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How to create a democracy
Ethan Smith
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
I was thinking about this on the way home. I had been thinking for a long time about how a democracy goes from a democracy to an authoritarian state, in order to, in the future, be aware of what would be 'ideal' conditions for a coup, which would interests me, especially with the fact that I will probably live abroad for much of my life, so that would be about the time to leave.
However, then I realized something-most democracies we have in the world are rather stable. There are far fewer stable, 'uncorrupt' (which I will use to mean that there are multiple viable parties present, not that the system is uncorrupt. Compare America to, say, Nepal. Nepal might be less 'corrupt', but it hardly qualifies as a democracy) democracies than there are authoritarian nations.
So I was thinking-what DO you need to create a democracy out of a monarchy or a dictatorship? One that has multiple parties and little chance of falling back to dictatorship?
I have a couple ideas, but I can still think of counterexamples, and I technically have to write an essay on the advancements in Military tactics right now, so I'll wait until tomorrow before I post my ideas.
However, then I realized something-most democracies we have in the world are rather stable. There are far fewer stable, 'uncorrupt' (which I will use to mean that there are multiple viable parties present, not that the system is uncorrupt. Compare America to, say, Nepal. Nepal might be less 'corrupt', but it hardly qualifies as a democracy) democracies than there are authoritarian nations.
So I was thinking-what DO you need to create a democracy out of a monarchy or a dictatorship? One that has multiple parties and little chance of falling back to dictatorship?
I have a couple ideas, but I can still think of counterexamples, and I technically have to write an essay on the advancements in Military tactics right now, so I'll wait until tomorrow before I post my ideas.
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What kept France reverting to democracy throughout the 19/20th century despite frequent coups/monarchist revivals/depression/war etc?
What made Germany revert to non democratic forms of government, despite a highly educated and advanced society?
Who the fuck really knows?
For modern examples (for the purposes of your essay) you should look at South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Thailand. They are probably the best examples of dictatorship/military rule transitioning to democracy in the last couple of decades.
Or if you want to be more adventurous you could look at the racial democracies of South Africa and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and how they first created democratic government, then limited it to to specified racial groups then transitioned to multi racial democracy in the last 30 years, then in Zimbabwe's case transitioned to one party rule and dictatorship.
Or even Fiji - a former British colony that has suffered a bunch of coups, which led to a creation of a racially biased democracy that in the end didn't stop yet more coups.
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I suspect that the former British colony things stems from them(frequently) trying to impose British government infrastructures into countries without ripping out local cultures by the roots.
Thailand is kind of funny, as they're a democracy, but they have a coup every fifteen or twenty years.
I think a major dimension is the nature of the economy, even more important these days with the high price of oil. Economies centered on one activity (like oil) create a "winner take all" problem. When you're the government of Nigeria, Gabon, Russia or Venezuela the consequences of losing power are just too great - you're shut off from not only political power (as happens everywhere) but also from economic power. Throw ethnicity into this and the problem is even worse. Sunnis in Iraq are afraid not only of being shut out of government by the numerically superiour Shi'ites, but losing access to the country's wealth (and a say in how it is disbursed) - there's no oil in the Sunni-populated western deserts.
Education is one very important factor that is identified, but there was also economic malaise that affected people's attitudes in Wiemar Germany. The Urban-Rural divide is also interesting - hardly anyone voted for the Nazis in Berlin or other major cities.
To put this notion of "the people have to want it" into more formal terms - there needs to be a significant degree of civil society participation and autonomy for individuals and their organisations. That basically means people interacting an a political and non-political fashion outside of the state's sphere. If everyone's "extra-curricular activities" are limited to attending a meeting of the local chapter of the Hitler Youth or the neighbourhood's Revolutionary Defence Council, it's not going to work.
I think the best example would be Burma - the people have demonstrated that they want democracy (and they elected a democratic government ages ago, it just never got to serve), they have networks through which to organise protests and political activity, such as their religion. Moreover, unlike Iraq, there is not the ethnic divide which creates a fear for any change in the status-quo.
As in, "this theory is crap, so it will only loosely mimic past events and be useless for predicting the future"?
edit - oops, I see Andrew_Jay sort of already made this point. Well, what he said too.
Yeah, I'd like to see it accurately predict anything more than two years in advance.
I don't know if you could even rank me as extremely skeptical about this theory. I am beyond skeptical.
Well, that's the point, isn't it? It's hard to get a democracy started via invasion and occupation. And actually, I can think of at least four countries which are nominally democracies where that form of government was instituted by invaders: Germany, Japan, Afghanistan, and Iraq are all at least nominally democracies created by invasion. Maybe Kosovo, too, if it manages to maintain its independence.
And Kosovo wasn't created by invasion and occupation. They were protected by NATO, but NATO didn't say "okay, you're declaring independence now, and forming your own country. Oh, and it's going to be a democracy." They did that on their own; NATO only kept their collective ass out of the fire.