modalities for pursuing this objective.

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Should Democracy Be Promoted or Demoted?

Is the rhetorical attention devoted to promoting freedom, liberty, and democracy has really outpaced actual progress in advancing democracy?

It is a truism that to date, democracy has failed to take hold in the two countries in which Bush ordered the forcible ouster of autocratic regimes, Afghanistan and Iraq.

What are the new strategies that the US should adopt to ensure that Freedom and Democracy really takes hold of the world?

**Parihaka** · 01-13-2008, 03:20 AM

Definitely promoted. The author claims that supporting autocratic regimes is a better policy than supporting the development of democratic ones but history shows this to be poor foreign policy, unless short term financial profit is the primary concern.
As examples I'd offer Egypt, Chile, Argentina, Iran, Iraq, Columbia, Nicaragua et cetera et cetera et cetera.
The idea that Afghanistan and Iraq have failed is far from true, Iraq has held elections and is governed by an elected government, so how that could be considered a failure is beyond me.
Nobody said it would be easy, but it will bear far greater fruit than the old failed policies of support for the strongest man.

Bigfella · 01-13-2008, 04:08 AM

Promoting democracy MUST be at the forefront of foreign policy, not just for America, but for the whole democratic world.

We have now had not one, but two generations of examples of how short-sighted 'realpolitik' solutions involving the support of dictatorship simply produce a whole new set of problems.

During the Cold War dictatorships supported & maintained by the west (I'm including colonies in this) were a fertile breeding ground for communism. Subsequently dictatorships supported by the west have proved the main supporters of Islamic fundamentalism.

In all these cases the success of these violent revolutionaries was assisted by a system of government that robbed ordinary people of a sense that they could make changes to their societies through peaceful means. Few Westerners would tolerate the sort of lives we were often prepared to condemn others to. Many Westerners have turned to violence over less.

Functional democracies provide a 'steam valve' that dictatorships cannot. They need to be supported not just a the top level, but by helping to develop civil societies where people have some expectation that there is rule of law & reward for effort.

These things take decades to do, but to fail will condem future generations to pick up the pieces of our short term thinking.

ofogs · 01-13-2008, 04:34 AM

Sir, I think this raises some really great questions. I don't think it's fair to say that democracy has failed to take hold in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to me both states are in the process of democratizing. After all, there have been elections in both and there are standing governments. The process and foundations of democracy take a long time to instill within a state. Western democracies had the benefit of a gradual, almost evolutionary movement towards democracy. This movement was combined with economic and cultural changes, as well. All of this is tough to duplicate in a short period of time.

As for the rhetoric about democracy, it seems a lot of this comes straight from the Democractic Peace Theory. To subscribers of DPT, promotion of democracy directly equates to promotion of peace, because democracies will be less likely to go to war with each other. Of course, I wonder how much the data is skewed because most democracies are concentrated in a single area of the world and very interwoven and similar cultural backgrounds.

All this being said, the US has seen some significant success in establishing democracies in the past. Japan, Korea and Germany have done pretty well for themselves since WWII and the Korean War. To improve on regime change and democracy growth in the future, I think these could provide some excellent case studies. So, too, should studies of how states like Russia and China worked/are working their transitions.

The regime change option, however, is something that, ideally, doesn't have to be used much. The best way to encourage democracy is with all the elements of power (DIME model or whatever its current acronymn is). Soft power in the form of MTV and CNN et al can do a great job influencing a population to want change. Right now, we're terrible at this. The US has done a really bad job with information operations in both states which has significantly hampered progress.

Trooth · 01-13-2008, 08:22 AM

The truth about democracy is less the worth of the ideal, that is self evident, it is the fact that it is rarely as attractive as it's predecessor to those who are within an arms reach of any power.

Whilst technically Aghanistan and Iraq are not failures as Parihaka points out, they are also not successes.

The problem that democracy suffers from as a concept is it's inherent fragility at birth. Much like a new born baby it is defenceless, totally dependant and in many respects useless or a burden to those around. Whereas what came before (some form of feudal control base don violence) is often still close to hand and, to those in the transitiion period at least, more immediate and attractive.

Democracy is only practical once it matures and once it starts to offer real value. In Iraq and Afghanistan the man with the AK47 has more power than the man with the ballot paper.

I have long been of the opinion that whilst democracy should be encouraged and promoted it cannot be forced, a population needs to turn to democracy, not receive it. They need to reach out and claim the ideal, create it themselves in their own image and it will have value to them. Being the recipient of democracy is like dumping that baby on their doorstep.

Most of the successful democracies around the world today were forged in fire and internal struggle (or come from a tradition of such). the Civil War established the pre-eminence of Parliament, the Magna Carta the pre-eminence of law over any man etc. Until you have struggles were the transfer of power is into the control of the winner people won't see the value of it.

I agree with BigFella, it is important for the foreign policy of all democracies to foster further democracy around the world, and Bush is correct that democracies don't attack each other. But i don't believe you can do it by imposition.

Ray · 01-13-2008, 12:08 PM

Quote:

The Failure of Democracy

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
Winston Churchill

Democracy means ‘Government by the People’ (or, if the creators of this term employed the sarcastic undertone suggested by some historians, ‘Government by the Mob’). That definition implies that all members of a community participate in the electoral process; but this is not the case.
The first rule of democracy is exclusion. No country in the world would want all its residents to choose its government, and until this day people have been excluded from elections because of their age, race, class, gender, nationality, religion, homelessness, illiteracy, criminal convictions, lack of landownership, mental diseases etc.

And it’s not only voters who are being excluded, but parties and candidates as well. Most countries won’t allow a party to compete in the elections who intends to change the political system or whose views differ too greatly from that of the ruling parties; thus the United States and all its satrapies simply offer a choice between the far right and the extreme right.

In countries whose citizens had no influence on the form of government by having been excluded from the shaping of the constitution (or ‘basic law’, as in Germany), the general attitude was that a vote for any admitted party denotes approval of the form of government, so that a turnout of over 50% was considered a vote for the political system.

This changed with the constantly dropping numbers of voters for the European Parliament - which is a farce as all important decisions are made by the heads of state (the European Commission), anyway. Since 1999 the turnout for European elections has been way under 50%, which, following the logic of the argument, should be considered a vote against the European oligarchy.

Apart from banning parties, there are many other ways of preventing change. In Germany, the emergence of new parties is obstructed by the 5% Clause; any vote for a party that ends up with less than 5% becomes null and void, and the established parties successfully warn the electorate not to ‘throw away their vote’. Thus the three established parties managed to keep the parliament to themselves until in 1983 the Green Party managed to break the monopoly and join the club.

The 5% Clause leads to a good part of the electorate not being represented. In the extreme case of some twenty parties having under five percent each, one single party could get all seats with just 5% of the votes, leaving 95% of the electorate without representation.

In the 2000 US elections, George W. Bush won due to the electoral system, although his opponent got the majority of votes (patronisingly being called the ‘Popular Vote’). And the ‘loss’ of thousands of absentee ballots is a regular feature in US elections that’s hardly deemed worth mentioning.
In Ireland, the 2004 presidential elections were prevented by the main parties who simply agreed on confirming the president for another term; elections, they stated, would have been too expensive. – Well, elections are always expensive, so maybe this cancellation will ring in the end of that farce called democracy altogether.

‘Rule by the people’ also suggests that people not only decide on their government but also on political issues. This implies that the public could enforce referenda on all topics they feel differently about than their government. But most ‘democracies’ do not give their citizens that opportunity.

The most stressed argument against referenda (apart from the silly ‘We’d have a referendum each day!’) is the immaturity or lack of political insight of the electorate. But if the population lack maturity or political insight, why trust them with electing their government in the first place?

The idea of democracy was to give people the right to choose their own government. Now people have realised that their vote doesn’t make a difference, and more and more stay away from the polls. As an unmotivated electorate calls into question the whole concept of democracy, politicians preach that casting his vote is every citizen’s obligation (for those who have one, that is) and treating those refusing to vote as disinterested outcasts.
Some countries, like Australia, even go one step further by punishing non-voters and imposing heavy fines on those who don’t feel represented by (or simply don’t trust) the admitted parties and candidates. I don’t think I have to point out the paradox of forcing people to exercise their rights.

Democracy is government for the highest bidder. Not all countries practice the baksheesh tradition as openly as Costa Rica or Ireland, but when we hear about the innumerable indications (and the odd conviction) of bribery, corruption, embezzlement, favouritism, self-service, abuse of power etc, we all know that this is not even the tip but a mere splinter of the iceberg. Whatever they tell us, people don’t go into politics to look after others; and the few who actually put their beliefs and principles above their bank accounts are soon found out and consequently will not make it into the decision-making elite of their parties, anyway.

An election promise is a contract between the candidate and his potential voters: You give me your vote, and I will protect your interests. As with any contract, the stronger side makes sure to keep the upper hand: a tenant has to pay a deposit to the landlord before moving in, an employee has to work for a couple of weeks before getting paid (which, in fact, is a deposit he pays to his employer), and the voter has to cast his vote before he can expect to be represented.
If a plumber doesn’t show up on the agreed date, I can terminate the contract; if I hire a cleaning woman who doesn’t clean, I can fire her; if I vote for a candidate who claims to introduce free medical care for senior citizens and who doesn’t, I’m ****ed. An election promise is the only contract in the world which is not binding, and politicians make sure it stays that way.

Democracy has also brought the delegation of governmental crime. In other forms of government, the ruling class are free to do and take whatever they want, even if it is against their own laws. In a democracy, theoretically, the government could be held responsible for its crimes; on top of that, voters might remember at the next election. Therefore it rather tolerates crime on a great scale, provided that it gets its share without being brought into connection with it. Organised crime is a product of democracy, and organised crime would not be possible without the support of the authorities!

Democracy is the god above Christ, Yahweh, Allah and Buddha - the one who can’t be questioned because he creates the illusion of capitalism serving the people rather than the other way round.
Democracy has brought us Hitler and Kennedy, the men responsible for the nastiest wars of the last century. Democracy has encouraged and even caused racism, genocide, exploitation, intolerance, inequality and so forth.

Democracy has failed us - and no, I can’t offer an alternative. But if given the choice of entering the arena with a bull, a lion or a gladiator, I won’t automatically choose the gladiator just because he has a human face. I certainly don’t favour monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy or any other form of government over democracy - but neither would I choose democracy over the rest!

The Failure of Democracy

This is an interesting piece that is quite thought provoking, if looked at without prejudice,

Dr Fu Manchu · 01-13-2008, 16:10 PM

Singapore, Russia and China are good examples of democracy being over-rated. It doesn't have to work all the time for all the countries. Absolute democracy is mob rule.

Bigfella · 01-13-2008, 16:22 PM

I don't have time to properly discuss this article right now, except to say that it is both extremely biased & ill-informed. It takes an absurdly reductionist view of what constitutes 'democracy' and then runs with it.

I am not in a position to challenge many of the 'facts' presented in support of this argument, but a couple I am familiar with make me doubt the rest.

*Mr Ludwig refers to 'heavy fines' in Australia for not voting. Perhaps he & I have different ideas of what constitutes 'heavy'. I once failed to vote in an election & was fined. The fine was sufficiently small that I (& indeed most Australians on minimum wage) will earn enough before lunch today to pay it. Or, to put it another way, it cost less than two full price compact discs. Hardly enough to compel anyone who doesn't wish to participate.

*Mr Ludwig also parrots the familiar claim that Hitler came to power in a democracy. Without going into all the detail, it is fair to say that the Weimar Republic had ceased to function in what any reasonable observer could call a democratic way almost 3 years before Hitler came to power.

If these points are typical of the accuracy of the rest of mr Ludwig's 'facts' then I suspect that his poorly constructed argument is also poorly supported.

Feanor · 01-13-2008, 17:16 PM

There is no such thing as democracy. Democracy is rule by the people. That would imply that all decision made from who the new president will be to what color Abrams tanks should be painted for parades would be made by popular vote. Needless to say this is impractical and impossible. So instead the idea of republic was used. In reality the people are not ruling. The people are not the base of the power. The base of the power are a number of individuals who claim to represent the people. As soon as any large system becomes detached from the individual members that make up the system, it takes on a life of it's own and acts in a way that none of it's individual components would want it to act.

**Parihaka** · 01-13-2008, 17:24 PM

I'll leave BigFella to do the full critique but I just couldn't walk past these ones:

Quote:

Democracy has brought us Hitler and Kennedy, the men responsible for the nastiest wars of the last century

.Seems to have forgotten about WWI.

Quote:

Democracy has encouraged and even caused racism, genocide, exploitation, intolerance, inequality and so forth.

And done more to alleviate said conditions than any other form of government as well. Unlike the alternatives, most of which actively encourage them.

and finally

Quote:

I certainly don’t favour monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy or any other form of government over democracy - but neither would I choose democracy over the rest!

So democracy is no better than tyranny? Anyone wish to argue the affirmative on this one?

**Parihaka** · 01-13-2008, 17:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Fu Manchu

Singapore, Russia and China are good examples of democracy being over-rated. It doesn't have to work all the time for all the countries. Absolute democracy is mob rule.

Absolute democracy is the election of leaders to rule for a specific period of time.
As Feanor points out, democratic citizens don't get to vote on what colour to paint a tank, that is the job of the government.
Mob rule, on the other hand, is mob rule. Chaos, anarchy etc etc, not democracy.
Because democracy isn't overly-represented by Russia or Singapore is not an argument that democracy is over-rated sorry.

**Parihaka** · 01-13-2008, 17:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feanor

There is no such thing as democracy.

Yes there is, see above.

Feanor · 01-13-2008, 17:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Parihaka

Yes there is, see above.

Please differentiate between a representative republic and a democracy.

**Parihaka** · 01-13-2008, 17:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feanor

Please differentiate between a representative republic and a democracy.

Sure. A representative republic is a subset or specific type of a democracy.

Feanor · 01-13-2008, 17:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Parihaka

Sure. A representative republic is a subset or specific type of a democracy.

I disagree. A democracy is a government run by the people. I already explained above why a representative republic doesn't qualify.

01-13-2008, 08:22 AM	#5 (permalink)
Trooth *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 11-23-03 Posts: 2,110 Country:	The truth about democracy is less the worth of the ideal, that is self evident, it is the fact that it is rarely as attractive as it's predecessor to those who are within an arms reach of any power. Whilst technically Aghanistan and Iraq are not failures as Parihaka points out, they are also not successes. The problem that democracy suffers from as a concept is it's inherent fragility at birth. Much like a new born baby it is defenceless, totally dependant and in many respects useless or a burden to those around. Whereas what came before (some form of feudal control base don violence) is often still close to hand and, to those in the transitiion period at least, more immediate and attractive. Democracy is only practical once it matures and once it starts to offer real value. In Iraq and Afghanistan the man with the AK47 has more power than the man with the ballot paper. I have long been of the opinion that whilst democracy should be encouraged and promoted it cannot be forced, a population needs to turn to democracy, not receive it. They need to reach out and claim the ideal, create it themselves in their own image and it will have value to them. Being the recipient of democracy is like dumping that baby on their doorstep. Most of the successful democracies around the world today were forged in fire and internal struggle (or come from a tradition of such). the Civil War established the pre-eminence of Parliament, the Magna Carta the pre-eminence of law over any man etc. Until you have struggles were the transfer of power is into the control of the winner people won't see the value of it. I agree with BigFella, it is important for the foreign policy of all democracies to foster further democracy around the world, and Bush is correct that democracies don't attack each other. But i don't believe you can do it by imposition. __________________ The world as it should be at surrealscoop.blogspot.com

01-13-2008, 16:10 PM	#7 (permalink)
Dr Fu Manchu Regular Join Date: 04-06-07 Location: Mobile Agent Posts: 45 Country:	Singapore, Russia and China are good examples of democracy being over-rated. It doesn't have to work all the time for all the countries. Absolute democracy is mob rule. Last edited by Dr Fu Manchu : 01-13-2008 at 16:17 PM.

01-13-2008, 16:22 PM	#8 (permalink)
Bigfella *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 01-12-07 Location: Melbourne Posts: 753 Country:	Failure of Democracy? Failure of research more like I don't have time to properly discuss this article right now, except to say that it is both extremely biased & ill-informed. It takes an absurdly reductionist view of what constitutes 'democracy' and then runs with it. I am not in a position to challenge many of the 'facts' presented in support of this argument, but a couple I am familiar with make me doubt the rest. Mr Ludwig refers to 'heavy fines' in Australia for not voting. Perhaps he & I have different ideas of what constitutes 'heavy'. I once failed to vote in an election & was fined. The fine was sufficiently small that I (& indeed most Australians on minimum wage) will earn enough before lunch today to pay it. Or, to put it another way, it cost less than two full price compact discs. Hardly enough to compel anyone who doesn't wish to participate. Mr Ludwig also parrots the familiar claim that Hitler came to power in a democracy. Without going into all the detail, it is fair to say that the Weimar Republic had ceased to function in what any reasonable observer could call a democratic way almost 3 years before Hitler came to power. If these points are typical of the accuracy of the rest of mr Ludwig's 'facts' then I suspect that his poorly constructed argument is also poorly supported.

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01-13-2008, 03:20 AM	#2 (permalink)
Parihaka Moderator Join Date: 11-10-04 Location: Te Ika a Maui Posts: 9,335 Country:	Definitely promoted. The author claims that supporting autocratic regimes is a better policy than supporting the development of democratic ones but history shows this to be poor foreign policy, unless short term financial profit is the primary concern. As examples I'd offer Egypt, Chile, Argentina, Iran, Iraq, Columbia, Nicaragua et cetera et cetera et cetera. The idea that Afghanistan and Iraq have failed is far from true, Iraq has held elections and is governed by an elected government, so how that could be considered a failure is beyond me. Nobody said it would be easy, but it will bear far greater fruit than the old failed policies of support for the strongest man.

01-13-2008, 04:08 AM	#3 (permalink)
Bigfella *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 01-12-07 Location: Melbourne Posts: 753 Country:	Promoting democracy MUST be at the forefront of foreign policy, not just for America, but for the whole democratic world. We have now had not one, but two generations of examples of how short-sighted 'realpolitik' solutions involving the support of dictatorship simply produce a whole new set of problems. During the Cold War dictatorships supported & maintained by the west (I'm including colonies in this) were a fertile breeding ground for communism. Subsequently dictatorships supported by the west have proved the main supporters of Islamic fundamentalism. In all these cases the success of these violent revolutionaries was assisted by a system of government that robbed ordinary people of a sense that they could make changes to their societies through peaceful means. Few Westerners would tolerate the sort of lives we were often prepared to condemn others to. Many Westerners have turned to violence over less. Functional democracies provide a 'steam valve' that dictatorships cannot. They need to be supported not just a the top level, but by helping to develop civil societies where people have some expectation that there is rule of law & reward for effort. These things take decades to do, but to fail will condem future generations to pick up the pieces of our short term thinking.

01-13-2008, 04:34 AM	#4 (permalink)
ofogs *Military Professional* Join Date: 09-27-07 Location: Iraq Posts: 67 Country:	Sir, I think this raises some really great questions. I don't think it's fair to say that democracy has failed to take hold in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to me both states are in the process of democratizing. After all, there have been elections in both and there are standing governments. The process and foundations of democracy take a long time to instill within a state. Western democracies had the benefit of a gradual, almost evolutionary movement towards democracy. This movement was combined with economic and cultural changes, as well. All of this is tough to duplicate in a short period of time. As for the rhetoric about democracy, it seems a lot of this comes straight from the Democractic Peace Theory. To subscribers of DPT, promotion of democracy directly equates to promotion of peace, because democracies will be less likely to go to war with each other. Of course, I wonder how much the data is skewed because most democracies are concentrated in a single area of the world and very interwoven and similar cultural backgrounds. All this being said, the US has seen some significant success in establishing democracies in the past. Japan, Korea and Germany have done pretty well for themselves since WWII and the Korean War. To improve on regime change and democracy growth in the future, I think these could provide some excellent case studies. So, too, should studies of how states like Russia and China worked/are working their transitions. The regime change option, however, is something that, ideally, doesn't have to be used much. The best way to encourage democracy is with all the elements of power (DIME model or whatever its current acronymn is). Soft power in the form of MTV and CNN et al can do a great job influencing a population to want change. Right now, we're terrible at this. The US has done a really bad job with information operations in both states which has significantly hampered progress.

01-13-2008, 17:16 PM	#9 (permalink)
Feanor Banished Join Date: 06-12-07 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 2,385 Country:	There is no such thing as democracy. Democracy is rule by the people. That would imply that all decision made from who the new president will be to what color Abrams tanks should be painted for parades would be made by popular vote. Needless to say this is impractical and impossible. So instead the idea of republic was used. In reality the people are not ruling. The people are not the base of the power. The base of the power are a number of individuals who claim to represent the people. As soon as any large system becomes detached from the individual members that make up the system, it takes on a life of it's own and acts in a way that none of it's individual components would want it to act.

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