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Tuesday, 3 January 2012

Democracy is more theoretical, practically it spells disaster

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
Democracy in its purest or most ideal form would be a society where every citizen have equal rules so called rule by the people, democracy is more theoretical but also proved that it is practically better for a country as well as the every citizen of country. Today democracy is working as a pillar of successful country because it leads the nation by providing the plate form for human right, economic growth, our culture and many more, if you see the development growth is almost going to increase and there is no end in democracy. If we seeing the situation in non democratic country still they are struggling with there power and many of them ruling out by army rules and many more reason.

Fall of the Soviet Union

In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism.

The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. Indeed, the breakup of the Soviet Union transformed the entire world political situation, leading to a complete reformulation of political, economic and military alliances all over the globe. What led to this monumental historical event? In fact, the answer is a very complex one, and can only be arrived at with an understanding of the peculiar composition and history of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was built on approximately the same territory as the Russian Empire which it succeeded. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the newly-formed government developed a philosophy of socialism with the eventual and gradual transition to Communism. The state which the Bolsheviks created was intended to overcome national differences, and rather to create one monolithic state based on a centralized economical and political system. This state, which was built on a Communist ideology, was eventually transformed into a totalitarian state, in which the Communist leadership had complete control over the country. However, this project of creating a unified, centralized socialist state proved problematic for several reasons. First, the Soviets underestimated the degree to which the non-Russian ethnic groups in the country (which comprised more than fifty percent of the total population of the Soviet Union) would resist assimilation into a Russianized State. Second, their economic planning failed to meet the needs of the State, which was caught up in a vicious arms race with the United States. This led to gradual economic decline, eventually necessitating the need for reform. Finally, the ideology of Communism, which the Soviet Government worked to instill in the hearts and minds of its population, never took firm root, and eventually lost whatever influence it had originally carried. By the time of the 1985 rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Unions last leader, the country was in a situation of severe stagnation, with deep economic and political problems which sorely needed to be addressed and overcome. Recognizing this, Gorbachev introduced a twotiered policy of reform. On one level, he initiated a policy of glasnost, or freedom of speech. On the other level, he began a program of economic reform known as perestroika, or rebuilding. What Gorbachev did not realize was that by giving people complete freedom of expression, he was unwittingly unleashing emotions and political feelings that had been pent up for decades, and which proved to be extremely powerful when brought out into the open. Moreover, his policy of economic reform did not have the immediate results he had hoped for and had publicly predicted. The Soviet people consequently used their newly allotted freedom of speech to criticize Gorbachev for his failure to improve the economy. Back to Top The disintegration of the Soviet Union began on the peripheries, in the non-Russian areas. The first region to produce mass, organized dissent was the Baltic region, where, in 1987, the government of Estonia demanded autonomy. This move was later followed by similar moves in Lithuania and Latvia, the other two Baltic republics. The nationalist movements in the Baltics constituted a strong challenge to Gorbachevs policy of glasnost. He did not want to crack down too severely on the participants in these movements, yet at the same time, it became increasingly

evident that allowing them to run their course would spell disaster for the Soviet Union, which would completely collapse if all of the periphery republics were to demand independence. After the initiative from Estonia, similar movements sprang up all over the former Soviet Union. In the Transcaucasus region (in the South of the Soviet Union), a movement developed inside the Armenian-populated autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabagh, in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Armenian population of this region demanded that they be granted the right to secede and join the Republic of Armenia, with whose population they were ethnically linked. Massive demonstrations were held in Armenia in solidarity with the secessionists in Nagorno-Karabagh. The Gorbachev government refused to allow the population of Nagorno-Karabagh to secede, and the situation developed into a violent territorial dispute, eventually degenerating into an all-out war which continues unabated until the present day. Back to Top Once this Pandoras box had been opened, nationalist movements emerged in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Byelorussia, and the Central Asian republics. The power of the Central Government was considerably weakened by these movements; they could no longer rely on the cooperation of Government figures in the republics. Finally, the situation came to a head in August of 1991. In a last-ditch effort to save the Soviet Union, which was floundering under the impact of the political movements which had emerged since the implementation of Gorbachevs glasnost, a group of hard-line Communists organized a coup detat. They kidnapped Gorbachev, and then, on August 19 of 1991, they announced on state television that Gorbachev was very ill and would no longer be able to govern. The country went into an uproar. Massive protests were staged in Moscow, Leningrad, and many of the other major cities of the Soviet Union. When the coup organizers tried to bring in the military to quell the protestors, the soldiers themselves rebelled, saying that they could not fire on their fellow countrymen. After three days of massive protest, the coup organizers surrendered, realizing that without the cooperation of the military, they did not have the power to overcome the power of the entire population of the country. Back to Top After the failed coup attempt, it was only a few months until the Soviet Union completely collapsed. Both the government and the people realized that there was no way to turn back the clock; the massive demonstrations of the August days had demonstrated that the population would accept nothing less than democracy. Gorbachev conceded power, realizing that he could no longer contain the power of the population. On December 25, 1991, he resigned. By January of 1992, by popular demand, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. In its place, a new entity was formed. It was called the Commonwealth of Independent Republics, and was composed of most of the independent countries of the former Soviet Union. While the member countries had complete political independence, they were linked to other Commonwealth countries by economic, and, in some cases, military ties.

Now that the Soviet Union, with its centralized political and economic system, has ceased to exist, the fifteen newly formed independent countries which emerged in its aftermath are faced with an overwhelming task. They must develop their economies, reorganize their political systems, and, in many cases, settle bitter territorial disputes. A number of wars have developed on the peripheries of the former Soviet Union. Additionally, the entire region is suffering a period of severe economic hardship. However, despite the many hardships facing the region, bold steps are being taken toward democratization, reorganization, and rebuilding in most of the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Proud to feel as a Democratic....

Yes I am democratic......
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A Short Historical Sketch on the Idea of Freedom (An Introduction by James P. You
Freedom in the Ancient World As is so often the case in an analysis of politics in the Western world, it is useful to start in ancient Athens. Athenian democracy is the Athenian democracy is the paradigm of civic freedom, paradigm of civic freedom. of democratic government through the direct participation of its citizens, and of "ruling and being ruled in turn," to adopt Aristotle's formulation. In Athens, all adult male citizens were eligible to attend the Assembly, which met 10 times a year and retained ultimate political authority, but the Council of 500 and the elaborate system of juries were the key institutions of government. Various civic offices were filled by election or through a lottery, thus ensuring widespread participation. One estimate suggests that in a given year, one out of six citizens would hold office. Terms were limited and there was a system of rotation in office. Juries were very large, and many citizens participated in them. Moreover, they had a legislative role and thus their duties extended far beyond those we associate with juries today. Laws passed by any of these bodies could, in theory, be changed or overruled by the Assembly. All of this was consistent with the high value the Athenians placed on the active participation of its citizens. Aristotle, for example, insisted that man is a political animal and that anyone who did not live in a political system had to be either a beast or a god. (It is interesting to note that the English word idiot is etymologically derived from the ancient Greek word for a private individual, or someone not

engaged in civic affairs.) But it has to be stressed that citizenship in Athens was not extended to most of its inhabitants. Of the city's population of approximately 300,000, only 30,000 were citizens. The ancient Greeks practiced slavery, women did not have political rights, and a large class of the residents of Athens was comprised of aliens who conducted much of the city's commerce but were denied citizenship. Nevertheless, in spite of these limitations on democracy, the enormous achievements of ancient Athens indicate what is possible when free citizens govern themselves. And for those who were citizens, there was a substantial, though certainly not complete, degree of political equality. One major development that begins to emerge in ancient Greek politics is the idea of a higher law, which is a step on the road to the Sophocles, ancient Greek playwright development of constitutionalism, the indispensable idea that freedom depends on limiting the powers of government. This conception is rooted in the philosophical distinction between nature and convention. Ordinary laws are matters of convention, or consensus among human lawmakers, but in the Greek view, there are higher laws based on truths fixed in nature. Thus Plato's Republic can be read as a critique of Athenian democracy; in his alternative portrait of an ideal government, philosopher kings rule according to their careful analysis of the nature of justice. Another powerful example is Sophocles' great play Antigone. The title character Antigone's brother has been denied the proper burial called for by the religion of ancient Greece, having been declared a traitor by the king. She appeals to the existence of a law higher than the royal decree. This standard remained philosophical or even religious, and was not yet institutionalized in a formal body of law. Nor was it the same as a claim to individual rights against the state. However, it was a move in that direction, and it is clearly an ancestor of the Jeffersonian theory of natural rights and of a higher, constitutional law, which will be discussed below. Following the decline of the Athenian polis, or citystate, the theoretical and practical problems of politics Freedom depends on limiting underwent a great deal of change. The small scale of the polis had advantages that could not be replicated in the powers of government. the vast empires of Alexander the Great or ancient Rome. In particular, the ideal of civic freedom went into sharp decline. Epicureanism, a philosophical school founded in 306 BC, advocated a life of tranquillity and taught that wise men avoid politics unless absolutely compelled to participate. And the Roman philosopher Cicero, along with other thinkers of the period, advanced a universal law of nature based on right reason and entirely independent of any physical location. According to this view, all men are equal, not necessarily in wealth or learning, but in their possession of reason and their basic perceptions of the good. It is in many ways an interesting and attractive theory, and one that had great historical influence, but it tended to detach citizenship from any particular political unit. Philosophers began to claim that they were not citizens of, for example, Athens, but rather citizens of the world, a form of cosmopolitan idealism that continues to be debated to this day.

The Romans produced little truly distinguished political theory. However, they did make some interesting contributions to political practice that foreshadowed the contemporary scene. Political participation in Rome was less direct than it had been in Athens. Something much like political parties and interest groups began to emerge, though as the Roman Republic gave way to the despotic Roman Empire, Romans increasingly came to be subjects rather than citizens. Still, the framers of the U.S. Constitution were steeped in the philosophical and political literature of ancient Rome, and it is not accidental that when Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers, they collectively adopted the Roman pseudonym Publius. Terms such as senate and republic are directly Plato, classical Greek philosopher descended from Roman institutions, though republic did not have the same democratic connotations in ancient Rome, or in the early United States, that it has today. For example, in the Federalist Papers, Madison clearly distances himself from Athenian participatory democracy and views representative, republican political institutions as a means to tame democratic passions. In the medieval world there was little sense of individual liberty, though there were some steps toward The Magna Carta established the institutionalization of limits on the power of the the principle that the king was not dynastic state. Recurrent tension between state and church resulted in a sort of balance that restrained both above the law. institutions, though of course the two often cooperated. More important in the long run was the Magna Carta of 1215, in which the feudal barons of England succeeded in forcing King John to agree, in writing, to accept limitations on his power over them, thus establishing the principle that the king was not above the law and providing the foundation upon which English constitutionalism was built. This principle further developed in the work of Edward Coke (pronounced Cook), a prominent English jurist in the early 17th century. He strongly defended the English common law as a bulwark against the Church, Parliament, and the king, and he insisted that the Magna Carta defended the rights of all Englishmen and not just the position of the barons against the king. He also famously proclaimed the principle that "a man's home is his castle." In the important case of Dr. Bonham, he provided a precedent for the American doctrine of judicial review, announced in the 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, which granted the courts the power to declare statutes invalid if they violated constitutional principles. >

Real Democracy: Negotiating Difference within Consensus

From Syntagma Square to Zuccotti Park many protesters claim to be exercising a novel idea of democratic politics, one which breaks away from the worn-out paradigms of representative democracy by presenting itself as genuinely inclusive, direct and participatory. One of the most visible slogans amongst the European Indignados movements is that of democracia real, meaning real democracy. Similarly, in the US Occupy movements many speak of new kind of democracy called consensus democracy[1]. This new type of politics is exercised in the hundreds of open assemblies occurring worldwide in various occupied squares. It is referred to as real democracy because decisions are not taken by majority vote but rather through extensive deliberation over decisions which all consent to. And yet we may ask, what is actually new about consensus democracy? And is it bringing any significant contribution to democratic theory? It is useful to compare consensus democracy with other democratic theories which claim to be just as participatory, direct and inclusive. Consensus democracy in fact shares many traits with Jrgen Habermass idea of deliberative democracy and Chantal Mouffes theory of agonistic democracy. From this brief analysis, we will see that the major challenge faced by these theories is the accommodation of social plurality within the process of achieving a collective consensus.
How does Consensus Decision Making Work?

Consensus decision-making offers a procedure through which participants of an assembly may take decisions collaboratively through deliberation. The decisions taken through this process are not necessarily ones that all individuals support wholeheartedly, but ones that everyone can live

with[2]. As such, its goal is the facilitation of a deliberative procedure in which proposals may be reworked so as to accommodate as many interests as possible.

Consensus decision-making is an inclusive, participatory, collaborative, agreement-seeking and cooperative method of deliberation. It therefore attempts to remedy the exclusionary byproducts of majority vote and top-down approaches towards decision making[3]. However, it is not a process limiting itself to the achievement of compromise; rather, it attempts to construct new proposals from the confrontation of different ideas[4]. Participants in the assembly are helped by facilitators, which aid the smooth running of the discussion. An impartial moderator keeps the discussion on track and makes sure that anyone wanting to speak is allowed to do so. Other facilitators keep time and take down the minutes (this guarantees transparency). In order not to interrupt the discussion with applause, jeers or boos, sign language signals are practiced: the waving of open palms (twinkling) expresses consent, the crossing of the arms signifies dissent[5]. Assembly discussions produce proposals which are tested for consent. Participants have four choices when faced with a proposal. Firstly, they may express consent. Secondly, they may stand aside, signaling that they dont fully support the proposal but that they are not against it. Thirdly, they may raise concerns and ask that it be modified. Lastly, they may block it, thereby effectively vetoing it. If this occurs, the proposal returns to assembly discussion, where it is modified/amended and re-tested for consensus until all consent to it. Blocking a proposal is a serious matter. It means that a participant deeply disagrees with it and that she/he will leave the assembly if it passes[6]. This type of democratic politics has been adopted by the Occupy and Indignados movements as an alternative to the politics as usual paradigm which has crippled our democratic institutions. Its leaderless and non-hierarchical mode of organization -which finds its only legitimate voice in the open, egalitarian and transparent popular assembly- provides an alternative to both traditional party-politics as well as vanguard-driven political struggle. Consensus democracy is more than anything a procedure: a process which allows for a more inclusive, direct and participatory exercise of democracy.

Habermas and Deliberative Democracy

In a similar way Jrgen Habermass democratic theory aims at creating a type of consensus based on extensive deliberation. Habermas asserts that there exists a type rationality implicit in the act of communication between individuals. Communicative rationality grants legitimacy to deliberation in virtue of its intelligibility, correctness, sincerity and truth. If two individuals feel that the discussion they are having is characterized by these attributes the outcome of their deliberation will be perceived by both as rational and therefore legitimate[7]. Habermas then develops the concept of the ideal speech situation, an ideal space in which perfect and balanced deliberation occurs: where there is full participation, where all are equal, all have a voice, and where there are no asymmetrical power relationships. These conditions allow for the maximization of communicative rationality. If we were to re-model our political institutions on the ideal speech situation the decisions reached through such a process would be endowed with a rational consensus, and thus garner increased legitimacy. Decisions taken through this process are legitimate and enjoy a rational consensus when they are determined by the quality of the better argument rather than power[8]. He is therefore arguing that increased democratic deliberation and participation grant legitimacy to the decision making process . Introducing something akin to the ideal speech situation within our political institutions (and in civil society) would begin to restore the democratic legitimacy which they currently lack[9]. Deliberative democracy therefore attempts to produce a rational consensus between rational participants, achieved through a deliberative procedure which ensures inclusion, participation and communicative equality.
Mouffe and Agonistic Democracy

Chantal Mouffe wholeheartedly rejects the possibility of a consensus reached through the procedures of deliberative democracy. For her, Habermas fails to recognize the true nature of the political, which is not underlined by rationalism but rather by political antagonism. Mouffe believes that society is irreducibly plural, in the sense that there exist a multiplicity of different identities and ideologies which often possess irreconcilable and diametrically opposed positions. The idea that all identities may deliberate on the basis of a shared communicative rationality is therefore implausible. Also, the idea that an unadulterated and unbiased ideal speech situation should serve as a model is unrealistic[10]. Mouffes main critique is that Habermas understands of a rational consensus specifically in Eurocentric and liberal terms, a consensus founded primarily on individual rights and the rule of law. This excludes, a priori, individuals and collective identities who do not fully identify with liberal tenets. Such groups are therefore perceived as irrational or premodern (aboriginal peoples or Islamist movements for example) whom often react antagonistically towards impositions of liberal consensus. As such, a rational consensus may perversely exclude difference as it would not allow irrational ideas into the deliberative process[11]. For Mouffe, the future of democratic politics lies in the transformation of antagonistic social conflict into agonistic political confrontation. Instead of absorbing social plurality into a universal liberal-democratic framework we must erect the democratic institutions and discourses

which allow for increased political confrontation between different ideas and identities. The sharing of the symbolic spaces and participatory democratic institutions in which to exercise our democratic rights attempts to defuse antagonism by transforming it into agonistic confrontation. This implies a confrontation not between enemies but between political adversaries[12]. Mouffe concludes that the stuff of democracy is political confrontation. Attempting to reach a final rational consensus spells the death of democracy because it puts an end to political confrontation which is the life-blood of democratic politics[13]. The type of consensus emerging from such a Mouffes theory is therefore not a universally shared consensus but one emerging from democratic confrontation: This is how I envisage the agonistic struggle, a struggle between different interpretations of shared principles, a conflictual consensus: consensus on the principles, disagreement about their interpretation[14]
Occupy: deliberative or agonistic?

While Habermas justifies his democratic theory on the possibility of an universal rational consensus, Mouffe founds hers directly on political confrontation. The first seeks the absorption of political confrontation within consensus, the second makes political confrontation its raison dtre. But where does consensus decision-making enter this debate? Deliberative and consensus democracy share the fact that they both offer a procedure through which to democratize decision making. However the main difference between them is that underlining deliberative democracy is the assumption that all participants share some understanding of what constitutes rationality. Yet, Mouffe has revealed that the understanding of this alleged universal rationality is specifically a liberal one, and hence is capable of excluding individuals whom do not identify with it. Contrarily, consensus decision-making makes no such assumptions. Its primary goal is to create the space and process in which egalitarian deliberation and decision-making between different political identities may occur. In respect to the accommodation of social plurality, consensus democracy as practiced by the Occupy and Indignados movements is closer to Mouffes agonistic democracy. It does not seek to absorb different political identities into a rational consensus but attempts to accommodate difference temporarily precisely through deliberative confrontation. The assemblies in the Occupy movements are very confrontational as their participants hail from disparate political positions on the ideological spectrum, from the liberal to the anarchist. Discussions are both lively and intense. And yet, consensus is more than often reached precisely because they are allowed to confront each other politically and forced to reach temporary collective decisions which may always be improved and modified in the future. This allows the assemblies to recognize what Mouffe calls the irreducible plurality of the social; they understand that we are all different politically, culturally and socially, and that difference cannot be absorbed by any idea of universal consensus. Moreover, the ability of any participant to block a proposal forces the assembly to recognize and negotiate with minority views, an issue which most democratic orders systematically ignore and overrule. The consensus reached in the Occupy movements is therefore a contingent one: the

product of temporary and negotiated discursive articulations and the child of an open, egalitarian and participatory democratic procedure. And these few facts alone, are truly breaking new ground within the field of political theory.

"Why the United States Should Spread Democracy"

INTRODUCTION
After the Cold War ended, promoting the international spread of democracy seemed poised to replace containment as the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy. Scholars, policymakers, and commentators embraced the idea that democratization could become America''s next mission. In recent years, however, critics have argued that spreading democracy may be unwise or even harmful. This paper addresses this debate. It argues that the United States should promote democracy and refutes some of the most important arguments against U.S. efforts to spread democracy. After a brief discussion of definitions of democracy and liberalism, the paper summarizes the reasons why the spread of democracy especially liberal democracy benefits the citizens of new democracies, promotes international peace, and serves U.S. interests. Because the case for democratization is rarely made comprehensively, the paper explicates the arguments for why democracy promotes liberty, prevents famines, and fosters economic development. The logic and evidence of a democratic peace are also summarized, as are the ways in which U.S. security and economic interests would be advanced in a world of democracies. These benefits to U.S. interests include a reduction in threats to the United States, fewer refugees attempting to enter the United States, and better economic partners for American trade and investment. The paper then turns to a rebuttal of four prominent recent arguments against the benefits of spreading democracy: (1) the claim that the democratic peace is a myth; (2) the argument that the process of democratization increases the risk of war; (3) arguments that democratic elections are harmful in societies that are not fully liberal; and (4) claims that "Asian values" can undergird polities based on "soft authoritarianism" that are superior to liberal democracies. The paper argues that these recent critiques of U.S. efforts to promote democracy have not presented a convincing case that spreading democracy is a bad idea. The internationa spread of democracy will offer many benefits to new democracies and to the United States. The democratic peace proposition appears robust, even if scholars need to continue to develop multiple explanations for why democracies rarely, if ever, go to war. The evidence on whether democratization increases the risk of war is mixed, at best, and policies can be crafted to minimize any risks of conflict in these cases. The problem of "illiberal democracy" has been exaggerated; democratic elections usually do more good than harm. The United States should, however, aim to promote liberal values as well as electoral democracy. And the "soft authoritarian" challenge to liberal democracy was not persuasive, even before the Asian economic turmoil of 1997 and 1998 undermined claims for the superiority of "Asian values."

Introduction In recent years, however, many writers have criticized the idea that the United States should attempt to spread democracy. The Clinton administration''s commitment to spreading democracy seems to have faltered, and critics from across the political spectrum have argued that the United States should scale back or abandon efforts to foster global democratization.4 In a prominent article, Robert Kaplan has argued that holding democratic elections in many countries may actually hinder efforts to maintain ethnic peace, social stability, and economic development.5 Fareed Zakaria has suggested that elections in countries without liberal values create illiberal democracies, which pose grave threats to freedom.6 This paper argues that the United States should make promoting democracy abroad one of its central foreign-policy goals. Democracy is not an unalloyed good and the United States should not blindly attempt to spread democracy to the exclusion of all other goals, but U.S. and global interests would be advanced if the world contained more democracies. It often will be difficult for the United States and other actors to help countries to become democracies, but international efforts frequently can make a difference. The United States can promote democracy. In many cases it should. I develop the argument for promoting democracy in three parts. The first section of this paper defines democracy and the closely related concept of liberalism. It distinguishes between democratic procedures of government and the political philosophy of liberalism, but also explains how the two are closely linked. The second section outlines the main arguments for why spreading democracy benefits the inhabitants of newly democratizing states, promotes peace in the international system, and advances U.S. interests. This section presents logic and evidence that demonstrates that the spread of democracy consistently advances many important values, including individual freedom from political oppression, deadly violence, and hunger. It also will show how the spread of democracy promotes international peace and stability, and helps to ensure the security and prosperity of the United States. The third section summarizes and rebuts some of the most prominent recent arguments against promoting democracy. These arguments include criticisms of the democratic peace hypothesis, the proposition that the process of democratization actually increases the risk of war, claims that in many countries democratic elections are at best irrelevant and at worst harmful, and the argument that the emergence of the "Asian model" of political and economic development demonstrates that liberal democracy is neither appropriate nor necessary in many countries. I. Defining Democracy and Liberalism A. Defining Democracy "Democracy" is notoriously difficult to define. Some writers have simply defined it by what it is not: "Democracy is a system in which no one can choose himself, no one can invest himself with the power to rule and, therefore, no one can abrogate to himself unconditional and unlimited

power."7 Other scholars have offered a variety of definitions. Philippe Schmitter and Terry Karl offer the following definition: "Modern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives."8 Joseph Schumpeter''s influential 1942 definition saw the "democratic method" as "that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people''s vote."9 Samuel Huntington "defines a twentieth-century political system as democratic to the extent that its most powerful collective decision makers are selected through fair, honest, and periodic elections in which candidates freely compete for votes, and in which virtually all the adult population is eligible to vote."10 The plethora of definitions of democracy has stimulated many scholars to analyze and compare how the term is defined.11 Attempts to define democracy are further complicated by the differences between the democracy of ancient Greece and contemporary democracy. Classical Athenian democracy was based on the ideals of full political participation of all citizens, a strong sense of community, the sovereignty of the people, and equality of all citizens under law.12 Modern democracy, on the other hand, relies on elected representatives and tends to draw a distinction between the public and private spheres, thereby eroding the bonds of community and fostering individualism. Because most writers use the term democracy to apply to modern, representative political systems, I will call such regimes democracies even if they fall short of the ancient Greek ideal of direct participatory democracy. Most contemporary definitions of democracy have several common elements. First, democracies are countries in which there are institutional mechanisms, usually elections, that allow the people to choose their leaders. Second, prospective leaders must compete for public support. Third, the power of the government is restrained by its accountability to the people. These are the essential characteristics of political democracy. Some writers add additional criteria to the list of what makes a polity a democracy. Larry Diamond argues that a democracy must have "extensive civil liberties (freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to form and join organizations)."13 Samuel Huntington recognizes that democracy "implies the existence of those civil and political freedoms to speak, publish, assemble and organize that are necessary to political debate and the conduct of electoral campaigns."14 These attempts to expand the criteria for democracy reveal that it makes more sense to talk about degrees of democracy instead of neatly dividing states into democracies and nondemocracies. Some states may be more democratic than others; drawing the line between democracy and nondemocracy will usually be a matter of judgment. They also highlight the importance of the distinction between democracy and liberalism. B. Liberalism and Democracy Democracy can be defined as a set of political procedures involving participation and competition, but liberalism is a political philosophy that is based on the principle of individual

freedom. As one scholar puts it, "liberalism''s ends are life and property, and its means are liberty and toleration."15 Liberalism calls for guarantees of the rights of the individual, including freedom from arbitrary authority, freedom of religion, the right to own and exchange private property, rights to equal opportunity in health care, education, and employment, and the rights to political participation and representation.16 Only the last category of rights is necessarily guaranteed in polities that meet the procedural definition of democracy. Most democracies are liberal democracies to some degree. The Western industrial countries combine procedural democracy with guarantees of civil liberties. Any state that embraces liberal principles is likely to become a democracy, because political participation, competition, and accountability are perhaps the best guarantees that individual freedoms will be preserved. Thus the terms "liberal" and "democracy" often go hand in hand. It is possible, however, that a country could be an illiberal democracy. For example, states with official racialist or nationalist ideologies might choose their leaders in elections but deny liberty to members of particular minority groups. Serbia and Iran are contemporary illiberal democracies. It is also possiblealthough unlikely-that a country could be a liberal state without being a democracy.17 The political philosopher Michael Walzer makes this point: "Even in the absence of free elections, it is possible to have a free press, religious freedom, associational pluralism, the right to organize unions, the right to move freely, and so on."18 In the 19th century Britain embraced liberal principles before it extended the franchise and became a democracy. In theory, a polity governed by a benevolent despot could respect most or all of the individual liberties associated with liberalism. In practice, relatively few contemporary states are liberal without being democratic. C. America''s Goal: Liberal Democracy Given the variety of definitions of democracy and the distinction between democracy and liberalism, what type of government should the United States attempt to spread? Should it try to spread democracy, defined procedurally, liberalism, or both? Ultimately, U.S. policies should aim to encourage the spread of liberal democracy. Policies to promote democracy should attempt to increase the number of regimes that respect the individual liberties that lie at the heart of liberalism and elect their leaders. The United States therefore should attempt to build support for liberal principles-many of which are enshrined in international human-rights treaties-as well as encouraging states to hold free and fair elections. Supporting the spread of liberal democracy does not, however, mean that the United States should give the promotion of liberalism priority over the growth of electoral democracy. In most cases, support for electoral democracy can contribute to the spread of liberalism and liberal democracy. Free and fair elections often remove leaders who are the biggest impediments to the spread of democracy. In Burma, for example, the people would almost certainly remove the authoritarian SLORC regime from power if they had a choice at the ballot box. In South Africa, Haiti, and Chile, for example, elections removed antidemocratic rulers and advanced the process of democratization. In most cases, the United States should support elections even in countries that are not fully liberal. Elections will generally initiate a process of change toward democratization. American policy should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good by insisting that countries embrace liberal principles before holding elections. Such a policy could be exploited by authoritarian rulers to justify their continued hold on power and to delay

elections that they might lose. In addition, consistent U.S. support for electoral democracy will help to bolster the emerging international norm that leaders should be accountable to their people. Achieving this goal is worth the risk that some distasteful leaders will win elections and use these victories at the ballot box to legitimize their illiberal rule. The United States also should attempt to build support for liberal principles, both before and after other countries hold elections. Policies that advance liberalism are harder to develop and pursue than those that aim to persuade states to hold free and fair elections, but the United States can promote liberalism as well as electoral democracy, as I argue below. II. The Benefits of the Spread of Democracy Most Americans assume that democracy is a good thing and that the spread of democracy will be beneficial. Because the virtues of democracy are taken for granted, they are rarely fully enumerated and considered. Democracy is not an unalloyed good, so it is important not to overstate or misrepresent the benefits of democratization. Nevertheless, the spread of democracy has many important benefits. This section enumerates how the spread of democracy will improve the lives of the citizens of new democracies, contribute to international peace, and directly advance the national interests of the United States. A. Democracy is Good for the Citizens of New Democracies The United States should attempt to spread democracy because people generally live better lives under democratic governments. Compared to inhabitants of nondemocracies, citizens of democracies enjoy greater individual liberty, political stability, freedom from governmental violence, enhanced quality of life, and a much lower risk of suffering a famine. Skeptics will immediately ask: Why should the United States attempt to improve the lives of non-Americans? Shouldn''t this country focus on its own problems and interests? There are at least three answers to these questions. First, as human beings, American should and do feel some obligation to improve the well-being of other human beings. The bonds of common humanity do not stop at the borders of the United States.19 To be sure, these bonds and obligations are limited by the competitive nature of the international system. In a world where the use of force remains possible, no government can afford to pursue a foreign policy based on altruism. The human race is not about to embrace a cosmopolitan moral vision in which borders and national identities become irrelevant. But there are many possibilities for action motivated by concern for individuals in other countries. In the United States, continued public concern over human rights in other countries, as well as governmental and nongovernmental efforts to relieve hunger, poverty, and suffering overseas, suggest that Americans accept some bonds of common humanity and feel some obligations to foreigners. The emergence of the so-called "CNN Effect"-the tendency for Americans to be aroused to action by television images of suffering people overseas-is further evidence that cosmopolitan ethical sentiments exist. If Americans care about improving the lives of the citizens of other countries, then the case for promoting democracy grows stronger to the extent that promoting democracy is an effective means to achieve this end.

Second, Americans have a particular interest in promoting the spread of liberty. The United States was founded on the principle of securing liberty for its citizens. Its founding documents and institutions all emphasize that liberty is a core value. Among the many observers and political scientists who make this point is Samuel Huntington, who argues that America''s "identity as a nation is inseparable from its commitment to liberal and democratic values."20 As I argue below, one of the most important benefits of the spread of democracy-and especially of liberal democracy-is an expansion of human liberty. Given its founding principles and very identity, the United States has a large stake in advancing its core value of liberty. As Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott has argued: "The United States is uniquely and self-consciously a country founded on a set of ideas, and ideals, applicable to people everywhere. The Founding Fathers declared that all were created equal-not just those in Britain''s 13 American colonies-and that to secure the `unalienable rights'' of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, people had the right to establish governments that derive `their just powers from the consent of the governed.''"21 Third, improvements in the lives of individuals in other countries matter to Americans because the United States cannot insulate itself from the world. It may be a clich to say that the world is becoming more interdependent, but it is undeniable that changes in communications technologies, trade flows, and the environment have opened borders and created a more interconnected world. These trends give the United States a greater stake in the fate of other societies, because widespread misery abroad may create political turmoil, economic instability, refugee flows, and environmental damage that will affect Americans. As I argue below in my discussion of how promoting democracy serves U.S. interests, the spread of democracy will directly advance the national interests of the United States. The growing interconnectedness of international relations means that the United States also has an indirect stake in the well-being of those in other countries, because developments overseas can have unpredictable consequences for the United States. For these three reasons, at least, Americans should care about how the spread of democracy can improve the lives of people in other countries. 1. Democracy Leads to Liberty and Liberty is Good The first way in which the spread of democracy enhances the lives of those who live in democracies is by promoting individual liberty, including freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom to own private property.22 Respect for the liberty of individuals is an inherent feature of democratic politics. As Samuel Huntington has written, liberty is "the peculiar virtue of democracy."23 A democratic political process based on electoral competition depends on freedom of expression of political views and freedom to make electoral choices. Moreover, governments that are accountable to the public are less likely to deprive their citizens of human rights. The global spread of democracy is likely to bring greater individual liberty to more and more people. Even imperfect and illiberal democracies tend to offer more liberty than autocracies, and liberal democracies are very likely to promote liberty. Freedom House''s 1997 survey of "Freedom in the World" found that 79 out of 118 democracies could be classified as "free" and 39 were "partly free" and, of those, 29 qualified as "high partly free." In contrast, only 20 of the world''s 73 nondemocracies were "partly free" and 53 were "not free."24

The case for the maximum possible amount of individual freedom can be made on the basis of utilitarian calculations or in terms of natural rights. The utilitarian case for increasing the amount of individual liberty rests on the belief that increased liberty will enable more people to realize their full human potential, which will benefit not only themselves but all of humankind. This view holds that greater liberty will allow the human spirit to flourish, thereby unleashing greater intellectual, artistic, and productive energies that will ultimately benefit all of humankind. The rights-based case for liberty, on the other hand, does not focus on the consequences of increased liberty, but instead argues that all men and women, by virtue of their common humanity, have a right to freedom. This argument is most memorably expressed in the American Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness ..." The virtues of greater individual liberty are not self-evident. Various political ideologies argue against making liberty the paramount goal of any political system. Some do not deny that individual liberty is an important goal, but call for limiting it so that other goals may be achieved. Others place greater emphasis on obligations to the community. The British Fabian Socialist Sidney Webb, for example, articulated this view clearly: "The perfect and fitting development of each individual is not necessarily the utmost and highest cultivation of his own personality, but the filling, in the best possible way, of his humble function in the great social machine."25 To debate these issues thoroughly would require a paper far longer than this one.26 The short response to most critiques of liberty is that there appears to be a universal demand for liberty among human beings. Particularly as socioeconomic development elevates societies above subsistence levels, individuals desire more choice and autonomy in their lives. More important, most political systems that have been founded on principles explicitly opposed to liberty have tended to devolve into tyrannies or to suffer economic, political, or social collapse. 2. Liberal Democracies are Less Likely to Use Violence Against Their Own People. Second, America should spread liberal democracy because the citizens of liberal democracies are less likely to suffer violent death in civil unrest or at the hands of their governments.27 These two findings are supported by many studies, but particularly by the work of R.J. Rummel. Rummel finds that democracies-by which he means liberal democracies-between 1900 and 1987 saw only 0.14% of their populations (on average) die annually in internal violence. The corresponding figure for authoritarian regimes was 0.59% and for totalitarian regimes 1.48%.28 Rummel also finds that citizens of liberal democracies are far less likely to die at the hands of their governments. Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of genocides and mass murders of civilians in the twentieth century. The states that have killed millions of their citizens all have been authoritarian or totalitarian: the Soviet Union, the People''s Republic of China, Nazi Germany, Nationalist China, Imperial Japan, and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Democracies have virtually never massacred their own citizens on a large scale, although they have killed foreign civilians during wartime. The American and British bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan, U.S. atrocities in Vietnam, massacres of Filipinos during the guerrilla war that followed U.S. colonization of the Philippines after 1898, and French killings of Algerians during the Algerian War are some prominent examples.29

There are two reasons for the relative absence of civil violence in democracies: (1) Democratic political systems-especially those of liberal democracies constrain the power of governments, reducing their ability to commit mass murders of their own populations. As Rummel concludes, "Power kills, absolute power kills absolutely ... The more freely a political elite can control the power of the state apparatus, the more thoroughly it can repress and murder its subjects."30 (2) Democratic polities allow opposition to be expressed openly and have regular processes for the peaceful transfer of power. If all participants in the political process remain committed to democratic principles, critics of the government need not stage violent revolutions and governments will not use violence to repress opponents.31 3. Democracy Enhances Long-Run Economic Performance A third reason for promoting democracy is that democracies tend to enjoy greater prosperity over long periods of time. As democracy spreads, more individuals are likely to enjoy greater economic benefits. Democracy does not necessarily usher in prosperity, although some observers claim that "a close correlation with prosperity" is one of the "overwhelming advantages" of democracy.32 Some democracies, including India and the Philippines, have languished economically, at least until the last few years. Others are among the most prosperous societies on earth. Nevertheless, over the long haul democracies generally prosper. As Mancur Olson points out: "It is no accident that the countries that have reached the highest level of economic performance across generations are all stable democracies."33 Authoritarian regimes often compile impressive short-run economic records. For several decades, the Soviet Union''s annual growth in gross national product (GNP) exceeded that of the United States, leading Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to pronounce "we will bury you." China has posted double-digit annual GNP increases in recent years. But autocratic countries rarely can sustain these rates of growth for long. As Mancur Olson notes, "experience shows that relatively poor countries can grow extraordinarily rapidly when they have a strong dictator who happens to have unusually good economic policies, such growth lasts only for the ruling span of one or two dictators."34 The Soviet Union was unable to sustain its rapid growth; its economic failings ultimately caused the country to disintegrate in the throes of political and economic turmoil. Most experts doubt that China will continue its rapid economic expansion. Economist Jagdish Bhagwati argues that "no one can maintain these growth rates in the long term. Sooner or later China will have to rejoin the human race."35 Some observers predict that the stresses of high rates of economic growth will cause political fragmentation in China.36 Why do democracies perform better than autocracies over the long run? Two reasons are particularly persuasive explanations. First, democracies-especially liberal democracies-are more likely to have market economies, and market economies tend to produce economic growth over the long run. Most of the world''s leading economies thus tend to be market economies, including the United States, Japan, the "tiger" economies of Southeast Asia, and the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Two recent studies suggest that there is a direct connection between economic liberalization and economic performance. Freedom House conducted a World Survey of Economic Freedom for 1995-96, which evaluated 80 countries that account for 90% of the world''s population and 99% of the world''s wealth on the basis of criteria such as the right to own property, operate a business, or belong to a trade union.

It found that the countries rated "free" generated 81% of the world''s output even though they had only 17% of the world''s population.37 A second recent study confirms the connection between economic freedom and economic growth. The Heritage Foundation has constructed an Index of Economic Freedom that looks at 10 key areas: trade policy, taxation, government intervention, monetary policy, capital flows and foreign investment, banking policy, wage and price controls, property rights, regulation, and black market activity. It has found that countries classified as "free" had annual 1980-1993 real per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (expressed in terms of purchasing power parities) growth rates of 2.88%. In "mostly free" countries the rate was 0.97%, in "mostly not free" ones -0.32%, and in "repressed" countries -1.44%.38 Of course, some democracies do not adopt market economies and some autocracies do, but liberal democracies generally are more likely to pursue liberal economic policies. Second, democracies that embrace liberal principles of government are likely to create a stable foundation for long-term economic growth. Individuals will only make long-term investments when they are confident that their investments will not be expropriated. These and other economic decisions require assurances that private property will be respected and that contracts will be enforced. These conditions are likely to be met when an impartial court system exists and can require individuals to enforce contracts. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has argued that: "The guiding mechanism of a free market economy ... is a bill of rights, enforced by an impartial judiciary."39 These conditions also happen to be those that are necessary to maintain a stable system of free and fair elections and to uphold liberal principles of individual rights. Mancur Olson thus points out that "the conditions that are needed to have the individual rights needed for maximum economic development are exactly the same conditions that are needed to have a lasting democracy. ... the same court system, independent judiciary, and respect for law and individual rights that are needed for a lasting democracy are also required for security of property and contract rights."40 Thus liberal democracy is the basis for long-term economic growth. A third reason may operate in some circumstances: democratic governments are more likely to have the political legitimacy necessary to embark on difficult and painful economic reforms.41 This factor is particularly likely to be important in former communist countries, but it also appears to have played a role in the decisions India and the Philippines have taken in recent years to pursue difficult economic reforms.42 4. Democracies Never Have Famines Fourth, the United States should spread democracy because the citizens of democracies do not suffer from famines. The economist Amartya Sen concludes that "one of the remarkable facts in the terrible history of famine is that no substantial famine has ever occurred in a country with a democratic form of government and a relatively free press."43 This striking empirical regularity has been overshadowed by the apparent existence of a "democratic peace" (see below), but it provides a powerful argument for promoting democracy. Although this claim has been most closely identified with Sen, other scholars who have studied famines and hunger reach similar conclusions. Joseph Collins, for example, argues that: "Wherever political rights for all citizens truly flourish, people will see to it that, in due course, they share in control over economic resources vital to their survival. Lasting food security thus requires real and sustained

democracy."44 Most of the countries that have experienced severe famines in recent decades have been among the world''s least democratic: the Soviet Union (Ukraine in the early 1930s), China, Ethiopia, Somalia, Cambodia and Sudan. Throughout history, famines have occurred in many different types of countries, but never in a democracy. Democracies do not experience famines for two reasons. First, in democracies governments are accountable to their populations and their leaders have electoral incentives to prevent mass starvation. The need to be reelected impels politicians to ensure that their people do not starve. As Sen points out, "the plight of famine victims is easy to politicize" and "the effectiveness of democracy in the prevention of famine has tended to depend on the politicization of the plight of famine victims, through the process of public discussion, which generates political solidarity."45 On the other hand, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are not accountable to the public; they are less likely to pay a political price for failing to prevent famines. Moreover, authoritarian and totalitarian rulers often have political incentives to use famine as a means of exterminating their domestic opponents. Second, the existence of a free press and the free flow of information in democracies prevents famine by serving as an early warning system on the effects of natural catastrophes such as floods and droughts that may cause food scarcities. A free press that criticizes government policies also can publicize the true level of food stocks and reveal problems of distribution that might cause famines even when food is plentiful.46 Inadequate information has contributed to several famines. During the 1958-61 famine in China that killed 20-30 million people, the Chinese authorities overestimated the country''s grain reserves by 100 million metric tons. This disaster later led Mao Zedong to concede that "Without democracy, you have no understanding of what is happening down below."47 The 1974 Bangladesh famine also could have been avoided if the government had had better information. The food supply was high, but floods, unemployment, and panic made it harder for those in need to obtain food.48 The two factors that prevent famines in democracies-electoral incentives and the free flow of information-are likely to be present even in democracies that do not have a liberal political culture. These factors exist when leaders face periodic elections and when the press is free to report information that might embarrass the government. A full-fledged liberal democracy with guarantees of civil liberties, a relatively free economic market, and an independent judiciary might be even less likely to suffer famines, but it appears that the rudiments of electoral democracy will suffice to prevent famines. The ability of democracies to avoid famines cannot be attributed to any tendency of democracies to fare better economically. Poor democracies as well as rich ones have not had famines. India, Botswana, and Zimbabwe have avoided famines, even when they have suffered large crop shortfalls. In fact, the evidence suggests that democracies can avoid famines in the face of large crop failures, whereas nondemocracies plunge into famine after smaller shortfalls. Botswana''s food production fell by 17% and Zimbabwe''s by 38% between 1979-81 and 1983-84, whereas Sudan and Ethiopia saw a decline in food production of 11-12% during the same period. Sudan and Ethiopia, which were nondemocracies, suffered major famines, whereas the democracies of Botswana and Zimbabwe did not.49 If, as I have argued, democracies enjoy better long-run economic performance than nondemocracies, higher levels of economic development may help

democracies to avoid famines. But the absence of famines in new, poor democracies suggests that democratic governance itself is sufficient to prevent famines. The case of India before and after independence provides further evidence that democratic rule is a key factor in preventing famines. Prior to independence in 1947, India suffered frequent famines. Shortly before India became independent, the Bengal famine of 1943 killed 2-3 million people. Since India became independent and democratic, the country has suffered severe crop failures and food shortages in 1968, 1973, 1979, and 1987, but it has never suffered a famine.50 B. Democracy is Good for the International System In addition to improving the lives of individual citizens in new democracies, the spread of democracy will benefit the international system by reducing the likelihood of war. Democracies do not wage war on other democracies. This absence-or near absence, depending on the definitions of "war" and "democracy" used-has been called "one of the strongest nontrivial and nontautological generalizations that can be made about international relations."51 One scholar argues that "the absence of war between democracies comes as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations."52 If the number of democracies in the international system continues to grow, the number of potential conflicts that might escalate to war will diminish. Although wars between democracies and nondemocracies would persist in the short run, in the long run an international system composed of democracies would be a peaceful world. At the very least, adding to the number of democracies would gradually enlarge the democratic "zone of peace." 1. The Evidence for the Democratic Peace Many studies have found that there are virtually no historical cases of democracies going to war with one another. In an important two-part article published in 1983, Michael Doyle compares all international wars between 1816 and 1980 and a list of liberal states.53 Doyle concludes that "constitutionally secure liberal states have yet to engage in war with one another."54 Subsequent statistical studies have found that this absence of war between democracies is statistically significant and is not the result of random chance.55 Other analyses have concluded that the influence of other variables, including geographical proximity and wealth, do not detract from the significance of the finding that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with one another.56 Most studies of the democratic-peace proposition have argued that democracies only enjoy a state of peace with other democracies; they are just as likely as other states to go to war with nondemocracies.57 There are, however, several scholars who argue that democracies are inherently less likely to go to war than other types of states.58 The evidence for this claim remains in dispute, however, so it would be premature to claim that spreading democracy will do more than to enlarge the democratic zone of peace. 2. Why there is a Democratic Peace: The Causal Logic Two types of explanations have been offered for the absence of wars between democracies. The first argues that shared norms prevent democracies from fighting one another. The second claims

that institutional (or structural) constraints make it difficult or impossible for a democracy to wage war on another democracy. a. Normative Explanations The normative explanation of the democratic peace argues that norms that democracies share preclude wars between democracies. One version of this argument contends that liberal states do not fight other liberal states because to do so would be to violate the principles of liberalism. Liberal states only wage war when it advances the liberal ends of increased individual freedom. A liberal state cannot advance liberal ends by fighting another liberal state, because that state already upholds the principles of liberalism. In other words, democracies do not fight because liberal ideology provides no justification for wars between liberal democracies.59 A second version of the normative explanation claims that democracies share a norm of peaceful conflict resolution. This norm applies between and within democratic states. Democracies resolve their domestic conflicts without violence, and they expect that other democracies will resolve interdemocratic international disputes peacefully.60 b. Institutional/Structural Explanations Institutional/structural explanations for the democratic peace contend that democratic decisionmaking procedures and institutional constraints prevent democracies from waging war on one another. At the most general level, democratic leaders are constrained by the public, which is sometimes pacific and generally slow to mobilize for war. In most democracies, the legislative and executive branches check the war-making power of each other. These constraints may prevent democracies from launching wars. When two democracies confront one another internationally, they are not likely to rush into war. Their leaders will have more time to resolve disputes peacefully.61 A different sort of institutional argument suggests that democratic processes and freedom of speech make democracies better at avoiding myths and misperceptions that cause wars.62 c. Combining Normative and Structural Explanations Some studies have attempted to test the relative power of the normative and institutional/structural explanations of the democratic peace.63 It might make more sense, however, to specify how the two work in combination or separately under different conditions. For example, in liberal democracies liberal norms and democratic processes probably work in tandem to synergistically produce the democratic peace.64 Liberal states are unlikely to even contemplate war with one another. They thus will have few crises and wars. In illiberal or semiliberal democracies, norms play a lesser role and crises are more likely, but democratic institutions and processes may still make wars between illiberal democracies rare. Finally, statelevel factors like norms and domestic structures may interact with international-systemic factors to prevent wars between democracies. If democracies are better at information-processing, they may be better than nondemocracies at recognizing international situations where war would be foolish. Thus the logic of the democratic peace may explain why democracies sometimes behave according to realist (systemic) predictions.

C. The Spread of Democracy is Good for the United States The United States will have an interest in promoting democracy because further democratization enhances the lives of citizens of other countries and contributes to a more peaceful international system. To the extent that Americans care about citizens of other countries and international peace, they will see benefits from the continued spread of democracy. Spreading democracy also will directly advance the national interests of the United States, because democracies will not launch wars or terrorist attacks against the United States, will not produce refugees seeking asylum in the United States, and will tend to ally with the United States. 1. Democracies Will Not Go to War with the United States First, democracies will not go to war against the United States, provided, of course, that the United States remains a democracy. The logic of the democratic peace suggests that the United States will have fewer enemies in a world of more democracies. If democracies virtually never go to war with one another, no democracy will wage war against the United States. Democracies are unlikely to get into crises or militarized disputes with the United States. Promoting democracy may usher in a more peaceful world; it also will enhance the national security of the United States by eliminating potential military threats. The United States would be more secure if Russia, China, and at least some countries in the Arab and Islamic worlds became stable democracies. 2. Democracies Don''t Support Terrorism Against the United States Second, spreading democracy is likely to enhance U.S. national security because democracies will not support terrorist acts against the United States. The world''s principal sponsors of international terrorism are harsh, authoritarian regimes, including Syria, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, and Sudan.65 Some skeptics of the democratic-peace proposition point out that democracies sometimes have sponsored covert action or "state terrorism" against other democracies. Examples include U.S. actions in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, and Chile in 1973.66 This argument does not undermine the claim that democracies will not sponsor terrorism against the United States. In each case, the target state had dubious democratic credentials. U.S. actions amounted to interference in internal affairs, but not terrorism as it is commonly understood. And the perpetrator of the alleged "state terrorist" acts in each case was the United States itself, which suggests that the United States has little to fear from other democracies. 3. Democracies Produce Fewer Refugees Third, the spread of democracy will serve American interests by reducing the number of refugees who flee to the United States. The countries that generate the most refugees are usually the least democratic. The absence of democracy tends to lead to internal conflicts, ethnic strife, political oppression, and rapid population growth-all of which encourage the flight of refugees.67 The spread of democracy can reduce refugee flows to the United States by removing the political sources of decisions to flee.

The results of the 1994 U.S. intervention in Haiti demonstrate how U.S. efforts to promote democratization can reduce refugee flows. The number of refugees attempting to flee Haiti for the United States dropped dramatically after U.S. forces deposed the junta led by General Raoul Cedras and restored the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, even though Haiti''s economic fortunes did not immediately improve.68 In addition to reducing the number of countries that generate refugees, the spread of democracy is likely to increase the number of countries that accept refugees, thereby reducing the number of refugees who will attempt to enter the United States.69 4. Democracies will Ally with the United States Fourth, the global spread of democracy will advance American interests by creating more potential allies for the United States. Historically, most of America''s allies have been democracies. In general, democracies are much more likely to ally with one another than with nondemocracies.70 Even scholars who doubt the statistical evidence for the democratic-peace proposition, agree that "the nature of regimes ... is an important variable in the understanding the composition of alliances ... democracies have allied with one another."71 Thus spreading democracy will produce more and better alliance partners for the United States. 5. American Ideals Flourish When Others Adopt Them Fifth, the spread of democracy internationally is likely to increase Americans'' psychological sense of well-being about their own democratic institutions. Part of the impetus behind American attempts to spread democracy has always come from the belief that American democracy will be healthier when other countries adopt similar political systems. To some extent, this belief reflects the conviction that democracies will be friendly toward the United States. But it also reflects the fact that democratic principles are an integral part of America''s national identity. The United States thus has a special interest in seeing its ideals spread.72 6. Democracies Make Better Economic Partners Finally, the United States will benefit from the spread of democracy because democracies will make better economic partners. Democracies are more likely to adopt market economies, so democracies will tend to have more prosperous and open economies. The United States generally will be able to establish mutually beneficial trading relationships with democracies. And democracies provide better climates for American overseas investment, by virtue of their political stability and market economies. III. Responses to Criticisms of U.S. Efforts to Promote Democracy A. The Controversy Over the Democratic Peace Although many political scientists accept the proposition that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with one another, several critics have challenged claims of a democratic peace. By the late 1990s, proponents and critics of the democratic peace were engaged in a vigorous and sometimes

heated debate.73 Participants on both sides claimed that their opponents had been blinded by ideology and refused to view the evidence objectively.74 Because of this intense and ongoing controversy, establishing the case for the democratic peace now requires rebutting some of the most prominent criticisms. Critics have presented several important challenges to the deductive logic and empirical bases of the democratic peace proposition. They have argued that there is not a convincing theoretical explanation of the apparent absence of war between democracies, that democracies actually have fought one another, that the absence of wars between democracies is not statistically significant, and that factors other than shared democratic institutions or values have caused the democratic peace. The critics of the democratic peace have presented vigorous arguments that have forced the proposition''s proponents to refine and qualify the case for the democratic peace. These criticisms do not, however, refute the principal arguments for the democratic peace. As I argue below, there is still a compelling deductive and empirical case that democracies are extremely unlikely to fight one another. Moreover, the case for spreading democracy does not rest entirely on the democratic-peace proposition. Although those who favor promoting democracy often invoke the democratic peace, the debate over whether the United States should spread democracy is not the same as the debate over the democratic peace. Even if the critics were able to undermine the democratic-peace proposition, their arguments would not negate the case for spreading democracy, because there are other reasons for promoting democracy. More important, the case for promoting democracy as a means of building peace remains sound if the spread of democracy merely reduces the probability of war between democracies, whereas "proving" the democratic peace proposition requires showing that the probability of such wars is at or close to zero. 1. Criticisms of the Deductive Logic of the Democratic Peace Several criticisms of the democratic peace proposition fault the logic that has been advanced to explain the apparent absence of war between democracies. These arguments do not rest on an assessment of the empirical evidence, but instead rely on analyses and critiques of the internal consistency and persuasiveness of the theoretical explanations of the democratic peace. Critics have offered four major challenges to the logic of the democratic peace: (a) there is no consensus on the causal mechanisms that keep democracies at peace: (b) the possibility that democracies may turn into nondemocracies means that even democracies operate according to realist principles; (c) the structural-institutional explanation of the democratic peace is flawed, not least because its logic also would predict that democracies are less likely to be involved in any wars, not just wars with other democracies; and (d) the normative explanation of the democratic peace is unpersuasive. a. Absence of Consensus on what Explains the Democratic Peace The Argument: The first, and most general criticism of the deductive logic of the democratic peace proposition holds that the lack of agreement on what causes democracies to avoid war with one another calls the proposition into question.75 This argument suggests that scholars cannot be confident in an empirical finding when they cannot agree on its causes.

Response: The fact that several theories have been advanced to explain the democratic peace does not mean that we cannot be confident that democracies are unlikely to fight one another. There is no reason to assume that a single theory explains all the cases in which democracies have avoided war with one another. It is possible to be confident in an empirical finding even when many different explanations account for it. For example, it is empirically true that all human beings eventually die. (The discovery of evidence to refute this proposition would have profound biological, philosophical, and theological implications, not to mention its effects on retirement planning and the future of the Social Security system.) But there are many causes of death, each of which rests on a different logic of explanation. People die in wars, accidents, and violent crimes, as well as from AIDS, heart disease, numerous types of cancer, and Alzheimer''s Disease, among many other factors. In some cases, the causal logic of the explanation of death is very clear. It is well understood how a bullet through the heart leads to death. In other cases, including many infectious and chronic diseases, the precise biological and physiological processes that cause death are not fully understood. Nevertheless, the variety of causal mechanisms and our incomplete understanding of many of them do not lead us to the conclusion that some human beings will not die. Accounting for the absence of wars between democracies is somewhat similar to explaining why people die. Several causal mechanisms explain the absence of wars between democracies. In some cases, democracies avoid war because the distribution of power in the international system gives them strong incentives to remain at peace. In at least some of these cases, democratic decision-making processes may make democracies "smarter" and better able to recognize systemic incentives. When states share liberal values, they are unlikely to go to war because fighting one another would undermine liberal values such as respect for individual freedom. As John Owen has argued, democratic institutions may reinforce the incentives for peace provided by shared liberal principles.76 And there are probably additional explanations for why at least some democratic dyads have remained at peace. Proponents of the democratic peace need to refine the logic of each explanation and identify the conditions under which they apply, but the multiplicity of explanations does not mean that the democratic peace is invalid. b. Democracies may Revert to Autocracy The Argument: A second criticism of the logic of the democratic peace argues that democracies cannot enjoy a perpetual peace among themselves because there is always a possibility that a democratic state will become nondemocratic. This possibility means that even democracies must be concerned about the potential threat posed by other democracies. John Mearsheimer argues that: "Liberal democracies must therefore worry about relative power among themselves, which is tantamount to saying that each has an incentive to consider aggression against the other to forestall future trouble."77 In other words, the realist logic of anarchy, which posits that states exist in a Hobbesian world of fear, suspicion and potential war, applies even to relations between democracies.78 Response: There are four reasons for rejecting claims that fears of democratic backsliding compel democracies to treat other democracies as they would treat any nondemocratic state. First, the historical record shows that mature, stable democracies rarely become autocracies.79

Second, democracies are able to recognize and respond to states that are making a transition from democracy to authoritarianism. Democratic states thus can pursue a policy of accommodation toward other democracies, hedge their bets with more cautious policies toward unstable or uncertain democracies, and abandon accommodation when democracies turn into nondemocracies. There is no reason to assume that democracies will become autocracies overnight and then immediately launch attacks on democracies. Third, like some other realist arguments, the claim that states must give priority to preparing for an unlikely dangerous future development rests on flawed logic. It assumes that states must base their foreign policies almost entirely on worst-case scenarios. Similar logic would imply that, for example, citizens in any country should act on the basis of the assumption that domestic law and order might collapse into anarchy and violence. Fourth, the claim that democracies must worry about the relative power of other democracies (which may become autocracies) relies on the same shaky logic that predicts that states cannot cooperate because they need to worry about the relative gains achieved by other states. The relative-gains argument holds that in international politics, cooperation is rare because it often gives greater gains to one state, and these relative disparities in gains can be turned into advantages in power than can be used to threaten the state that gains less.80 The relative-gains argument sometimes assumes that states have high and constant concerns about relative gains. In practice, however, relative-gains concerns vary and are often almost nonexistent.81 c. Criticisms of the Structural-Institutional Explanation The Argument: Critics of the structural-institutional explanation of the democratic peace make the following arguments. First, the structural-institutional model fails to explain why democracies go to war with nondemocracies, even though they do not fight other democracies. If leaders of democracies are constrained from going to war by the public, this constraint would also prevent democracies from fighting nondemocracies.82 Many studies report, however, that democracies have the same rate of war involvement as nondemocracies. Second, critics argue that the public is often just as warlike as the leaders that they are supposed to constrain. Public jingoism and enthusiasm for war accompanied the outbreak of World War One and helped cause the Spanish-American War. The structural-institutional model thus erroneously assumes that the people are usually more pacific than their leaders.83 A related argument suggests that recent extended intervals of peace may have led publics to forget the horrors of war. The end of conscription in many countries and the tendency for wars to be fought by volunteer professional armies may further erode public opposition to the use of force.84 Response: The criticisms of the structural-institutional explanation of the democratic peace are not persuasive, for four reasons. First, this explanation can account for why democracies only avoid wars with other democracies, because democracies may behave differently toward states (i.e., democracies) with domestic institutions that constrain their ability to go to war quickly. Democracies may distinguish between states on the basis of their political institutions, and pursue different policies toward those that are constrained by democratic institutions. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and David Lalman argue that "some political institutions help foster beliefs

... about the dovish inclinations of certain states. Democratic institutions are visible signs that the state in question is likely to face high political costs for using force in its diplomacy."85 A slightly different form of the argument suggests that the constraints of democratic decisionmaking become much more severe when the government of a democracy attempts to mobilize the country for war against a fellow democracy. Thus the institutional argument does not actually predict that democracies will pursue peaceful policies toward all types of states. Second, the institutional-structural explanation, properly formulated, need not rest on the assumption that the public is peace-loving while leaders are eager to go to war. Some proponents of the democratic peace proposition, including Immanuel Kant, have assumed that the people are less eager to favor war, because they will ultimately be forced to pay its costs.86 The logic of the theory, however, can be recast in terms of checks and balances. In a democracy, the executive branch, legislative branch, and the public all constrain each other''s ability to make rash and hasty decisions for war. Third, the critics overlook how the existence of domestic constraints in a pair of democratic states can enable a democratic dyad to spend more time seeking a peaceful settlement of a conflict than a dyad with one or no democracies. If both states in a crisis are unable to mobilize quickly, they will have more time to resolve the crisis without war. Bruce Russett argues: "If another nation''s leaders regard a state as democratic, they will anticipate a difficult and lengthy process before the democracy is likely to use significant military force against them. They will expect an opportunity to reach a negotiated settlement."87 Finally, critics of the institutional-structural explanation have not addressed the claim that democratic institutions endow democracies with better information-processing capabilities that enable democracies to limit the myths that cause war and to avoid wars when international circumstances render war unwise. d. Criticisms of the Normative Explanation The Argument: Scholars skeptical of the democratic peace proposition have not criticized the normative explanation for the democratic peace as much as they have argued against the structural-institutional explanation. Several skeptics have not attacked the logic of the normative explanation, preferring to argue against the democratic peace on empirical grounds.88 There is, nevertheless, at least one prominent argument against the normative explanation. Some critics claim that democratic norms should preclude the use of threats or covert action by democracies against other democracies. Norms of trust and respect for the autonomy of liberal regimes would rule out such behavior, just as they proscribe war. But democracies often have threatened war or engaged in covert actions against other democracies.89 These hostilities between democracies fall short of war, but they call into question whether shared norms can explain the absence of wars between democracies.90 Response: Proponents of the democratic peace counter that the involvement of the United States in Chile in 1973 is usually the only example of covert intervention by a democracy in another democracy and that democracies as a group are actually less likely to engage in covert or overt interventions.91 More generally, they argue that the normative explanation is not undermined by

hostilities short of war. If democracies (or liberal states) fail to recognize one another or temporarily adopt illiberal policies, they may find themselves at odds with other democracies (or liberal states). But as crises develop between liberal democracies, they tend to act on the basis of their shared norms and draw back from the brink of war.92 2. Empirical Criticisms a. Democracies Sometimes Fight The Argument: Critics of the democratic peace point to apparent wars between democracies as evidence that there is no democratic peace. They frequently cite the War of 1812, the SpanishAmerican War, Finland''s decision to align with Germany against the Western powers and the Soviet Union during World War Two, the American Civil War, World War One, and the wars that followed the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. At least 17 conflicts have been cited as potential wars between democracies.93 Responses: There are three reasons to reject the claim that the democratic peace proposition is invalid because democracies may have fought some wars. First, the democratic peace propositionCcorrectly formulated-holds that democracies rarely fight, not that they never fight. In social science it is probably impossible to generate laws with 100% accuracy. Thus the correct formulation of the democratic peace proposition is the statement that democracies almost never go to war with one another.94 Second, many of the cases cited do not qualify as "wars" between "democracies." A closer examination of the conflicts in question reveals that the apparent exceptions do not refute the democratic peace proposition. In some cases, one of the participants was not a democracy. In 1812, Britain was not a democracy. Spain''s democratic credentials in 1898 were dubious. Germany in 1914 was not governed by liberal principles and its foreign policy was directed by the Kaiser, not the elected Reichstag.95 In other cases, no international war took place. The American Civil War was not an international war. Finland engaged in virtually no direct hostilities with the Western allies during World War Two; it fought almost entirely against communist Russia.96 Third, the criticism that democracies have fought one another is irrelevant to deciding whether the United States should export democracy. The spread of democracy makes sense as long as democracies are significantly less likely to go to war with one another. A policy of spreading democracy would be justified if democracies have, for example, avoided war 99.9% of the time; we can decide to spread democracy without debating whether the figure is 99.9% or 100%. b. The Absence of War is not Statistically Significant The Argument: Statistical critiques of the evidence for the democratic peace proposition generally argue that there is not enough evidence to conclude that the absence of wars between democracies is statistically significant. There are two underlying logics behind most of these quantitative arguments. The first suggests that wars between a given pair of states are relatively rare in international politics, so the absence of wars between democracies might be a

coincidence.97 The second argument claims that the absence of war between democracies is only statistically significant after World War II, and that the democratic peace since 1945 has been a product of the alignment of most democracies against the Soviet Union.98 Responses: Many quantitative analyses conclude that challenges to the statistical significance of the democratic peace do not withstand close scrutiny.99 Zeev Maoz has offered one of the most comprehensive rebuttals of these arguments.100 He argues that Spiro''s own analysis predicts far more wars between liberal dyads that actually occurred. Maoz also argues that it is misleading to count all parties in large, multi-state wars as being at war with one another. (E.g., Japan was not really "at war" with Bulgaria in World War I.) He notes that Spiro changes the counting rule for the Korean War. Maoz and Russett focused on the "politically-relevant" dyads, which account for most wars. Maoz also claims that slicing the data into one-year segments makes finding any war statistically insignificant. Such slicing is like testing whether a bowl of sugar will attract ants by assessing the statistical significance of finding an ant on an individual grain of sugar. The odds that ants will be in the sugar bowl are high; the chances of an ant being on a given grain of sugar, however, are so low that finding one on a grain would not be statistically significant. When Maoz looks at politically-relevant dyads, he finds that one would expect 57.63 liberal dyads at war between 1816 and 1986, but they find only one: the Spanish-American War.101 He offers similar figures for the 20th century and for militarized disputes. And when Maoz adopts Spiro''s suggestion to look at dyads over their entire history, he finds that conflict actually fell when both countries in a dyad became democratic. The second argument also is unpersuasive, because Farber and Gowa make an arbitrary decision to slice up the data into different periods and categories. Moreover, Maoz is unable to replicate their results. Farber and Gowa appear to have miscounted the total number of dyads.102 c. Other Causes Account for the Apparent Democratic Peace An additional set of arguments suggests other factors besides shared democracy have caused democracies to remain at peace with one another. Such claims are implicit in some critiques of the logic and evidence, but not all such critiques identify the factors that are alleged to count for the absence of wars between democracies. (1) Alliances Against Common Threats Cause Democratic Peace The Argument: Several critics of the democratic peace proposition claim that the absence of war among democracies can be explained by the fact that democracies often have allied against common threats. Democracies have avoided wars with one another not because they share democratic forms of government, but because they have had a common interest in defeating a common enemy. Thus the realist logic of balancing against threats explains the democratic peace.103 Responses: There are three responses to the claim that allying against common threats is a more important cause of peace among democracies. First, those who make this argument overlook the fact that threat perceptions and alliance choice often reflect shared values and political principles. These critics assume that alliance formation proceeds in strict accordance with realist logic and

that regime type plays no role. Democracies, however, may have found themselves allied to one another against nondemocracies because they share a commitment to democratic values and want to defend them against threats from nondemocracies. Indeed, if the democratic peace proposition is only partially valid and if it is at least dimly understood by decisionmakers, democracies will find other democracies less threatening than nondemocracies and therefore will tend to align with them against nondemocracies. This argument is consistent with Stephen Walt''s balance-ofthreat theory, which identifies offensive intentions as element of threat.104 If democracies regard one another as having no offensive intentions toward democracies, they are likely to align against nondemocracies. Second, the tendency of democracies to ally with one another is further evidence of the special characteristics of democratic foreign policy.105 The normative explanation for the democratic peace would predict that democracies would be more likely to form alliances. Instead of being a refutation of the democratic peace, the tendency of democracies to ally with one another is actually an additional piece of confirming evidence. Third, Maoz does an interesting test, examining whether states were allied before they became democracies or allied only after they became democracies. He finds that "Non-aligned democracies are considerably less likely to fight each other than aligned non-democracies."106 This finding suggests that shared democracy-not alignment against a common threat-has the most explanatory power in accounting for the absence of wars between democracies. (2) Democracies Have not had much Opportunity to Fight The Argument: Some critics of the democratic peace proposition claim that democracies have not fought one another because they have not had the opportunity. Until recently, there were relatively few democracies in the international system. Many were geographically remote from each other.107 Response: The most sophisticated statistical analyses of the evidence for the democratic peace take these variables into account and still conclude that there is a strong relationship between democracy and peace.108 (3) Process-Tracing does not Reveal Evidence of Democracy as a Cause of the Democratic Peace. The Argument: Skeptics suggest that, if the democratic peace proposition is valid, we should find that pairs of democracies behave in crises in way that reveals that shared democracy, not considerations of power and interest, caused them to avoid war. For example, tracing the process of how events unfolded should reveal that the publics in democracies did not want war with other democracies, that leaders did not make military threats against other democracies, and that democracies adopted accommodating behavior toward other democracies.109 Examination of historical crises, however, reveals that democratic decisionmakers avoided war because they feared defeat or that their states would be weakened in a conflict.110

Response: Proponents of the democratic-peace proposition do not deny that considerations of power and interest often motivate states.111 In the anarchic and competitive realm of international politics, democracies cannot avoid making such calculations. Thus evidence that democracies are sensitive to power and interest does not refute the democratic-peace proposition. In addition, critics of the democratic-peace proposition have not tested it fairly; they have not deduced the full range of predictions that the normative and institutional model makes about how democracies will avoid war. More comprehensive tests would also deduce and test hypotheses about how many political and diplomatic aspects of crises between democratic states differ from other crises. Such tests would also compare pairs of democratic states to mixed and nondemocratic pairs. John Owen has conducted such tests and finds considerable evidence to support the democratic-peace proposition.112 B. The Democratization Process Increases the Risk of War The Argument: One of the most important arguments against U.S. efforts to promote democracy is the claim that countries engaged in transitions to democracy become more likely to be involved in war. Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder make this argument and support it with statistical evidence that shows a correlation between democratization and war. They suggest that several causal mechanisms explain why democratization tends to lead to war. First, old elites play the nationalist card in an effort to incite conflict so that they can retain power. Second, in emerging democracies without strong democratic institutions new rulers compete for support by playing the nationalist card and search for foreign scapegoats for failures.113 This type of electoral competition increases the risk of internal and international conflict. The argument that democratization causes war does not directly challenge the usual form of the democratic peace proposition. Mansfield and Snyder recognize that "It is probably true that a world where more countries were mature, stable democracies would be safer and preferable for the United States."114 Instead, the arguments suggests that attempts to spread democracy have significant risks, including the risk of war. Responses: Mansfield and Snyder have advanced an important new argument, but even if partially true, it does not refute the case for spreading democracy internationally. Taken to extremes, the Mansfield/Snyder argument would amount to a case for opposing all political change on the grounds that it might cause instability. Promoting democracy makes more sense than this course, because the risks of democratization are not so high and uncontrollable that we should give up on attempts to spread democracy. First, there are reasons to doubt the strength of the relationship between democratization and war. Other quantitative studies challenge the statistical significance of Mansfield and Snyder''s results, suggest that there is an even stronger connection between movements toward autocracy and the onset of war, find that it is actually unstable transitions and reversals of democratization that increase the probability of war, and argue that democratization diminishes the likelihood of militarized international disputes.115 In particular, autocracies are likely to exploit nationalism and manipulate public opinion to launch diversionary wars-the same causal mechanisms that Mansfield and Snyder claim are at work in democratizing states. Mansfield and Snyder

themselves point out that "reversals of democratization are nearly as risky as democratization itself," thereby bolstering the case for assisting the consolidation of new democracies.116 In addition, very few of the most recent additions to the ranks of democracies have engaged in wars. In Central and Eastern Europe, for example, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia have avoided major internal and external conflicts. Of these countries, only Slovenia was involved in brief series of military skirmishes with Serbia.117 Russia has been involved in a number of small wars on or near its borders, but so far it has undergone a dramatic transition toward democracy without becoming very warlike.118 There is little evidence of international war in Latin America, which also has witnessed a large-scale transition to democracy in recent years. Countries such as Mongolia and South Africa appear to have made the transition to democracy without going to war. The new democracies plagued by the most violence, including some former Soviet republics and the republics of the former Yugoslavia, are those that are the least democratic and may not qualify as democracies at all. All of this evidence suggests that whatever may have increased the war-proneness of democratizing states in the past may not be present in the contemporary international system. It may be that states making the transition from feudalism to democracy became more war-prone or that the emerging democracies of the 19th century were European great powers that embarked on imperial wars of conquest. These factors will not lead today''s new democracies into war. Finally, if the democratic peace proposition is correct, the higher proportion of democracies in the current international system may further reduce the risk that new democracies will not engage in war, because they will find themselves in a world of many democracies instead of one of many potentially hostile nondemocracies. Second, it is possible to control any risks of war posed by democratization. Mansfield and Snyder identify several useful policies to mitigate any potential risks of democratization. Old elites that are threatened by democratization can be given "golden parachutes" that enable them to at least retain some of their wealth and to stay out of jail.119 New democracies also need external assistance to build up the journalistic infrastructure that will support a "marketplace of ideas" that can prevent manipulation of public opinion and nationalistic mythmaking.120 Finally, an international environment conducive to free trade can help to move new democracies in a benign direction.121 C. Promoting Elections may be Harmful or Irrelevant The Arguments: One of the most prominent recent criticisms of attempts to promote democracy claims that democratic elections often have few positive effects, especially in countries that do not have liberal societies or other socioeconomic conditions such as a large middle class and a high level of economic development. These arguments imply that electoral democracy may be undesirable in many countries and that the United States should not encourage its spread. Democratically elected governments may turn out to be illiberal regimes that oppress their citizens.122 The process of holding democratic elections in multiethnic societies can fan the flames of ethnic conflict.123 Democracy does not guarantee economic success and may even hinder it.124

Responses: These criticisms of electoral democracy are important reminders that democracy is imperfect and so are democracies. They also call attention to the need to promote the spread of liberal principles, as well as democratic electoral procedures. They do not, however, amount to a persuasive case against U.S. support for elections in other countries, for the following reasons. First, Zakaria overstates the extent to which new democracies are illiberal or are becoming so. He argues that the Freedom House ratings show that 50% of democratizing countries are illiberal democracies. He classifies countries as "democratizing" if their combined Freedom House scores for political rights and civil liberties (each measured on a 7-point scale with 1 denoting the most freedom and 7 the least) fall between 5 and 10. He regards countries as illiberal if they have a greater degree of political freedom than civil liberties. Zakaria''s claim that there is a growing number of illiberal democracies may be correct. After all, there are now more emerging democracies. But whether states have fewer civil liberties than political rights is a problematic way to distinguish between liberal and illiberal democracies. In 65% of the states classified as illiberal democracies by Zakaria, the difference between civil liberties and political rights is only one point on the 7-point Freedom House scale. In no case is the difference greater than 2 points. Moreover, classifying countries as illiberal on the basis of whether they have more civil liberties than political rights leads to some absurd distinctions. For example, Zakaria''s criteria would classify France as an illiberal democracy because it scores higher on political rights (1) than civil liberties (2), and Gabon as a liberal democracy because its civil liberties score (4) is higher than its political rights (5). Zakaria notes that he does not rely on Freedom House for classifications of individual states, only for overall statistical measures. Freedom House''s 1997 ratings show that civil liberties have improved in 10 of the countries Zakaria identifies as "democratizing" and fallen in only 4. The most recent Freedom House ratings also show that 81 of 117 democracies are now classified as "free" whereas only 76 of 117 were "free" in 1995. Thus there actually seems to be a slight trend toward liberalization, even as the overall number of democracies remains constant.125 In light of the absence of democratic and liberal traditions in many new democracies (particularly in the former Soviet Union and Africa), it is remarkable that freedom continues to flourish to the extent that it does.126 Second, Zakaria and Kaplan overlook the extent to which the holding of elections is (a) an important way of removing authoritarian leaders, and (b) part of the process of encouraging the growth of liberal values. The principle that leaders should be selected in free and fair elections can become an international norm that can be used to persuade authoritarian leaders to step aside, sometimes gracefully. Marcos in the Philippines and Pinochet in Chile were removed from power largely because of the growing international belief in the electoral principle. It is hard to imagine that elections in Burma, for example, could produce an outcome worse than the current SLORC regime. Elections do not only remove unpopular authoritarians, however; they also encourage the development of liberal habits and principles such as freedom of speech and of the press. Holding a free and fair election requires that these principles be followed. Elections alone do not guarantee that constitutional liberalism and the rule of law will be adopted, but they do focus the attention of the voting public on the process of freely electing their governments. Third, it is not clear what forms of government the United States should support instead of democracy. Zakaria believes the United States should "encourage the gradual development of constitutional liberalism across the globe."127 Most proponents of promoting democracy would agree that this is a worthy goal, but it is hard to promote liberalism without promoting

democracy. There are few contemporary examples of liberal countries that are not democracies. Zakaria cites Hong Kong under British rule as an example, but this experience of a liberal imperial power engaging in a rather benign authoritarian rule over a flourishing free-market economy has already ended and is unlikely to be repeated. Earlier historical examples of liberal nondemocracies include Britain in the early 19th century, and possibly other European constitutional monarchies of that century. As Marc Plattner and Carl Gershman of the National Endowment for Democracy point out, none of the examples is a "practical vision" for the 21st century.128 Zakaria praises East Asian countries on the grounds that they "have accorded their citizens a widening sphere of economic, civil, religious and limited political rights," and suggests that they, much like Western countries around 1900, are on the road to liberty.129 But most observers-including some East Asians-would argue that these countries have curtailed political liberties (and sometimes bragged about it in the debate over "Asian values") and are hardly a model of liberalization that the United States should encourage. Thus it is difficult to see how Zakaria''s analysis can support a viable U.S. policy of supporting liberalism without also supporting democratic elections. Fourth, Kaplan and, to a lesser extent, Zakaria, exaggerate the degree to which elections per se are responsible for the problems of new democracies, many of which had the same problems before elections were held. In the area of ethnic conflict, for example, democratic elections may ameliorate existing conflicts instead of exacerbating them. The evidence is mixed, but the need to build electoral coalitions and the liberal practices of free speech and freedom of association necessary to hold elections may promote ethnic accommodation, not hostility.130 These arguments suggest that Zakaria, Kaplan, and other critics of electoral democracy have taken the valid point that "elections are not enough" too far. The United States should support democracy and liberalism; supporting only the latter risks not achieving either. D. The Challenge from "Asian Values" The most important contemporary ideological challenge to democracy comes from East Asia and has been called "soft authoritarianism" or the "Asian values" argument.131 This school of thought argues that countries should be ruled by a wise and authoritarian elite, that individual rights often need to be limited for the sake of the broader community, and that the state should play a leading role in economic development.132 In practice, it is approximated by Singapore''s political system, but elements of it have been embraced by Malaysia, China, and Indonesia. Many African countries are reportedly attracted by this model of government.133 Although this perspective has yet to become a coherent and unified political ideology, recent writings and statements from East Asian leaders, government officials, and intellectuals contain several recurring arguments for the superiority of East Asian political systems over Western democracy. Asian "soft authoritarianism" merits attention for two reasons. First, it is emerging as the most prominent, articulate, and comprehensive critique of liberal democracy. Second, the countries that advocate it were, at least until the second half of 1997, among the most dynamic economies in the world. Singapore, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, and other Asian economies achieved annual growth rates of 10% or higher in the 1980s and most of 1990s. Their growing economic power has increased their influence in international affairs. Their recent economic turmoil is probably

only a temporary setback, and the fact that it disrupted financial markets around the world testifies to the growing economic importance of these countries. Asian attempts to articulate a distinctive "Asian way" and to criticize liberal democratic principles have provoked broader debates on the difference between Asian and Western cultures, whether there is a uniquely Asian approach to politics and economics, and the international implications of East Asia''s rise.134 Many of these questions are beyond the scope of this paper, so I will focus on the East Asian arguments against U.S. attempts to spread democracy. The Arguments: East Asian critics of democracy make the following arguments for why the spread of democracy-particularly to East Asia-is not desirable. First, Western democracy allows for too much liberty, and this excessive individual freedom causes moral decline and social collapse. U.S. divorce rates, out-of-wedlock births, and crime rates, are evidence of liberty run wild.135 Second, some Asians argue that the spread democracy would aggravate ethnic tensions and increase ethnic conflict within Asian countries. Third, and most generally, some East Asians claim that liberal democracy is not a suitable form of government for Asian countries, because Asia has a different set of cultural values that include a strong emphasis on communalism. Responses: Each of these arguments for the undesirability of democracy is seriously flawed. The first argument-that democracy causes moral decline and social disintegration-is not persuasive, because not all liberal democracies suffer such ills. Canada and most European countries demonstrate that liberal democracy does not cause social collapse. These countries are indisputably democratic, but they are far less violent than the United States, and they do not have America''s social problems. In 1995, the Population Reference Bureau reported that Americans kill each other at a rate 17 times higher than in Japan and Ireland, 10 times the rates in Germany and France, and five times the rate in Canada. The United Nations Demographic Yearbook shows homicide rates per 100,000 population for several countries in 1991, the most recent year available. Canada''s was 2.2, Japan''s 0.6, Austria''s 1.3, the Netherlands'' 1.2, and Norway''s 1.9. Portugal and Spain came in at 1.6 and 0.9, respectively, while Italy''s was 2.9 The United Kingdom''s was 4.8 versus 10.4 for the United States.136 These differences between the United States reflect deep-seated cultural differences. The American culture of individualism, not more universal liberal and democratic values, is responsible for many U.S. social problems. The argument that democracy exacerbates ethnic tensions also is unpersuasive. Managing ethnic tensions in multiethnic societies isn''t easy, but democratic approaches may be at least as successful as authoritarian ones. Authoritarian states that appeared to control ethnic tensions often did so at a high price in human life. The Soviet Union avoided ethnic civil war, but under Stalin it decimated or deported many ethnic minorities. Tito''s Yugoslavia avoided violent disintegration, but hundreds of thousands of suspected separatists were killed on Tito''s orders, particularly in the late 1940s. Considerable evidence indicates that liberal democracy, with its emphasis on tolerance, cooperation, political accommodation, and respect for civil liberties, provides the best recipe for long-term domestic stability. The third argument''s assertion that democratic government is incompatible with East Asian values is belied by the relatively successful growth of democracy in Japan, South Korea, and, more recently, Taiwan and the Philippines. These states have not emulated the Western model of

democracy in all respects, but they are almost universally classified as democracies. In addition to conducting multiparty elections and maintaining civil liberties, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan all have impressive economic records. Some East Asians point to the Philippines and argue that democracy is responsible for its domestic instability and economic malaise, but that country''s economic performance has improved dramatically in recent years. In addition, the Korean and Japanese cases show that democracy and growth can go hand in hand. The former problems of the Philippines may be attributable to the Spanish colonial legacy, not the flaws of democratic political systems. The economic and financial crises that swept across many Asian countries in 1997 and 1998 have muted many of the loudest voices that argued for "Asian values" and "soft authoritarianism." Many commentators have argued that the answer to Asia''s economic difficulties would be greater acceptance of democratic values.137 Claims that the Asian model is in a crisis and will be abandoned are probably overstated, just as Asian leaders tended to overstate the virtues of their approach when their economies were flourishing. Nevertheless, it seems likely that proponents of "Asian values" will offer a less strident challenge to liberal and democratic values in the future and that Asian countries will pursue political liberalization as part of their economic reforms. At least some of the current economic difficulties in Asian countries can be attributed to a lack of public accountability. Conclusion The recent critiques of U.S. efforts to promote democracy have not presented a convincing case that spreading democracy is a bad idea. The international spread of democracy will offer many benefits to new democracies and to the United States. The democratic peace proposition appears robust, even if scholars need to continue to develop multiple explanations for why democracies rarely, if ever, go to war. The evidence on whether democratization increases the risk of war is mixed, at best, and policies can be crafted to minimize any risks of conflict in these cases. The problem of "illiberal democracy" has been exaggerated; democratic elections usually do more good than harm. The United States should, however, aim to promote liberal values as well as electoral democracy. And the "soft authoritarian" challenge to liberal democracy was not persuasive, even before the Asian economic turmoil of 1997 and 1998 undermined claims for the superiority of "Asian values." Establishing that promoting democracy is beneficial does not, however, resolve all the questions that surround U.S. attempts to spread democracy. These questions include: Can the United States encourage the spread of democracy or must democracy always develop indigenously? How can the United States promote democracy in other countries? Which policies work and under what circumstances do they work? Any comprehensive case for why the United States should promote democracy must address these questions.138

WHY DEMOCRACY IS WRONG

Democracy does not deserve the semi-sacred status accorded to it. In Europe, democratically elected politicians such as Jrg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Silvio Berlusconi, Umberto Bossi, Gianfranco Fini and Pim Fortuyn are a reminder of democracy's defects: an anti-racist dictatorship is preferable to a racist democracy. Democracy is expanding globally, but not because of its moral superiority. Military intervention is now the standard origin of democratic political systems. Any universal ideology will tend to crusades and messianic conquest, and democracies feel entitled to 'bring freedom' to other countries. Below, more on the ethical problems, definitions of democracy, the issue of inequality, the defects of democratic culture, the nation as the 'demos', the claimed justifications for democracy, and alternatives to democracy.

Revised December 2002, last changes 13 May 2006.

In a large ocean there are two neighbouring islands: faultless democracies with full civil and political rights. One island is extremely rich and prosperous, and has 10 million inhabitants. The other is extremely poor: it has 100 million inhabitants, who live by subsistence farming. After a bad harvest last year, there are no food stocks, and now the harvest has failed again: 90 million people are facing death by starvation. The democratically elected government of the poor island asks for help, and the democratically elected government of the rich island organises a referendum on the issue. There are three options: Option A is a sharp increase in taxes, to pay for large-scale permanent structural transfers to the poor island. Option B is some increase in taxes, to pay for immediate and sufficient humanitarian aid, so that famine will be averted. Option C is no extra taxes and no aid. When the votes are counted, 100% of the voters have chosen Option C. After all, who wants to pay more taxes? So 90 million people starve. Yet all electoral procedures on both islands are free and fair, the media are free, political campaigning is free, there is no political repression of any kind. According to democratic theory, any outcome of this democratic process must be respected. Two perfect democracies have functioned perfectly: if you believe the supporters of democracy, that is morally admirable. But it clearly is not: there is something fundamentally wrong with democracy, if it allows this outcome. The defect is not hard to find: the people most affected by the decision are excluded from voting. The issue is the composition of the demos, the decision-making unit in a democracy: it is a recurrent theme in the ethics of democracy. Democratic theory can legitimise a political community in the form of an island of prosperity, and then legitimise the selfish decisions of that community. This theoretical possibility corresponds with the real-world western democracies. Millions of people are dying of hunger and preventable disease, yet the electorate in rich democracies will not accept mass transfers of wealth to poorer countries. They will not accept mass immigration from those countries either. A causal relationship has developed at global level, between democracy in the rich countries, and excess mortality elsewhere (famine, epidemics, endemic diseases).

This is not the only such problem with democracy. Despite its quasi-sacred status, democracy has many ethical defects which are either evident in practice, or easily illustrated by hypothetical examples. The treatment of minorities is perhaps the most recognised defect of democracies. Between the mid-1930's and the mid-1970's, the Swedish government forcibly sterilised thousands of women, because of 'mental defects', or simply because they were of 'mixed race'. Yet Sweden has been a model democracy for the entire period. The democracy worked: the problem is that democracy offers no protection to marginalised and despised minorities. The usual answer of democrats is that excesses can be prevented by constitutionally enforced individual rights. There are two problems with that. First, no constitutional rights are absolute: President Bush showed how easy it is to overturn fundamental constitutional protections. Simply by redefining some American citizens as 'illegal enemy combatants', he was able to intern them. Some groups are in any case openly excluded from the usual democratic rights, most notably illegal immigrants (more on this later). The Australian government detains asylum seekers in internment camps in the desert: its hard line accurately reflects the attitudes of a racist electorate. The detainees can't vote, can't engage in political activities, and have no free press, but Australia is still considered a democracy. The second problem is that basic rights allow wide limits. Treatment of minorities may be harsh and humiliating, without infringing their rights. A recent example in the Netherlands is a proposal to impose compulsory genital inspections for ethnic minorities. The aim is to combat female genital mutilation, but every ethnic Somali parent, regardless of their own circumstances, would be obliged to present their daughters for annual genital inspection. Eritreans, Egyptian and Sudanese might be included under the legal obligation, even if they were naturalised Dutch citizens. The proposal has majority support in Parliament. It is not law yet, but since Somali's are a marginalised and often despised minority in the Netherlands, there is nothing they can do to prevent its implementation. So long as they avoid certain types of policy, and outright violence, democracy allows a democratic majority to impose its will on a minority. They can impose their language and a culture, and both impositions are normal practice in nation states. They can also impose their values, which may be unacceptable to the minority: the best example is democratic prohibitions of alcohol or drugs. Alcohol prohibition in the United States, enforced through a constitutional amendment, was a direct result of democracy. Since there was (and is) no 'right to drink', the Christian anti-alcohol majority could simply use the democratic process, to make their values the national values. 'Prohibition' was repealed in 1933, but the 'War on Drugs' of the last 20 years is at least as comprehensive in terms of policy and effects. Successful prohibition movements are a special case of the inherent anti-minority bias in democracies. There is a more general effect: it is very difficult for an innovative minority to succeed in a democracy - and most innovations are first proposed by a minority. Like many political systems, democracy has an inherent bias toward the existing, as against the possible. Innovations must go through the political process, which in that sense is an anti-innovative barrier, but the existing social order does not have to prove its existence rights. A large-scale example of failed

innovation in democracies is the European high-speed rail network, first proposed in the 1970's. Since then, not even planned national networks have been completed. The pan-European project failed primarily due to lack of political enthusiasm. But should it be abandoned, simply because there is insufficient 'will of the people'? If an innovation has no democratic mandate then a democracy will not implement it - but should democracy have this priority over innovation? The issues are scarcely considered in democratic theory: the priority is simply taken for granted.

Empirical: testable propositions about democracies The best-known classic hypothesis about democracies is the socalled democratic peace theory. It is promoted by prodemocratic campaigners and by politicians, as 'scientific evidence' of the need for democracy. The claim is that 'democracies do not go to war with each other'. The research typically compares dyads - pairs of countries/states. A statistical measure (frequency of war) is possible for different categories - democracy against democracy; democracy against non-democracy; and non-democracy against non-democracy. It is one of the few classic 'testable hypotheses' in international relations theory. Unfortunately for the democracy lobby, research failed to demonstrate conclusively that democracies are more peaceful among themselves. Nevertheless, it suggests other testable propositions about democracy. Several of the criticisms of democracy presented here, can be stated as sociological or political-science hypotheses, indicating possible research projects: they are given in separate boxes such as this one.

Definitions of democracy
Definitions of democracy follow a standard pattern, a sign of a stable and established ideology. Often, as in the version by Thomas Christiano, the definition separates the historical ideal, and the structure of modern democracies. The historical ideal is usually Athenian democracy, but there is no real continuity between ancient and modern democracy. The comprehensive survey Antike Traditionen in der Legitimation staatlicher Systeme shows that most western political regimes appealed to classical predecessors. It is very unlikely that all these regimes correspond exactly to one regime 2500 or 2000 years ago. The appeal to classical models is itself a tradition in western culture - not an absolute historical truth. As modern industrial societies, Nazi Germany and democratic Britain probably had more in common with each other, than either of them with ancient Athens. Robert Dahl's version is the best known of the dual definitions. He was one of the first to revise the simple definitions of democracy, and introduced the word 'polyarchy' to describe modern

democracies. The polyarchy definitions, which emphasise political pluralism and multi-party elections, have become the standard political science definitions of democracy. The newest definitions emphasise democratic rights, rather than the democratic regime itself. But remember that most definitions of democracy (including those quoted below) have themselves been written by supporters of democracy. No neutral definitions exist...

...the Greek democracies were not representative governments, they were governments run by the free, male citizens of the city-state. All major government decisions and legislation were made by the Assembly; the closest we've come to such a system is "initiative and referendum," in which legislation is popularly petitioned and then voted on directly by the electorate. The Greek democratic states ran their entire government on such a system. All the members of a city-state were not involved in the government: slaves, foreigners, and women were all disbarred from the democracy. So, in reality, the democratic city-states more closely resembled oligarchies for a minority ruled the state it was a very large minority, to be sure, but still a minority. World Civilizations general Glossary: Democracy, Richard Hooker Let us focus more closely on the basic ideals of democracy. First, in a democracy, the people rule. Popular sovereignty implies that all minimally competent adults come together as one body to make decisions about the laws and policies that are to regulate their lives together. Each citizen has a vote in the processes by which the decisions are made and each has the opportunity to participate in the deliberations over what courses of action are to be followed. Second, each citizen has the right to participate as an equal. Political equality implies equality among citizens in the process of decisionmaking....Third, each citizen has the right to an opportunity to express his or her opinions and supporting reasons to every other citizen as well as a right and duty to hear a wide spectrum of views on subjects of public concern. Each has a right, as well as a duty to participate in open and fair discussion. These are the ideals of democracy. These ideals are partly realized in features of modern democratic societies. One-person one-vote is observed in the process of electing representatives to the legislative assembly; anyone may run for election to public office; in elections, a number of political parties compete for political power by advocating alternative visions of the society; the political campaigns of candidates and parties consist in large part in discussion and argument over the worth of these opposing views, and everyone is permitted to have a say in this process; and the society tolerates and often encourages vigorous debate on all issues of public interest. Thomas Christiano (1996) The Rule of Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory. Boulder: Westview. (p. 3). ...polyarchy is a political order distinguished by the presence of seven institutions, all of which must exist for a government to be classified as a polyarchy. 1. Elected officials. Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials. 2. Free and fair elections. Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon. 3. Inclusive suffrage. Practically all adults have the right to vote in the election of officials. 4. Right to run for office. Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices...

5. Freedom of expression. Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political matters broadly defined, including criticism of officials, the government, the regime, the socioeconomic order, and the prevailing ideology. 6. Alternative information. Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative sources of information exist and are protected by laws. 7. Associational autonomy. To achieve their various rights, including those listed above, citizens also have a right to form relatively independent associations or organizations, including independent political parties and interest groups. ...all the institutions of polyarchy are necessary to the highest feasible attainment of the democratic process in the government of a country. Robert A Dahl (1989) Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. (p. 221-222). Democracy literally means rule or government by, or power of, the people. Logically and historically implicit in this is the notion of majority rule. Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which the people govern indirectly, through elected representatives, rather than directly governing themselves. Constitutional implications from representative democracy, Jeremy Kirk ...democracy in its 20th Century form means: - regular elections for the most powerful government positions, - competitive political parties, - near universal franchise, - secret balloting, and - civil liberties and political rights (human rights). Democracies don't fight non-democracies, Rudolph J. Rummel. (Peace Magazine) It is by now a truism that what's most important is not a country's first election, but rather its second and third. And what matters is not simply that people have the right to vote, but that they are offered a real choice, under conditions that are truly free and fair. Elections, moreover, are but one note in the democratic symphony. A full orchestra is required, including markets that reward initiative; police that respect due process; legal structures that provide justice; and a press corps that is free to pursue the facts and publish the truth. lecture by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright In der alten DDR war es also mit der demokratischen Legitimation nicht weit her, wie in allen autoritr-kommunistischen Staaten, auch wenn eine erste Grundbedingung erfllt war: es existierte eine formal-demokratische Verfassung. Diese Bedingung ist aber nicht hinreichend. Die Verfassung mu zweitens auch materiell rechtsstaatliche Verfahren, die Willkr ausschlieen, garantieren. Drittens mssen Grundrechte und Grundwerte durch Verfassung und Rechtspraxis auch fr kritische Minderheiten verllich garantiert und geschtzt werden. Viertens mssen diese Verfahren und Grundrechte vom Brger anerkannt werden, und er das Vertrauen haben knnen, da er sich auf sie verlassen kann. Probleme der Demokratie und der demokratischen Legitimation, Ulrich von Alemann. Entgegen der wrtlichen Bedeutung des Begriffs sind bislang Versuche, das gesamte Volk direkt an der Herrschaft zu beteiligen (zum Beispiel in Form von Rten), nirgendwo

dauerhaft verwirklicht worden. Grundlage der meisten westlichen Industriegesellschaften ist die brgerlich-parlamentarische Demokratie. Sie hat sich im Kampf gegen den Feudalismus herausgebildet, blieb aber auf die Vorherrschaft der Brger bedacht. Nach der Durchsetzung des allgemeinen, gleichen und geheimen Wahlrechts hat das Volk die Mglichkeit einer indirekten politischen Mitwirkung:.... Das Hauptkennzeichen von Demokratie ist die Mglichkeit des Machtwechsels ohne Blutvergieen, das heit ein Machtwechsel nach anerkannten Regeln. Sociologicus: Lexicon What exactly is democracy? We must not identify democracy with majority rule. Democracy has complex demands, which certainly include voting and respect for election results, but it also requires the protection of liberties and freedoms, respect for legal entitlements, and the guaranteeing of free discussion and uncensored distribution of news and fair comment. Even elections can be deeply defective if they occur without the different sides getting an adequate opportunity to present their respective cases, or without the electorate enjoying the freedom to obtain news and to consider the views of the competing protagonists. Democracy is a demanding system, and not just a mechanical condition (like majority rule) taken in isolation. Democracy as a Universal Value, Amartya Sen, Journal of Democracy. (US Congress publication). At a minimum, a democracy is a political system in which the people choose their authoritative leaders freely from among competing groups and individuals who were not designated by the government. Freedom House Annual Survey Voor wie de klassieke idealen van de democratie wil handhaven, lijkt het daarom voor de hand te liggen, in een zekere analogie tot Dahl, onderscheid te maken tussen democratische idealen en democratie. Deze is dan een specifiek procedureel en grondrechtelijk kader dat gebaseerd is op de democratische idealen van vrijheid, gelijkheid en volkssoevereiniteit en waarin deze idealen tegelijk in open competitie staan met andere doelstellingen. Zo is elk land waarin dit kader bestaat een democratie. Uwe Becker (1999). Europese Democratien: Vrijheid, Gelijkheid, Solidariteit en Soevereiniteit in de Praktijk. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. (p. 11). Democracy is a form of government in which the major decisions of government -- or the direction of policy behind these decisions -- rests directly or indirectly on the freely given consent of the majority of the adults governed. Encyclopedia Americana Democracy is a political system in which different groups are legally entitled to compete for power and in which institutional power holders are elected by the people and are responsible to the people. Tutu Vanhanen (1997). Prospects of democracy: a Study of 172 Countries. London: Routledge. (p. 31). The book summarises definitions of democracy of the last 40 years on p. 28-31. Most contemporary definitions of democracy have several common elements. First, democracies are countries in which there are institutional mechanisms, usually elections, that allow the people to choose their leaders. Second, prospective leaders must compete for public support. Third, the power of the government is restrained by its accountability to the people. These are the essential characteristics of political democracy.

Some writers add additional criteria to the list of what makes a polity a democracy. Larry Diamond argues that a democracy must have "extensive civil liberties (freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to form and join organizations)." Samuel Huntington recognizes that democracy "implies the existence of those civil and political freedoms to speak, publish, assemble and organize that are necessary to political debate and the conduct of electoral campaigns." Why the United States Should Spread Democracy, Sean Lynn-Jones more Academic definitions of democracy, collected by William Su. Demokratietheorie: Eine vergleichende Analyse verschiedener Demokratietheorien, Emanuel Mcklin.

It is now standard to include political and/or civic rights in the definition of democracy. The best known example of this approach is the Freedom House Annual Survey. In fact, rights checklists seem to be the emerging standard definition of democracy. The online paper The theory and measurement of democracy (Gizachew Tiruneh) includes a list and comparative table of indices of democracy: most are rights checklists. Here is the Freedom House political rights checklist:

Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority elected through free and fair elections? Are the legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? Are there fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, fair polling, and honest tabulation of ballots? Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system open to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings?

These rights are associated with the alternation of government: they allow one government can be replaced by another. The polyarchy definitions of democracy insist, that there must be a possibility to change the government, through democratic procedures. However democrats also insist, that there should be no other possibility to change the government. The Freedom House checklist on civil liberties and the rule of law includes:

Are there free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression? Are there free religious institutions and is there free private and public religious expression? Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion? Is there freedom of political or quasi-political organization (political parties, civic organizations, ad hoc issue groups)? Is there an independent judiciary? Does the rule of law prevail in civil and criminal matters? Is the population treated equally under the law? Is there protection from political terror, unjustified imprisonment, exile, or torture, whether by groups that support or oppose the system? Is there open and free private discussion?

Is there personal autonomy? Does the state control travel, choice of residence, or choice of employment? Is there freedom from indoctrination and excessive dependency on the state?

Note again that this is largely a checklist of rights, yet I am quoting it as a definition of democracy. That is how it is used in practice. It reflects the current idea of democracy, among theorists and public in the democratic countries. Civil rights, political rights, and democratic government are all seen as integral components of democracy.

the opposite of democracy

Supporters of democracy refer to Hitler and Fascism, to imply that anyone who opposes democracy is "like Hitler". That is usually intended as an insult, rather than an insight into the nature of democracy. However, political theorists do contrast democracy with dictatorship, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism, and the last of these is indeed based on the Nazi regime, as a historical model. The theory of totalitarianism was formulated in the United States in the early 1950's, in a climate of anti-Communist hysteria. Its central claim is that the ideology, regimes, and social systems under Hitler and Stalin were more-or-less identical. In the Second World War the United States and the Soviet Union were allies against Hitler, but the 'reversal of alliances' at the start of the Cold War made the theory of totalitarianism attractive. Coined in the interwar years, but coming into wide usage only after 1945, the term pointed to features of Nazi and Communist regimes that were said to make them "essentially alike" and that distinguished them from traditional autocracies....Whatever the theory's analytic merits, in the 1940s and 1950s it performed admirable ideological service in denying what to the untutored eye was a dramatic reversal of alliances. It only seemed this way, the theory asserted; in fact the cold war was, from the standpoint of the West, a continuation of World War II: a struggle against the transcendent enemy, totalitarianism, first in its Nazi, then in its Soviet version. Peter Novick (2000). The Holocaust in American Life. New York: Houghton Mifflin. (p. 86). By the 1960's the theory was out of fashion, although the comparison Hitler-Stalin is still used by liberal propagandists. And 'totalitarian' is still the word most democracy theorists would use, if they were asked to name a political system opposite to democracy. Second would probably be 'authoritarian' - and terrorism would not be named at all. Although President Bush may speak of a 'war on democracy and freedom' by terrorists, that does not mean he sees terrorism as a system of government. It is possible to speak of a totalitarian regime, or a totalitarian society - but it is difficult to imagine a permanently 'terrorist' society or a terrorist parliament. With hindsight, the definition of totalitarianism is too obviously a description of regimes and political styles of the 1930's and 1940's. Like George Orwell's '1984", also written at the start of the Cold War, its image of oppression now seems dated. In 1953, Carl J Friedrich listed 5 defining characteristics of totalitarian societies:

1. An official ideology, consisting of an official body of doctrine covering all vital aspects of man's existence, to which everyone living in that society is supposed to adhere at least passively; this ideology is characteristically focused in terms of chiliastic claims as to the "perfect" final society of mankind. 2. A single mass party consisting of a relatively small percentage of the total population (up to 10 per cent) of men and women passionately and unquestioningly dedicated to the ideology and prepared to assist in every way in promoting its general acceptance, such party being organized in strictly hierarchical, oligarchical manner, usually under a single leader.... 3. A technologically conditioned near-complete monopoly of control (in the hands of the party and its subservient cadres, such as the bureaucracy and the armed forces) of all means of effective armed combat. 4. A similarly technologically conditioned near-complete monopoly of control (in the same hands) of all means of effective mass communication, such as the press, radio, motion pictures, and so on. 5. A system of terroristic police control. depending for its effectiveness upon points 3 and 4 and characteristically directed not only against demonstrable "enemies" of the regime, but also against arbitrarily selected classes of the population, such arbitrary selection turning upon exigencies of the regime's survival, as well as ideological "implications" and systematically exploiting scientific psychology. Carl J Friedrich (1954) 'The unique character of totalitarian society' in: Totalitarianism. New York: Grossett & Dunlap. Historically, the vast majority of regimes were non-democratic - but most of them do not fit this profile. And today, a society with none of these characteristics might also be seen as fundamentally undemocratic. In 1953 'human rights abuses' were not mentioned - yet they are now considered a definitive characteristic of non-democracies. So totalitarianism is not usable as a general ''definition of non-democracy'. Probably, the early theorists did not intend that anyway, but the term has acquired a secondary meaning of 'non-democratic'. Since the definitions of democracy are increasingly checklist definitions, the word totalitarian is used simply to mean 'a regime without a, b and c' - without free elections, without political pluralism, without a free press, without all the other elements on the checklists. So although most pre-modern regimes had none of Friedrich's characteristics, they are sometimes thrown into the general category 'totalitarian'. A similar problem exists with 'authoritarian' and 'authoritarianism' (and often with 'autocratic' as well). Although specific definitions exist for specific types of authoritarian political system, the term is often used to mean simply 'non-democratic'... There are a wide range of alternatives to democratic government. We shall call regimes that have little or no element of democracy, authoritarian or autocratic governments. There are, of course, many kinds of authoritarian regimes including traditional monarchies and aristocracies; non-traditional dictatorships and military juntas; and totalitarian regimes. For the purposes of this paper, we will ignore the important differences between these different authoritarian

regimes. Are Democracies Stable? Compared to What?, Marc Stier and Robert Mundt. Democracy exists where the principal leaders of a political system are selected by competitive elections in which the bulk of the population have the opportunity to participate. Authoritarian systems are non-democratic ones. Samuel Huntington and Clement Moore (eds., 1970), in their 'Conclusion' of Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: the Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems New York: Basic Books. (p. 509). When Huntington and Moore wrote that in 1970, the one-party state seemed the definitive modern form of non-democratic state. Like the definition of totalitarianism, however, that now seems too historically specific, too obviously based on the 'Soviet Bloc' state.

defining the democratic ethic: legitimacy and secession

The 'democratic ethic' is easier to formulate, than a definition of a democratic system. In a perfect democracy with no anti-democrats, the inhabitants would all adhere to this ethic. Two of its basic principles are given below. It is not fictional or hypothetical - most inhabitants of the democracies do indeed think like this. However, that can not in itself justify democracy. The first and most important component of the democratic ethic is so obvious, that it is rarely explicitly named. It is the principle of ethical and political legitimacy: "a democratic government should not be overthrown". In the normal course of affairs, democratic states rely on legitimacy to preserve their own existence and cohesion. Overthrow of the government is totally off the political agenda: it is taboo to even discuss it. There is no large army to suppress armed revolts, because there are no large armed revolts - and no small ones either. The United States is a nation of gun-owners, but despite a month of political feuding over the Gore-Bush election result in 2000, not a shot was fired for political reasons. That was a remarkable achievement, in a country with a history of secessionism, Civil War, and military conquest of ethnic minorities. The 'normal course of affairs' is historically not normal at all. What would happen if legitimacy disappeared completely? In principle, you could hold free and fair multi-party elections in an open society - and then overthrow the democratically elected government, after each election. That could happen every week, but it would not be considered 'democracy'. This emphasises the formalism and proceduralism of democracy: once followed, the democratic procedures are claimed to produce legitimacy. The government which is elected by the democratic procedures becomes the absolutely legitimate government. If legitimacy is strong, then it becomes culturally taboo to overthrow it. It even becomes taboo not to see it as 'our government'. Because US citizens think this way, the United States is politically stable. To be a democrat means, that you think this should happen: you believe that the democratically elected government is legitimate and must be accepted as legitimate (unless it is itself antidemocratic). The procedures are not an ornament, they are the essence. This legitimacy claim is a major ethical defect of democracy - because procedure is no substitute for morality. Most democrats go much further, and would claim explicitly that a democratically elected government,

which has acted on a decision made in accordance with democratic procedures and the rule of law, should not be overthrown, even if the action is morally wrong. At the heart of democracy is something which is morally unacceptable. What democrats are saying, is that no value may override democracy. In terms of regime preference, they are saying, for instance, that a democracy which tortures, is preferable to a dictatorship which does not. Now, all states claim political legitimacy - that their laws should be obeyed, that their judges are entitled to judge, that they may raise taxes. However, the claims of democrats imply ethical legitimacy, a claim to moral authority. It is more like the infallibility claim made by the Catholic Church, which asserts that certain declarations by the Pope are the absolute moral truth. The democracy theorist Christiano writes... Other values may compete with democratic ideals and sometimes override them... Thomas Christiano (1996) The Rule of Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory. Boulder: Westview. (p. 4). But democratic governments do not generally concede this. Instead the word 'democratic' is widely used as a synonym for 'legitimate", legitimate in both the political and moral sense. This moral judgment is extended outside the narrow political sphere. Many democrats see democracy as a morally legitimising force, which can be applied to any decision - a sort of moral detergent. These views are vaguely held, but democrats are more explicit about the mirror image of this attitude. They generally believe that there is no moral force, or authority, or principle, which can legitimise non-democratic reversal of democratic decisions. In the democratic ethic, the only remedy for any defect of democracy is democracy itself. In a democracy, there is certainly no political authority external to the democratic process: there is no 'appeal to a higher tribunal'. No other method or process is accepted as a legitimate response to the democratic process, and certainly not the use of force. The word 'undemocratic' is used as a synonym for 'criminal' or 'hostile'. It is used to suggest an attack on society, a form of terrorism. Christiano and other theorists of democracy are ignoring these political realities, if they suggest democracy is not an absolute. In practice, democrats accord an absolute moral priority to democracy, and an absolute legitimacy. The evidence for this is simple: they will concede nothing that overrides it. Not even principles such as justice: the democrat will simply say that democracy is itself justice, or at least the path to justice. If democrats deny that any moral principle can override democracy, then it is correct to say that they treat democracy as a moral absolute. These claims for democratic legitimacy indicate the primary function of democratic theory in western democracies. It serves to legitimise the existing order, however wrong that order may be. Pro-democracy theorists have a lot on their conscience. The second important component of the democratic ethic is the prohibition of secession. Unlike the legitimacy claim, the democratic principles concerning secession are often discussed - for instance in Canada, in connection with Qubec secessionism. Unlimited secession would make democracy pointless. If free and fair multi-party elections are held in an open society, but anyone who disagrees with the result can set up a separate state, no democrat would accept that as a democracy. For democrats there must be a unit, beyond which secession is not permitted:

this unit is the 'demos'. Again, its modern expression is the democratic nation state. The indivisibility of the demos is as important as legitimacy, because legitimacy collapses in the face of secessionism. Secessionists see the existing government as 'foreign', and they no longer feel any obligation to its laws, institutions, and policies. So a democratic government ultimately depends on military power to sustain itself in office, and to prevent the unlimited secession of minorities. This aspect of the democratic ethic brought democrats into a long-term alliance with nationalism. No guns,no democracy.

Inequality and democracy

Democracy has failed to eliminate social inequality, and this seems a permanent and structural failure. It is undeniable that all democratic societies have social inequalities - substantial differences in income, in wealth, and in social status. These differences have persisted: there is no indication that inequality will ever disappear in democracies. In the stable western democracies, inequality is apparently increasing. The pattern established in the United States is, that the lowest incomes do not grow: all the benefits of economic growth go to the higherincome groups. Average household income before taxes grew in real terms by nearly one-third between 1979 and 1997, but that growth was shared unevenly across the income distribution. The average income for households in the top fifth of the distribution rose by more than half. In contrast, average income for the middle quintile climbed 10 percent and that for the lowest fifth dropped slightly. Furthermore, income growth at the very top of the distribution was greater yet: average income in 1997 dollars for the top 1 percent of households more than doubled, rising from $420,000 in 1979 to more than $1 million in 1997. Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979-1997., Congressional Budget Office, 2001, p. 5 Some form of social inequality is inherent in democracy - a fact neglected by most democratic theory. In a theoretical democracy of 100 voters, a party of 51 voters can confiscate the property of the other 49. They can divide it among themselves. However, if one voter is sick on election day, they lose their majority. A party of 52 has more chance to divide the property of the minority, but now the minority is 48 and there is slightly less to divide. A party of 99 will have guaranteed success against a minority of one, but the shares after division will be small. In practice, a coalition of two-thirds, or three-quarters, can successfully disadvantage a minority (one third, one quarter). For instance, the majority might exclude the minority from the main labour market, and then force this excluded underclass into workfare. The emergence of an underclass is usually seen as a structural change within a society, but it might be simply a sideeffect of democracy. Every democracy is a temptation (to the majority) to disadvantage minorities. In practice, every existing liberal democracy is a dual society, with some politically marginalised minority (typically the urban underclass).

Testable propositions: inequality

Several testable propositions are available for the hypothesis of structural reinforcement of inequality in democracies:

in all democratic states there is inequality of wealth and income inequality of wealth and income has not declined permanently in any democratic state in democracies stable over more than one generation, inequality of wealth increases in democracies stable over more than one generation, inequality of income increases

The first proposition is more or less self-evident: the inequality is there. The fact that democracy is rarely investigated as a causal factor is itself a political choice. Most sociologists are democrats: they are not likely to blame democracy for inequality.

In the past, aristocratic conservatives feared that democracy would allow the poor to confiscate the wealth of the rich. In reality, the historical trend seems exactly the opposite. Increasingly, western democracy is not about 'ordinary people' against the elite: it is about ordinary people joining with social elites to 'bash the underclass'. Guarantees of fundamental rights do not prevent a low-status minority being targeted, politically and socially. In several European countries political parties compete against each other, to show how tough they are against an unpopular minority - for instance asylum seekers. There is nothing the minority can do, so long the political parties do not infringe their rights. Unfortunately this development is probably still in the early stages: the worst is yet to come. In a democracy, those at the bottom of the social scale can expect steadily worsening conditions of life.

a fatal transition to democracy

The post-1989 transition in central and eastern Europe provided the first comprehensive indication of the negative effects of democracy. (Liberal democracy in combination with the free market, which is what western media and governments mean, when they talk of democracy in eastern Europe). In the older democratic states, the present model of democracy was formed over 100 or 200 years. Britain in 1800 can not be compared with Britain two centuries later: the huge differences are not simply 'the result of democracy'. However, in eastern Europe modern states acquired a new political and economic system within a few years - with a complete statistical record. Russia in 1985 can be compared with Russia in 1995: the difference is largely due to the economic and political transition. The UN Development Program listed 7 social-economic costs of the process (the reference to "life expectancy levels achieved in the 1990s" should apparently read "1980's"):

The process of transition in the region has had huge human development costs, many of which still continue unabated....

The biggest single 'cost of transition' has undoubtedly been the loss of lives represented by the decline in life expectancy in several major countries of the region, most notably in the Russian Federation, and most strikingly among young and middle-aged men....Most regrettably, the trends in life expectancy have meant that several million people have not survived the 1990s who would have done so if the life expectancy levels achieved in the 1990s had been maintained.... The second cost of transition has been the rise and persistently high level of morbidity, characterized by higher incidence of common illnesses and by the spread of such diseases as tuberculosis that had been reduced to marginal health threats in the past.... A third cost of transition has been the extraordinary rise in poverty - both income and human poverty.... A major contributor to the increase in poverty - along with falling incomes and rising inflation - has been the rise in income and wealth inequality, and this has been a fourth cost of transition.... A fifth cost of transition has been rising gender inequalities. During the Soviet era, quotas for women helped to incorporate them into positions of economic and political decision-making and authority, but the advent of more democratic regimes has led paradoxically to lower percentages of women in such positions. Women have found themselves progressively pushed out of public life. Simultaneously, their access to paid employment has declined and their total work burden both within the household and outside it has increased.... A sixth cost of transition has been the considerable deterioration of education.... A seventh cost of transition has been the rise in unemployment, underemployment and informalization of employment....

Summing up the seven costs of transition across the whole region underscores the dramatic and widespread deterioration of human security.... TRANSITION 1999: Human Development Report for Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS, UNDP (Chapter 1). The report itself has more detail on all of these aspects, and especially on poverty. In historical perspective, this is clearly not indicative of a voluntary choice for emancipation and progress. Instead these characteristics are consistent with the traditional historical pattern of expansion by conquest: more on this 'democratic conquest' below. So what would happen if the existing market democracy was abolished, in an older liberaldemocracy such as Britain or the Netherlands? It is not possible to recreate 1980's 'Soviet-bloc' societies in these countries, but experience in eastern Europe indicates the possible benefits of a reverse transition...

life expectancy would rise public health would improve: the incidence of infectious diseases would fall poverty would decline sharply, although the mean income would probably also fall

income inequalities would fall women would have higher social status, more access to political-administrative structures, and more access to employment there would be more resources for education, and access to education would improve unemployment would fall: there would be fewer people in insecure jobs, and possibly also fewer in low-productivity 'junk jobs' (also a form of underemployment)

Supporters of democracy themselves use social and political comparisons between very different societies - for instance between Stalin's Russia (or Hitler's Germany) and the present USA. The western lobby in favour of the transition process in eastern Europe also quote its successes again using longitudinal comparisons of non-comparable societies. If cross-generational, crosscultural, cross-societal comparisons are acceptable in justification of democracy, then why not in criticism of it?

death in democracy
Income inequality is probably not the best indicator of structural inequalities in democracies. The statistics on health give a more comprehensive picture of a fundamental, long-term, inequality apparently resistant to all declared government policy. The evidence for a worsening gap is also clearer in the health statistics. Above all, inequalities in mortality are a moral defect of democracies. This comment is on western European countries: all of them are democracies: The differences in mortality and morbidity are quite shocking. Economically inactive men have three times the risk of premature death observed for employed men. While strong health selection increases the risk of exclusion from the labour market, it seems likely that there is also reverse causation due to social isolation and stress. Finland and Norway were used to illustrate the concept of healthy life-expectancies. Norwegian and Finnish men with post secondary education live 3-4 years longer than men with basic education, and 10-12 years more of healthy life, that is, without chronic debilitating illness. One important change between the 1970s and the 1980s is that Sweden, Norway and Denmark have lost their relatively favourable international position in terms of the size of mortality differences between classes. There are some other striking findings; French men in lower socio economic groups had much greater excess mortality than the European average, which Kunst et al suggest may be due to the level of alcohol consumption; and while Nordic countries show large morbidity differences by education level, Great Britain shows large mortality differences by income. Health and health care policy : inequality and the risks of exclusion, Council of Europe Human Dignity and Social Exclusion Project. See the CoE site for footnotes and references, deleted here. Public health and epidemiology journals are full of such examples of health inequalities. In several countries there have also been major national studies, which confirm that health and mortality inequalities are a general pattern. In Britain, the 1998 Acheson Report on health inequalities showed that they had worsened since the last major study, the Black Report in 1980. Those were the years of the Conservative governments in Britain, so perhaps the Conservative

policies are responsible. But that is the point: those Conservative governments were democratically elected. If democracy was a system which prevented inequalities in death rates, then democracy would prevent a government which worsened those inequalities. If democracy was a system which prevented inequalities in death rates, then there would be no inequalities anyway. But there are, and democracy is apparently making them worse.... Over the last twenty years, death rates have fallen among both men and women and across all social groups. However, the difference in rates between those at the top and bottom of the social scale has widened. For example, in the early 1970s, the mortality rate among men of working age was almost twice as high for those in class V (unskilled) as for those in class I (professional). By the early 1990s, it was almost three times higher. This increasing differential is because, although rates fell overall, they fell more among the high social classes than the low social classes....not only did the differential between the top and the bottom increase, the increase happened across the whole spectrum of social classes.... Death rates can be summarised into average life expectancy at birth. For men in classes I and II combined, life expectancy increased by 2 years between the late 1970s and the late 1980s. For those in classes IV and V combined, the increase was smaller, 1.4 years. The difference between those at the top and bottom of the social class scale in the late 1980s was 5 years, 75 years compared with 70 years. For women, the differential was smaller, 80 years compared with 77 years.... Premature mortality, that is death before age 65, is higher among people who are unskilled. Table 4 illustrates this with an analysis of deaths in men aged 20 to 64 years. If all men in this age group had the same death rates as those in classes I and II, it is estimated that there would have been over 17,000 fewer deaths each year from 1991 to 1993.... Inequalities in Health: The Current Position, Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health Report (Acheson Report). Footnotes and references deleted. The estimate of excess deaths - excess in comparison with equal death rates - gives an idea of the scale of suffering involved. Research in Spain estimated a national 10% excess mortality by geographical areas: Excess number of deaths in the most deprived geographical areas account for 10% of total number of deaths annually....Total annual excess of deaths was estimated to be about 35 000 people in Spain. Juan Benach and Yutaka Yasui. Geographical patterns of excess mortality in Spain explained by two indices of deprivation, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 53 (1999): 423-431. It is hard to show that democracy causes these deaths, but it certainly does not prevent them. That is, in itself, reason to question its moral legitimacy. In eastern Europe, the scale of deaths associated with the transition to market democracy was far greater. Roland Scharff estimated the total excess deaths in the reform years (1992-1996) at 3,5 million. This mortality episode is the best documented in history, and the transition itself was its cause. Yet even this fades into insignificance, compared with excess mortality at global level....

the issue of Africa: global inequality

Although the democratic states are the most prosperous in history, democracy has failed to eliminate inequality at global level. Despite the great personal wealth evident in some democratic nations, millions of people in the poorest regions of Africa live under conditions, comparable to mediaeval European averages. Although not all states were democratic during the 20th century, the richest states were. Nevertheless, the general global distribution of wealth has not shifted substantially in the last 150 years. This also seems a permanent and structural failure of democracy. Democracy does not induce the rich to give their money to the poor: not locally, not globally. Not as individuals, not as societies, not as states. Every year the wealth of the democracies increases: every year the gap between the richest democracies and the poorest countries increases. Mass resource transfer, for instance in the form of transfer taxes, is increasingly feasible - and also increasingly urgent. Some democratic states have organised programmes of resource transfer: the largest in history is probably the aid to East Germany after reunification, financed by an extra income tax. But that is a special case of a divided 'Volk'. The European Union has an explicit policy that no regional 'GNP' should stay below 75% of EU average. It also aids applicant states, with a maximum of 6% of their GNP in any one year. Yet no such transfer programme exists for the poorest countries. Probably, only the German programme matched the level of resource transfer from the Soviet Union to Mongolia: approximately 30% of GNP. The collapse of the Soviet Union promptly led to widespread extreme poverty in Mongolia, with famine in the spring of 2000. The pro-democracy development theorist Amartya Sen claims that democracy prevents famines: ...in the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look: the recent famines of Ethiopia, Somalia, or other dictatorial regimes; famines in the Soviet Union in the 1930s; China's 1958-61 famine with the failure of the Great Leap Forward; or earlier still, the famines in Ireland or India under alien rule. China, although it was in many ways doing much better economically than India, still managed (unlike India) to have a famine, indeed the largest recorded famine in world history: Nearly 30 million people died in the famine of 1958-61, while faulty governmental policies remained uncorrected for three full years. The policies went uncriticized because there were no opposition parties in parliament, no free press, and no multiparty elections. Indeed, it is precisely this lack of challenge that allowed the deeply defective policies to continue even though they were killing millions each year. The same can be said about the world's two contemporary famines, occurring right now in North Korea and Sudan. Democracy as a Universal Value, Amartya Sen, 1999. Yet the rich democratic states had enough resources to feed all these people: and they did not. Structurally, they did not. They could have flown these millions of hungry people to the United States, western Europe, or Japan, where there was enough food. They did not. Amartya Sen does not regard this as a defect of democracy: indeed, he seems blind to the issue. If opposition parties in parliament, a free press, and multiparty elections stop famines, and the worlds richest state has all of these, then why are there still famines on this planet?

A causal relationship between democracy and famine exists primarily at a global level. It would be most acute, in a world order of perfectly democratic nation states. Such a world order would institutionalise the selfish behaviour of the hypothetical rich democracy, described in the introduction. Nation states generally consider the national wealth as reserved for that nation - not available for total redistribution to others. In nation states, by definition, the national territory is reserved for members of the nation. The democratisation of a nation state reinforces there inherent qualities. The electorate generally does not want to give 'their money' to foreign countries, and they do not want to dilute their standard of living by mass immigration. A democratic and national world order does not cause droughts or crop failures. However, it destroys two standard historical responses to famine: redistribution of food, and migration to non-famine areas. Although there is no historical tradition of mass migration for medical care in response to high mortality, it destroys that option also. The national-democratic world order - the dream of Kofi Annan - imprisons the poor in poverty and ill-health. In some cases their situation is improving: in Africa it is acutely worsening.

Testable propositions: global inequality In terms of inequality, it seems that a planet is better off without any democracies. Historically, the rise of democracies coincided with a period of unprecedented global inequality. Supporters of the democratic peace theory imply causal relations from this kind of simple correlation ("if there is no war, then democracy caused the peace"). Similar conclusions can be drawn in connection with these testable propositions, such as these about inequality...

absolute global inequality between states, as the gap between the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the poorest and the richest state, is greater since modern democracies emerged relative inequality between states, as the ratio of per capita GDP in the richest and poorest states, is greater since modern democracies emerged statistical measures of 'national-income' inequality will show a greater coefficient of inter-state inequality in the period of democracies (about the last 150 years) than before it inter-state inequalities of this kind are greater between democracies and non-democracies, than within the group of democracies, or the group of non-democracies

Testing some of these would be difficult: historical economic data is limited. But it would be very surprising if they are not true - for the simple reason that the democratic countries are

the rich countries.

There is already enough data on long-term patterns of economic growth, to conclude that the rich-poor gap among states is increasing. Research by Angus Madison for the OECD, indicated that the gap (in GDP/capita) between western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa was about 3-to-1, in 1820. By 1990 it had increased to 20-to-1. During this long period western Europe was not continuously democratic, so this Europe-Africa gap is not equivalent to the gap between democracies and non-democracies. However, that has changed: in the last generation, 'democracy' and 'rich country' have become almost equivalent. According to the 2004 World Bank estimates, over 1,1 billion people live on less than $1 a day, the same as a decade earlier. (These figures are already corrected for the differences in purchasing power). In sub-Saharan Africa the proportion living under this official 'extreme poverty' limit rose to 46%. The income ratio - of the poorest 20 countries to the richest 20 - has doubled in the last 40 years. And for that time at least, most of these rich countries were democracies. There are a few rich non-democracies, such as the United Arab Emirates, and some poor democracies such as Cape Verde. But the correlation between a democratic regime and prosperity is now so strong, that some democracy theorists see prosperity as a precondition of democracy. Others claim a causal link in the other direction - "democracy makes you rich'. Perhaps - but the statistics suggest it does so by keeping others poor. In broad terms, sub-Saharan Africa has a European 19th-century standard of living. It would take 150 or years to follow the path to prosperity taken by western Europe - and western Europe had no massive HIV/AIDS epidemic. 150 years may not even be enough. At the current rate of progress, according to the UNDP Human Development Report 2002, it would take more than 130 years, simply to rid the world of hunger. The UNDP seeks to reduce child mortality in SubSaharan Africa by two-thirds by 2015, but the 2003 Human Development Report estimates it will take 150 years more at current trends. Figure 2.1 gives estimates of the time needed to achieve all the 'Millennium Goals' relating to poverty, health and equality: it extends to 2200. In some areas 'progress' is negative - at current trends the goals will never be reached. Here too, the negative trend at global level is most acute in the mortality statistics: ....while there is heated debate on whether income inequality is increasing between rich and poor countries, inequality in child mortality has gotten unambiguously worse. In the early 1990s children under five were 19 times more likely to die in Sub-Saharan Africa than in rich countries - and today, 26 times more likely (figure 2.2). Among all developing regions only Latin America and the Caribbean saw no worsening in the past decade relative to rich countries, with children still about 5 times more likely to die before their fifth birthdays. United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Report 2003, 39-40. Inequality for the mothers is even worse: the 2004 World Bank estimate is that mothers in the

poorest countries are 100 times more likely to die in childbirth or pregnancy, than mothers in the rich countries. More detailed statistics from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) show that the estimate was too optimistic. Chapter 7 of the State of World Population Report 2004 gives the ratio between maternal deaths per 100 000 live births in the developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa. It is 20 to 920, or 46 times worse. Because birth rates are higher, the 'lifetime risk of maternal death' is 1 in 2800 in the developed regions, but 1 in 16 in sub-Saharan Africa - 175 times greater. The difference is so great, that almost all maternal mortality would be prevented, if the health care standards of the developed world applied globally. About 500 000 lives would be saved each year. It is the worst measured health inequality: But huge differences - up to a hundred-fold - exist in the risk of pregnancy between women in rich and poor countries, the highest differential of any public health indicator monitored by WHO. The lifetime risk that a woman in West Africa will die in pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 12. In developed regions, the comparable risk is 1 in 4,000. Because they receive prompt and effective treatment, women in the developed world rarely die or experience permanent disabilities from pregnancy-related problems. United Nations Population Fund. State of World Population Report 2004, 52. Nevertheless, the rich countries did not provide sufficient funds to extend their own health care standards to Africa and Asia, or even a fraction of what would be needed. In fact they even defaulted on earlier commitments, so that only half the agreed funding was available. A month before the G8 summit in 2005, with its dramatic talk of 'Marshall Plans' and increased aid, the UNDP confirmed that earlier grandiose promises, in 2000, had not been met. The World Bank is, not surprisingly, pessimistic about the future... On current trends, the goals of reducing child and maternal mortality will not be attained in most regions, and only a small proportion of countries (15 to 20 percent) appear to be on track. The goal of halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other major diseases (malaria, tuberculosis) appears daunting; their incidence continues to rise, further aggravating conditions affecting child and maternal mortality and entailing broad and serious economic and social consequences. The risks of failure to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS are especially high in SubSaharan Africa... IMF / World Bank Global Monitoring Report 2004, Summary And the UNICEF progess report on the Millenium Goals (May 2006) confirmed that goals for reduction in undernutrition are not beng met either. Again, in Africa there is no progess at all... But little improvement has been seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where underweight prevalence remained roughly the same over the 1990 - 2004 period. In fact, given this lack of progress and due to population growth, the total number of underweight children actually increased in subSaharan Africa. It is not morally acceptable to insist that Africa should 'develop itself' by duplicating the poverty and inequality of 19th-century England, while suffering a demographic crisis comparable to the Black Death. It is not morally acceptable to demand 130 years of avoidable

hunger, even if the result is universal prosperity. The 'development' option is no longer an option at all. Yet this is apparently what the democracies are demanding. Certainly there is no 'political will' in the democracies, to introduce the massive transfer taxes that would be necessary to close the gap. Democracies seem structurally unable to generate this political will. The UN aid target of 0,7% of GNP has never been reached. According to the OECD Development Assistance Committee, its member states donated 0.33% of GNI in 2005. That was up from 0.26% in 2004, but most of the rise in 'aid' was accounted for by one-off debt relief arrangements, and the Development Assistance Committee expects a fall in aid in 2006 and 2007. The UNCTAD Least Developed Countries Report 2004 shows a total aid to the poorest countries of $15 137 million (Table 23). For their 700 million inhabitants, that is $22 per year, or 6 dollarcent per person per day. That is a gesture, not a transfer of wealth and income. An indicator of the unwillingness to transfer is provided by the World Health Report 2004: 4 to 8 million people need immediate treatment for AIDS, and at most 10% are getting it. All the DAC members are democracies, with maximum scores for 'political rights' in the Freedom House Survey. What chance is there, that they will ever approve the 70% income transfers needed to evenly spread global 'GNP'? The realistic answer must be: it is simply not possible to close this gap, so long as they are democracies.

The conservatism of democratic culture

At best democracy is no more than a system of government, but in western democracies it has acquired a sacred status, and it is taboo to question it. Yet there is no moral basis for this cult of democracy, for this sacralisation. As Bhikhu Parekh says of liberalism: Unless we assume that liberalism represents the final truth about human beings, we cannot indiscriminately condemn societies that do not conform to it. Bhikhu Parekh (1993). The cultural particularity of liberal democracy, in David Held (ed.) Prospects for Democracy: North, South, East, West Cambridge: Polity. (p. 169). A democracy is different from other possible societies, cultures, and regimes: by definition it substitutes itself for them. This substitution is not inherently good: democracies have specific defects, in their culture and society. Most prominent is the conservative bias: democracy and democratic culture structurally limit innovation. The uniformity and conformity of liberal-democratic societies has been criticised, for almost as long as they exist - from the 19th century on. At first, these criticisms amounted to a nostalgia for aristocratic individualism, and it is still a favourite tactic of democrats to label all criticism of democracy as 'elitist'. John Stuart Mill is typical of this type of aristocratic criticism, directed at the emerging mass society: It does seem, however, that when the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that tendency would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of those who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, instead of being deterred, should be encouraged in acting differently from the mass. In other

times there was no advantage in their doing so, unless they acted not only differently, but better. In this age the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. On Liberty, John Stuart Mill 1859. (Chapter III: On individuality, as one of the elements of wellbeing). However not all anti-conformist criticism can be dismissed as aristocratic nostalgia. In the 100 years after Mill wrote, the aristocratic culture of noble eccentricity became culturally marginal. Instead, new forms of individualist 'eccentricity' emerged within mass culture, especially from the 1960's onwards. Criticism of conformity is primarily criticism of liberal society, rather than democracy as a political regime. Democracy in itself can not be blamed for a uniform culture, a static culture, or social conformity. But in their political culture, democracies have failed to match the image they present. Pro-democracy propaganda, for instance in eastern Europe just after 1989, presents democracy as politically dynamic and internally diverse. In reality, all western democracies have stable party systems, dominated by elites: together they form what in Italian is called the classe politica. It is extremely difficult to break open this 'political class', from outside: the system is neither dynamic, nor open to innovation. As a result, it is not a force for social and cultural innovation either.

Testable propositions... The idea of increasing political conformity and uniformity is difficult to operationalise, but these propositions could be investigated...

in democracies, the range of political ideas (in the manifestos of parties elected to parliament) shrinks. in democracies, the difference in stated aims between major parties (those with more than 5% of the vote) also shrinks democracy inhibits the formation of major new political parties (fusions of existing parties excepted): the chance that, in any 10-year period, a completely new party will gain more than 5% of the vote, is small. democracy inhibits the formation of major new political-ideological groups of parties (comparable to the green parties in western Europe, the only such

example in the last generation)

Democracy has brought societies which are monotonous and uniform, at least to some of the people who live in them. But not only that. Democracy has failed to bring utopia. That is, it has failed to bring into existence any proposed ideal society, or any other proposal of a 'utopian' type. Democracy itself can be labelled a 'utopia', and the present liberal-democratic societies are historically unique - nothing like them existed before the 19th century. So, in that sense, democracy has brought at least a new democratic society, which is itself an ideal society for some people. But nothing else. No dramatically new type of society has emerged among the democracies, differing from the standard model of these societies. And most liberal-democrats would in fact be hostile to the label 'utopia' being applied to these liberal-democratic societies. The liberal tradition is resolutely hostile to utopias: anti-utopianism seems a defining characteristic of liberal ideology. That hostility has shaped the present liberal-democratic societies. Liberal anti-utopianism and democratic anti-totalitarianism are in practice the same thing. Some liberals explicitly equate the two, and see totalitarianism as the result of utopian ideals. They believe that the 20th-century totalitarian regimes derive from the European utopian tradition. The early-modern ideal city, the ideal city-states of the type described in Thomas More's original book 'Utopia", were for them the source of all later evil. (Many postmodernists share this distaste for utopia, and the belief that there is a direct line from Thomas More to Auschwitz). In other words, there are liberal-democrats who believe that the political system should be so structured, as to save society from utopian experiments. To them, democracy is (at least partly) a mechanism to prevent utopia. I think they are right about the nature of democracy: but it is democracy, not utopia, which must disappear. ....historical inevitability dictated the triumph of individual human rights that was inherent in the political transformation that mankind was experiencing, particularly in the phenomenon of mass political awakening with which we wanted to identify the forces of democracy and freedom. This was our response to the challenge posed by the notion that so dominated our century: that a coercive utopia derived from dogmatic hubris, that a perfect society, a form of heaven on earth, could be constructed by political compulsion. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Morgenthau Memorial Lecture 1995. The resistance of democracy to innovation, is clearly related to the reluctance to accept any criticism of it. Although pro-democratic theorists often say they are not claiming democracy is perfect, in practice it does have a semi-sacred status. So in democratic societies, criticism of democracy, even without questioning its fundamental principles, is regarded with suspicion and hostility. Especially, democrats are reluctant to accept that a democratic system can be corrupted. They may try to associate this criticism with fascism: corruption and 'decadence' were indeed major themes of anti-democratic propaganda in the 1930's. Logically, that implies that there is an underlying belief that democracy is in some way 'pure' or 'perfect'. In turn this creates a tendency to social self-worship, at its most extreme in the United States. Widespread belief that the existing society is perfect or quasi-sacred, creates a climate for complacency and social

conformity, not for innovation. Sacralisation is, by definition, a contra-innovative social phenomenon: the sacred is preserved, to abolish it is sacrilege. A conservative and anti-utopian bias has specific effects inside a nation state. No existing democracy began in an ethical and cultural vacuum of the kind used in social-contract theories. Their values are the pre-existing values of the constituent demos (nation). The 'democratic values' in a democratic nation-state are the values of the dominant ethno-cultural group, which first constituted that nation-state. Danish democratic values are Danish values, Norwegian democratic values are Norwegian values. Rejection of these values would require an individual moral choice, and the truly democratic citizen does not exercise individual moral judgment, but blindly accepts election results. That mentality is unlikely to produce innovation in the core values: most will be transmitted unchanged from one generation to the next. Paradoxically, the source of values in a democracy is often not the voters, but the voters' ancestors.

The myth of moral superiority of democracy

Democratic states can claim no morally superior origin. Their own mythology places their origins in the political movements of 'the people' (starting with the older western democracies). Let me sum up the past two hundred years of democratic history. The intertwined histories of democratic legitimations, social movement activism and institutional changes generated, in some of the world's states, a significant democratization of the institutions of government. Despite antidemocratic countertrends, the long run direction of change in some of the states was a democratization of state power. Globalization and the Future of Democracy, John Markoff. (Journal of World-Systems Research, Vol. V, 2, 1999, 277-309) This mythology is sometimes linked to a belief in the superiority of a proto-liberal western civilisation - 'from Plato to NATO'. But the reality of democratic expansion has more to do with NATO than Plato, or any other philosopher. The Iraq war has shown, once again, just how bloody 'democratisation' can be.

the military origins of democracy in Europe

The NATO actions in Kosovo were the first explicit 'war for democracy' in Europe, since the end of the Cold War. With hindsight, this seems an inevitable development. By the end of the Second World War in 1945, citizens of western Europe or the United States found it normal to enforce democracy by war. During the geopolitical stability of the Cold War, however, fear of a nuclear holocaust eroded that attitude. Now, democratic conquest is back, inside and outside Europe. Once again, democratic values are explicitly claimed to justify war. Most democratic regimes in Europe were enforced from outside anyway - by invasion, occupation, or as a condition of economic aid. Democracy in Europe came from the barrel of a gun, or from the power of the dollar, but rarely from the people.... Albania Germany (East) Netherlands Breakdown of central government Accession of east German Interim military government after collapse of Communist regional governments established by invasion of US,

regime in 1990/1991: stable democracy made a condition of foreign aid. Italian troops stationed to aid democratisation process.

(Lnder) to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, automatically brought them into its system of government.

British and Canadian forces in 1944, re-established democracy after US pressure in 1945. Norway Democracy re-established in 1945, after surrender of German forces without Allied invasion. Poland Internal transition to democracy over 10-year period. Portugal Democracy established by military coup in 1975 Romania Regime change in 1989: democratisation of this regime made a condition of foreign aid. Russia Collapse of institutions of previous regime from 1989 onward: present government not considered fully democratic in the west. Further democratisation is a condition of foreign aid, but Russia is less dependent on this aid than other countries in eastern Europe.

Andorra Georgia Mini-state with tradition of local Democratisation made a democratic assemblies. condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union. Demonstrators Armenia stormed Parliament in Democratisation made a 2003, to install the procondition of foreign aid, after western President break-up of Soviet Union. Saakashvili. Austria Democracy re-established by Greece Peaceful transition from four-power Allied occupation forces, between 1945 and 1955. military rule to democracy. Azerbaijan Democratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union. Belarus Not considered democratic by western institutions. Democratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union. Great Britain Pre-existing system of citizen representation transformed into full parliamentary democracy, between 1830's and 1930's. Hungary Internal transition to democracy.

Ireland Underground parliamentary Belgium Democracy re-established by US democracy established by San Marino the IRA in 1918, and and British troops in 1944. Small principality with strong recognised by Britain in local democratic tradition, de peace treaty of 1921. facto part of Italy. Bosnia Democratisation enforced by IFOR and SFOR military forces Iceland Slovakia Pre-existing local (predominantly NATO), and a Democratisation made a civilian High Representative with democratic tradition: condition of foreign aid, after democratic Republic wide powers. Democratisation break-up of Czechoslovakia. also a condition of reconstruction established under US military occupation in aid. Spain 1944. Internal transition to democracy Bulgaria

Regime change in 1989: democratisation of this regime made a condition of foreign aid.

after death of autocratic dictator. Italy Democracy re-established by invasion of US and Sweden British forces in 1944. Parliamentary democracy established by 1920's, on the Croatia The present democratic state, in Kazakhstan basis of pre-existing citizens the borders of the previous Not considered democratic representation. Yugoslav republic, was by most western established by rebellion of pro- institutions. Switzerland secession military units in 1991. Democratisation made a Parliamentary democracy Subsequently, democracy a condition of foreign aid, established by 1920's, on the condition of military aid in war after break-up of Soviet basis of pre-existing citizens with Serbian forces, and of post- Union. representation. war reconstruction aid. Kosovo Turkey Democratisation Czech Republic Since the establishment of the Internal transition to democracy. programme in progress, state several transitions between funded and controlled by military rule and democracy. the OSCE and EU, Continuing democracy is a Cyprus enforced by NATO-led Democratic constitution a condition of European Union condition of independence from occupation force. membership. Britain. Latvia Ukraine Democratisation made a Democratisation made a Denmark condition of foreign aid, Democracy re-established in condition of foreign aid, after 1945, after surrender of German after break-up of Soviet break-up of Soviet Union. Union. forces without Allied invasion. Western-backed demonstrations forced new election in 2004, installing a pro-western president Liechtenstein Estonia Small principality with at the second attempt. Democratisation made a local democratic tradition, condition of foreign aid, after de facto dependent on break-up of Soviet Union. Vatican Switzerland. Never a democracy, by any definition. Finland Defeated by the Soviet Union in Lithuania 1944/1945, but nevertheless pre- Democratisation made a Yugoslavia (Serbia and war western-style parliamentary condition of foreign aid, Montenegro) democracy restored, on condition after break-up of Soviet Military defeat by NATO in an Union. of neutrality. air war, occupation of part of the national territory, and economic sanctions, weakened the Luxembourg France Democracy re-established in 1944 Local democratic tradition. Milosevic regime. In combination Democracy re-established with substantial financial aid to by invasion of US, British, and by invasion of Allied the democratic opposition, this exile French forces. forces in 1944. precipitated its fall in October 2000. Germany (West)

Democratic Federal Republic established by US, British, and French occupation forces.

Macedonia Democratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after peaceful secession from Yugoslavia. Malta Democratic constitution a condition of independence from Britain. Moldavia Democratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union. Monaco Small principality with limited local democratic tradition, de facto part of France.

The present democracies in Europe do not match the democratic mythology. They are not the product of successive popular uprisings against absolutist monarchies or totalitarian regimes. A far more appropriate term is 'democratic conquest', more on that below. There is nothing inherently noble, admirable, or moral, in such a war of conquest. Tutu Vanhanen reviews the explanations for democratisation in Prospects of Democracy: a Study of 172 Countries (London: Routledge. 1997. p. 10-21). At least, the explanations which have been proposed in English-language political science, including the many theorists who say there is no single factor. The list includes no mention of military intervention (or economic warfare) as causal factors in the transition to democracy. A theory of colonialism which did not mention the colonising powers, and suggested the transition to being a colony was a process internal to each colony, would be unacceptable.

testable propositions If democratisation was categorised historically on the analogy with colonial conquests, these hypotheses could be researched...

of the states which have made a transition from nondemocracy to democracy since 1939, most have done so

following a military intervention by democratic powers. past military intervention by a democratic power, rather than any traditional explanation such as economic development, is the best predictor that a country will be a democracy. of the military interventions since 1900 with the stated purpose of imposing a political system on a state, the majority (if not all) were to impose or restore democracy

Even when the explanation of democratisation is expanded to include non-internal factors, there is a reluctance to mention military force. Laurence Whitehead suggest three basic models for the international spread of democracy: contagion, control and consent. The essential point is that approaching two-thirds of the democracies existing in 1990 owed their origins, at least in part, to deliberate acts of imposition or intervention from without (acts, moreover, that were undertaking within living memory). Given this, an interpretation which excludes from consideration the roles played by external actors, their motives, or their instruments of action is bound to produce a highly distorted image of the international dimension of democratization... Laurence Whitehead (1996) Three international dimensions of democratization, in The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas Oxford: OUP. (p. 9). Since that was published, there have been more explicit examples of the 'international dimension', in Kosovo, Serbia and Timor. The invasion of Iraq, for the declared purpose of 'regime change', is probably the best example of 'external actors' in democratisation. Several years before the Iraq war, USAID (the official US aid agency), had prepared a list of prodemocracy tactics. It indicates how thorough the 'external actors' can be - especially with military backing... USAID's democracy programs will support:

Constitutional mechanisms, including technical and organizational assistance to constitutional conventions and constitution-makers. Democratically elected legislatures, including programs to improve the material, technical, and decision-making capabilities of legislatures. Legal systems, including independent judiciaries and civilian-controlled police, and alternative and informal mechanisms for resolving disputes. Local government entities, particularly those that have recently acquired additional institutional authority and responsibilities. Credible and effective elections, where voters have confidence in the process.

Local, national, regional, and international organizations that protect human rights, including the rights of workers, indigenous peoples, minorities, and women. Trade unions, professional associations, women's groups, educational entities, and a wide range of indigenous NGOs, particularly those that are partners in development programs. Political parties and other national mechanisms of political expression in a strictly nonpartisan manner and, consistent with statutory limitations, in a manner that does not influence the outcome of an election. Independent media outlets and groups formed to promote and protect freedom of expression. Improved civil-military relations, including effective civilian control of the military establishment. Institutions and organizations that increase government responsiveness and accountability at the national, state, and local levels. Educational efforts for children and adults that reflect community participation, promote the development of local NGOs, and encourage tolerance within society. Finally, as a natural complement to longer-term democracy-building efforts, USAID, in consultation with other U.S. Government agencies and with adequate human rights safeguards, will support programs in transition situations for the establishment of democratic political institutions and for the demobilization and retraining of soldiers and insurgents.

USAID'S Strategies - Building Democracy This is quite different from a popular uprising. By definition, no process initiated by USAID or other external agency, derives 'from the people' inside the territory concerned. In Bosnia and Kosovo, democratic powers could implement a democratisation programme because of a military occupation. That is the stated aim in Iraq, without much success so far. Generally, such programmes emphasise funding of pro-democracy parties, groups and media. The funds go to a small elite: perhaps for that reason, no multi-ethnic political system has yet emerged, in either Bosnia or Kosovo. It is not likely in Iraq either.

exclusion of the undemocratic: total democracy

The democratic claim to moral superiority is partly based on the treatment of persons within democracies. Liberal democracies also claim to be politically neutral. Nevertheless, even model democracies exclude (and often politically persecute) anti-democrats. In this respect, a democratic system is like all other regimes: it takes measures to ensure its own survival. The western Cold War slogan "at least there is free speech here", usually did not apply to undemocratic organisations. That is still true in the liberal democracies. Anti-democrats are often excluded from the use of human and political rights, and anti-democratic parties are sometimes forbidden. The new European Charter of Fundamental Rights contains such an exclusion: Article 54 Prohibition of abuse of rights Nothing in this Charter shall be interpreted as implying any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognised in this

Charter.... Draft Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union The Charter also includes the basic political rights now used to define democracy, including voting and candidacy rights. Article 54 therefore constitutes an exclusion of anti-democrats from those rights. The German Constitution is another example: for historical reasons, the 'defence of democracy' plays a greater role in German political culture, than in other democracies. Artikel 18 - Einbssen von Grundrechten Wer die Freiheit der Meinungsusserung, insbesondere die Pressefreiheit (Artikel 5 Abs. 1), die Lehrfreiheit (Artikel 5 Abs. 3), die Versammlungsfreiheit (Artikel 8), die Vereinigungsfreiheit (Artikel 9), das Brief-, Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnis (Artikel 10), das Eigentum (Artikel 14) oder das Asylrecht (Artikel 16 a) zum Kampfe gegen die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung missbraucht, verwirkt diese Grundrechte. Die Verwirkung und ihr Ausmass werden durch das Bundesverfassungsgericht ausgesprochen. Bundestag: Grundgesetz Article 18 [Forfeiture of basic rights] Whoever abuses freedom of expression of opinion, in particular freedom of the press (Article 5 (1)), freedom of teaching (Article 5 (3)), freedom of assembly (Article 8), freedom of association (Article 9), privacy of letters and secrecy of post and telecommunication (Article 10), property (Article 14), or the right to asylum (Article 16a) in order to combat the free democratic basic order forfeit these basic rights. Such forfeiture and the extent thereof is determined by the Federal Constitutional Court. Constitution of Germany The suppression of political parties is normal practice in established liberal democracies. In an article on party bans in Israel, Raphael Cohen-Almagor gives the typical justification for this practice: This article argues that it is neither morally obligatory, nor morally coherent, to expect democracy to place the means for its own destruction in the hands of those who either wish to bring about the annihilation of the state, or to undermine democracy, and who take active steps to realize those ends. Raphael Cohen-Almagor (1997) Disqualification of political parties in Israel: 1988-1996 But if you substitute the word 'dictatorship' for 'democracy", this formula justifies the suppression of democratic parties by a dictatorship. The line of argument is not itself coherent: it is morally arbitrary. Nevertheless it indicates the pro-democratic fervour of democracy. Democracy is not above the parties - the democrats are themselves a party. Western media and governments usually support such 'democratic forces' in other countries: the implication is that they have a special claim to be elected. If democracy was politically neutral, candidates support for democracy would be irrelevant. In reality, democrats are pro-democracy - as you would expect - and democratic systems are pro-democracy. It is even possible to define democracy by these characteristics- as a political system where democratic forces hold absolute political power, at least in relation to non-democrats, and where

they institutionally persecute anti-democrats. It is not a comprehensive definition, but it is descriptive of most democracies. If democracy were truly a superior system of government, then it would (presumably) not need this harassment of its opponents. All democracies also maintain a culture of democracy - a parallel to the 'national culture', which all nation states support. It is the exclusive political culture: there can be no 'culture of totalitarianism' in a democracy. Paradoxically, in the stable democracies, this has created a 'total democracy', with the characteristics attributed to totalitarian culture. In the liberal democracies, democratic attitudes pervade all aspects of life, and especially education. At universities in liberal democracies, standard political science courses include only pro-democratic theorists. Despite this total-democracy culture,democrats often claim that living in a democracy is equivalent to 'freedom' - usually meaning political freedom. The classic example is again the Freedom House annual survey, which claims to show how many countries are 'free'. It is often quoted in the media as factual truth, without any further analysis. Many of the leading theorists of liberal market democracy work on Freedom House projects: that group overlaps with the US foreign policy establishment. (The academic advisors included Larry Diamond, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Seymour Lipset, Alexander Motyl, and the neoconservative Islam-basher Daniel Pipes). Their definition of freedom overlaps the definition of a liberal democracy: it is no surprise that liberal-democratic countries get the best scores for 'freedom'. But this is no more than circular reasoning: if political freedom is defined as 'living under a democracy', then democracies have political freedom. Nevertheless people are also unfree in democracies - in ways that seem specific to liberal market democracy itself. In general it is the market which limits social and economic freedom, rather than their political regime. The operation of the labour market, and the conditions of employment, provide the best examples. Some US employers in the services and retail sectors require their employees to smile permanently, at least in the presence of customers. In a few cases, employers have required plastic surgery, as a condition of employment. These are impositions, and restrict personal freedom. The point is, that they are apparently culturally specific to the liberal market democracies. Unlike, for instance, poverty or inequality, they are not reported in any historical non-democratic society. Apparently, the market democracies have certain specific unfreedoms, which undermine their claim to be 'free'.

the illegal immigrant and democracy

The pretensions of liberal-democratic states are undermined especially by their treatment of illegal immigrants. Unlike many previous 'democratic deficits', this can not be remedied inside the political structure of these states. For instance, until the time of the First World War, women were excluded from voting in many western democracies. That democratic deficit was remedied by the introduction of universal adult suffrage in the 1920's. Still, the 'demos' in the democratic system continued to be the same nation, that formed the nation state. Britain was no less British, when British women got the vote. But conceding full citizenship to anyone who can cross the border (legally or illegally), would ultimately change the population structure of the western nation states. Most democratic theorists are apparently unwilling to welcome 500 million new

African fellow-citizens: and so they defend a 'demos' equivalent to existing populations of nation states. The fifth and final criterion for the democratic process is, then, as follows: The demos must include all adult members of the association except transients and persons proved to be mentally defective. Admittedly the definition of adults and transients is a potential source of ambiguity. Robert Dahl (1989). Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. (p. 129). How does a typical western democracy, such as the Netherlands or Britain, appear to an illegal immigrant? Again the Freedom House checklist can be used - this time to check on the people who wrote it, or at least the system they defend. First the political rights of illegal immigrants, the 'transients'...

Can illegal immigrants vote for the head of state and/or head of government in free and fair elections? No. Can illegal immigrants vote for the legislative representatives in free and fair elections? No. Have they equal campaigning opportunities? No, in practice, since any public activity can lead to their arrest. Do illegal immigrants have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice? No. Formal legal registration of any association would be difficult: registration of the party for electoral purposes would be in practice impossible, since the illegals would have to disclose their address. Such a party could operate only by using legal residents as a front.

The civil rights checklist, especially, indicates the second-class status of illegal immigrants...

Can illegal immigrants have their own free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression? No. Any offices of a newspaper, any TV studio, would be subject to possible police raids and detention of the illegals. Their media would also have to operate through a front. Have illegal immigrants free religious institutions, and is there free private and public religious expression? Yes, in private. Police in the EU member states rarely arrest immigrants at a mosque, for instance. But public expressions, religious or otherwise, expose the speaker to arrest and detention. Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion for illegal immigrants? No. A demonstration or meeting, specifically for illegal immigrants, would be an invitation to the police to detain all the demonstrators. In practice immigrants can only participate in demonstrations or meetings organised by legal existing groups. They must rely on the political influence of the organisers, to prevent their arrest during the activity. Is there freedom of political or quasi-political organization for illegal immigrants? No. Again, any organisation specifically for illegals could not operate from a fixed address, or with legal registration. Illegals who participate in existing political organisations must trust that organisation to protect them from arrest.

Is the population treated equally under the law? No. Illegal immigrants are excluded from participation in the legal system, as judges and lawyers, and as jurors in countries with a jury system. Is there protection from unjustified imprisonment and exile? No. In fact this is the standard fate of the illegal immigrant: detention and deportation. (The term 'exile' implies that native-born citizens somehow suffer more from a deportation than an immigrant - a racist distinction). Is there personal autonomy for illegal immigrants? Does the state control travel, choice of residence, or choice of employment? Yes, the state controls all of these, or attempts to. In the Netherlands you must have a valid residence permit to travel on the train, rent a house in the social sector, or get a legal job. If these kind of controls limit personal autonomy, then illegals do not have full personal autonomy.

It is clear that the treatment of illegal immigrants in western countries would be called 'repression', if it was applied to political dissidents or ethnic minorities elsewhere. The treatment of asylum seekers is similar - although they are not 'illegal immigrants' while their application is being processed. The 'Tampa incident' illustrated the realities. The Norwegian container ship Tampa had picked up asylum seekers at sea, and entered Australian territorial waters in August 2001. The rightwing Howard government made a stand on the issue - explicitly refusing to admit the asylum seekers to Australian territory. They were kept on board the ship, and prevented from leaving it by soldiers of the elite force SAS. They were isolated from the media and lawyers: only the Norwegian ambassador was permitted to visit the ship at first, and later one delegation. In effect the asylum seekers were placed in detention - which is in any case their normal treatment in Australia. Now, people held incommunicado on a ship, guarded by soldiers, obviously have no political rights - none at all. There is no question of them voting in Australian elections, demonstrating, or participating in any way in the political process there. The soldiers prevented all access to the rest of society, a policy emphasised when the asylum seekers were transferred to an Australian troop ship (the media were excluded from this military operation). This de facto military detention was nevertheless enforced on people, who had committed no crime in Australia. The question for the defenders of democracy is this: if a recognised legitimate democracy can treat one group like this, why not others? From the point of view of an illegal immigrant, a western democracy such as Britain or Australia has most of the characteristics attributed to dictatorships or 'authoritarian regimes'. Yet they meet the criteria of Freedom House for political freedom. If a clever dictatorship can arrange repression, in such a way as to meet the standard of 'democracy' and 'freedom' applied to illegal immigrants, then why is such a dictatorship wrong? And if any dictatorship can meet these standards, merely by clever administrative arrangements, than why is dictatorship fundamentally wrong? And from the other side: why is a political regime, which treats people like the Howard government treats refugees, morally desirable? Why is it noble and good? It is not because the system failed - the Australian democracy works perfectly well. Howard was democratically elected, in free and fair elections, in a society with a free press and guaranteed civil rights.

Opinion polls showed he had the backing of a huge majority, for his hard line toward the asylum seekers on board the MV Tampa. Australia recognises and implements all the human and civil rights, which are supposed to protect minorities against the tyranny of the majority. But, as the Tampa case shows, they are no guarantee at all. The Howard government is not a distortion of democracy, it illustrates how democracy works. The people rule, and in this case 'the people' are a xenophobic people. The political system expresses their collective will, exactly as intended. But is it right?

The constitution of the demos

Modern democracy is inextricably linked to nations, to nationalism, and to the nation state as form of state. Liberal democracy and nationalism developed together in Europe. To a large extent, democracy and nationalism are parallel. Democracy presupposes a demos, a community in which 'politics' takes place. The demos of modern democracies, and the nation of modern nation-states, are the same thing. Western politicians speak interchangeably of 'the nation", 'our nation", 'the people", 'the community'. Democrats, almost by definition, believe it is necessary to maintain the demos as a political unit: this has led to an association of democracy and conservative nationalism. Most democrats believe, that a democracy is legitimate regardless of the criteria used to select the demos. Even a completely closed racial community, with zero immigration, can be a democracy. (According to democratic theory, it would be more legitimate than a dictatorship which allowed free immigration). Although several western democracies have a 'right to emigrate', no democracy has ever had a right to immigration. In practice the criteria of citizenship in democracies is biological descent: typically, more than 90% of the citizens acquired that status from their parents. Opponents of immigration in democratic states even use democracy as an argument - claiming that the cohesion of the political community will be undermined. In the EU conservative nationalists use the explicit argument, that no European-scale geopolitical entity can be legitimate, because there is no European demos. European integration, on this view, may have involved a certain transfer of state functions to the Union but this has not been accompanied by a redrawing of political boundaries which can occur only if, and can be ascertained only when, a European Volk can be said to exist. Since this, it is claimed, has not occurred, the Union and its institutions can have neither the authority nor the legitimacy of a Demos-cratic State. The State 'ber alles": Demos, Telos and the German Maastricht Decision, Joseph H. Weiler, 1995. Weiler's article is a commentary on a decision of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the German Constitutional Court (inspired by nationalist fears about the Maastricht Treaty). Describing what he calls the No-Demos thesis, Weiler summarises the democratic-nationalist position... Critically, Volk/nation are also the basis for the modern democratic State: The nation and its members, the Volk, constitute the polity for the purposes of accepting the discipline of

democratic, majoritarian governance. Both descriptively and prescriptively (how it is and how it ought to be) a minority will/should accept the legitimacy of a majority decision because both majority and minority are part of the same Volk, belong to the nation. That is an integral part of what rule-by-the-people, democracy, means on this reading. Thus, nationality constitutes the state (hence nation-state) which in turn constitutes its political boundary, an idea which runs from Schmitt to Kirchhof. The significance of the political boundary is not only to the older notion of political independence and territorial integrity, but also to the very democratic nature of the polity. A parliament is, on this view, an institution of democracy not only because it provides a mechanism for representation and majority voting, but because it represents the Volk, the nation, the demos from which derive the authority and legitimacy of its decisions. The State 'ber alles": Demos, Telos and the German Maastricht Decision, for footnote see original. This democratic-nationalist position is accepted by most modern democrats, and all existing democratic states. Democracy therefore reinforces nationalism as a state formation ideology. That is wrong in itself, and it encourages nationalist violence in state formation. New nation states are comparatively rare (about one per year on average), and some were formed without bloodshed - such as Slovakia. But blood was certainly shed to found some others, or to save an existing state. That happened partly because nationalists (on both sides) believed their nationstate was essential to democracy.

Testable propositions: fortress democracy The combination of the nation state and global inequality has created a historically unique pattern of 'islands' of wealth coexisting with oceans of poverty. The island metaphor is not entirely accurate, since most rich countries border on other rich countries. They are not in fact surrounded by extreme poverty it is generally further away from their borders. Mexico, for instance, is no longer a poor country: the poorest immigrants at the Rio Grande come from its southern neighbours. Similarly, most illegal immigrants who cross the Strait of Gibraltar come from sub-Saharan Africa, not from Morocco itself. However the island metaphor is accurate at global level: those who are born in a rich society will live in a rich society, those who are born amid extreme poverty will die there also. The outward transfer of wealth is minimal: development aid is less than 0,5% of GDP in rich countries, and the percentage is falling. The inward transfer of population is minimal. Never before has it been cheaper to travel from one continent to another, never before has the gap in incomes been greater, but migration into the rich western democracies is deliberately kept at a low level. This is what is historically unique, and it does seem to be specific to democracies, in the form suggested by these

propositions

high-income democracies admit less immigrants than the few high-income non-democracies (such as the United Arab Emirates) the countries which have historically spent the highest proportion of GDP on immigration control are democracies most countries which have installed electronic surveillance at their borders, in order to limit immigration, are democracies in democracies, economic growth produces no corresponding rise in development aid the highest absolute gaps in GNP per capita, for pairs of states, are between democracies and non-democracies the 'privilege' of immigration into a rich democracy is granted disproportionately to those who already come from a rich country. For any specific high-income democracy, the poorest countries have the lowest immigration rates into that democracy, taking account of the relative populations of the two countries. high-income non-democracies are more likely than high-income democracies to accept immigrants from poor or very poor countries the more democratic a country is, the lower the percentage of refugees among its population

The equivalence of demos and nation also undermines the legitimacy of democratic decisions. Imagine a referendum on the prohibition of pork (pig meat), which Muslims consider unclean. If the referendum is held in France or Germany the result will be: no prohibition. If held in Saudi Arabia, there will certainly be prohibition. If the referendum is only for women, world-wide, then there will probably be no prohibition. But if the referendum is only for veiled women, then pork will be forbidden. You can get any result in this referendum, by choosing the unit of decision. That is a general characteristic of democracy - although to get some decisions, you would have to be very selective. Supporters of democracy claim that a democratic decision is legitimate, because it is the result of a free and fair decision-making process. But what if the opposite decision can be obtained, in an equally free and fair democracy, with different voters? Why is one free-and-fair decision to be respected, and the other not? In practice the legitimation of the decision is historical. The unit of decision is the nation state, based on a historic group: only their decisions are recognised as legitimate.

The same issue arises in social-contract theories: the group formation itself is morally arbitrary. Can two people come up to me on the street, tell me the three of us form a nation, and then decide by majority vote, that I must enter military service under their command? If they try that trick with several million people, they might succeed. In the last 100 years, many people have suddenly found themselves in newly established nation states - which then demand their patriotic loyalty. In such cases, the principle of democracy is used to retroactively legitimise the formation of the national unit. National liberation movements usually claim to be democratic, at least since the late 19th century. So, having forced people into a political unit, they attempt to legitimise it by holding an election within that unit. Democrats usually accept this form of legitimisation, provided the elections are fair. However, the democrats are wrong: an election can not retroactively legitimise the involuntary formation of the electorate. Equally, the typical nation-demos is arbitrary in terms of exclusion. The opposite of democracy is usually said to be autocracy, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism. However, it can also be given as xenocracy - a rare term for rule by foreigners. In practice all democracies limit immigration, to preserve existing community. If democracy was intended to give maximum power of decision to individual persons, then all democracies would allow voting from outside. During the formation of many existing nation states, democracy was indeed equated with 'non-xenocracy', even if that word was not used. The claim to democracy was treated as equivalent to the sovereignty claim, and both claims as implying the removal of foreign populations. Sometimes only a few colonial administrators were expelled, sometimes millions of people. People are not only forced into nation states, they are also forced out of them. An election can not legitimise ethnic cleansing of the electorate before the election. Historical expulsions are not the main cause of exclusion from voting. Most 'excluded potential voters' were not expelled from the democracy: they never lived there anyway. If the idea of a fixed territorial-political unit was abandoned, all these billions of potential voters could arrive to vote. The reality in democratic states is exactly the opposite: non-resident aliens are never allowed to vote. The fact that a nation is democratic, is said to legitimise its immigration laws. But this is a circular reasoning: if the potential immigrants were allowed to vote, they would usually outvote the resident population (and grant themselves citizenship). Again, an election can not in itself legitimise exclusion from that election, no matter how fair it is. An ethnically pure nation with totally closed borders might still be a perfect democracy, but that does not justify such states: instead it suggests something is wrong with democracy.

more problems with the demos: minorities and the future population
All democratic theorists have to acknowledge the issue of the disadvantaged minority. Much democratic theory is concerned with showing this disadvantage is not unjust. At its simplest, there is a pure anarchist objection to democracy. Such an anarchist would say: "No-one should decide on my life - not kings, not oligarchs, but not fellow-citizens either". However most anarchists today are not anti-democrats. Instead they believe in small-scale community, often in a democratic form. They no longer object to the democratic principle, just to the scale. Anarchism today is more a form of localised communitarianism, often politically acceptable to democratic nation states.

In contrast, the political individual counts for less and less, as a unit of democracy. In modern democracies there is a threshold for political influence: an organisation representing less than 1 in 10 000 of ordinary citizens is unlikely to have any political weight. Although communitarians criticise 'individualism', 'atomism' and 'egoism' in modern democracies, in reality the unorganised individual is politically marginalised, and so are very small minorities. Most democratic theory simply assumes, that individuals will join political parties and other organisations and exercise rights collectively. Localist neo-anarchism can not resolve the general problem of the minority in democracies. It would only work if the disadvantaged minority was locally concentrated and homogeneous. Nor can the mainstream 'scale ideologies' - federalism, regionalism, urban democracy. Subsidiarity and devolution to smaller political units do not affect the position of a dispersed minority. They will be outvoted at local level, just as they are at national level. There is only one resolution of the problem of the disadvantaged minority: leave the demos, secede. Democracies can guarantee basic rights for minorities. However, they can not guarantee them a society built on their values. Guarantees of civil and political rights can not compensate minorities, for living in a society which they consider morally intolerable. Issues like abortion and euthanasia clearly show the limits of democracy. It can not resolve an ethical issue, and there are many ethical issues in modern societies. If anti-abortion groups want abortion to be criminalised, then the legislature must either accept or reject that demand. There is no third option: delay is rejection of the demand. Laws are either in force, or they are not. Either way, given ethical differences, some people will live under laws which they can not accept in conscience. The successful prohibition of alcohol in the United States was already mentioned, as an example of how religious fundamentalists impose their values through democratic process. This kind of democratic legislation can produce the most acute issues of conscience: democracies can generate humiliating and grotesque repression of 'ethical minorities'. Consider this proposed antiabortion legislation in the American State of Georgia, which has a conservative Christian majority. It attempts to ban abortions, by forcing women to seek a death penalty for the fetus, in a jury trial: As used in this Code section, the term: (1) 'Abortion' means the intentional termination of human pregnancy with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus. (2) 'Death warrant' means an order of a superior court providing that an execution may proceed. (3) 'Execution' means an abortion. (b) No physician shall perform an execution in this state without first obtaining a death warrant as provided in this Code section. (c) Any person seeking to have an execution performed shall first file a petition in the superior court in the county of the petitioner's residence. Upon the filing of such petition, the court shall appoint a guardian ad litem to protect the rights of the fetus. The guardian ad litem shall be authorized to demand a jury trial to determine the rights of the fetus. Within 30 days after the

filing of such petition, the court shall hold a trial for the purpose of balancing the fetus' right to live against the rights of the person seeking to have the execution performed. Bill to amend Article 6 of Chapter 5 of Title 16 of the Official Code of Georgia Many people would find it abhorrent to live in a society which treats women this way, but a democracy has no room for conscientious objections, even on these religious issues. If a democratic government allowed objections of conscience to all its decisions, then it could not be a democracy. It would not even be a government, in the usual meaning: it would be a debating society. Yet there is no reason why people with conscientious objections to a society should be forced to live in it. If there is no other state - no other demos - which corresponds to their values, then even emigration is not an option. The failure of democracies to allow 'freedom of exit' is a major ethical defect. Again it seems to be a structural defect: no change is in sight. The use of futures scenarios, for instance in spatial planning, has introduced a related issue, for democracy theory. When decisions are being taken about the future, can democracy claim any special legitimacy? A typical futures study claims that a democratic city government may legitimately decide on the future shape of the city. Yet many of the people who will live in the future city are not alive today, or have no vote. In the case of long-term planning (50 years or more), most of those who elected the present administration will be dead. If a present population takes decision for a future population, the future population is (by definition) excluded from the process. No political procedure can correct that exclusion. In this way, democracy allows the present population to 'rule' the future population - in contradiction of its own logic of representation and participation. It is obvious, that this is an inbuilt advantage for conservatism. If political concerns shift from immediate issues, to the future shape of society, this defect of democracy will become more important.

The permanence and expansionism of democracy

A more abstract ethical objection to democracy is, that it blocks the transition to a postdemocratic world: democracy is for ever. Self-preservation probably characterises most social structures. In liberal-democratic states, there are usually specific legal prohibitions against overturning democracy. These include the constitutional restrictions on anti-democrats mentioned already, which are now duplicated at the level of the European Union. All such prohibitions are unethical, for it is unethical to block change. If necessary, innovation should take precedence over democracy. However, democrats claim that democracy itself has priority over other values: the abolition of democracy would at least prevent them from enforcing this value preference. Historical process can not legitimise the permanence of democracy. In Europe, the first modern democracies followed absolute monarchies. That does not mean democracy should never disappear, and certainly not that any future non-democracy is a restoration of absolute monarchy. The implicit historicist claim in this type of argument is: "everything in the present is better than it was in the past, therefore it should never be abolished". But change does not consist of accretion only. That which came, can also go - without implying a 'return to the past'.

Not only is democracy for ever, it is for ever becoming more democratic. More than any other regime of government, it is concerned with its own maximisation. It is normal for democrats to demand more democracy: it would be unusual for a monarch to demand more monarchy. It is not simply a monopoly in time and space. It goes beyond monopoly: even if all the world is democratic, for ever, many democrats will still insist on more democracy, further democratisation. For them, 100% democratic would not be enough.

a democratic planet, no less

Since the world is not yet 100% democratic, 'democratisation' generally refers to spatial expansion. There are organisations in western states (government-funded and private) which exist for the specific purpose of converting other states into democracies. There are also real organisations of democratic states, such as the Community of Democracies, which first met in Warsaw in June 2000. Such organisations indicate a willingness to form some sort of democratic bloc: We will seek to strengthen institutions and processes of democracy. We appreciate the value of exchanging experiences in the consolidation of democracy and identifying best practices. We will promote discussions and, where appropriate, create forums on subjects relevant to democratic governance for the purpose of continuing and deepening our dialogue on democratization. We will focus our deliberations on our common principles and values rather than extraneous bilateral issues between members. We resolve jointly to cooperate to discourage and resist the threat to democracy posed by the overthrow of constitutionally elected governments. Final Warsaw Declaration: Towards a Community of Democracies Proposals for a Union of Democracies existed before the Second World War, and there were older proposals for unions of 'civilised states'. At the time both of these meant the US, Britain and its 'white colonies', and a few west-European and Scandinavian states. After the end of the Cold War the idea enjoyed a revival - indicative of the mood of democratic expansionism. Democratic expansionists believe that they are entitled to impose democracy, without limit in time or space. Indeed most of them would claim - like US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott - that this cannot possibly be an imposition. Democracy, by definition, can never be imposed. In any country under any circumstances, it's dictatorship that is, by definition, an imposition, while democracy is, and can only be, a choice. Strobe Talbott to NATO foreign ministers, December 1999 Inherent in democracy is a claim to a democratic world order - and by definition, any global claim is a monopoly claim. Like universal religions such as Christianity and Islam, democracy can ultimately tolerate no competitors, no 'other gods'. Yet a democratic world order would be like a prison covering the whole world - 'prisoners' could escape, but only into an identical cell. That model approximates to the emergent world order, of liberal (and neoliberal) marketdemocratic nation states. Democracy intensifies itself, and maximises its spatial extent. Historically, as soon as one democratic great power emerged, it became likely that democracy would expand to cover the world. Francis Fukuyama was right on this point, despite all the scepticism he attracted in the 1990's. American soldiers in Saddam's palaces dramatically illustrated the process. His view, that after '1989' the remaining non-democracies would be pressured out of existence, now seems

correct - at least on present trends. That would indeed generate a democratic monopoly, a spatial monopoly of the entire planet. The idea of democracy is inextricably linked to the national identity of the United States...The United States is vigorously engaged in all corners of the globe, acting as a force for peace and prosperity. Expanding the global community of democracies is a key objective of U.S. foreign policy. Democracy and Governance, US Agency for International Development, USAID. The progress of liberty is a powerful trend. Yet, we also know that liberty, if not defended, can be lost. The success of freedom is not determined by some dialectic of history. By definition, the success of freedom rests upon the choices and the courage of free peoples, and upon their willingness to sacrifice. In the trenches of World War I, through a two-front war in the 1940s, the difficult battles of Korea and Vietnam, and in missions of rescue and liberation on nearly every continent, Americans have amply displayed our willingness to sacrifice for liberty.... Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for -- and the advance of freedom leads to peace. (Applause.) And now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning point and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement. President George W. Bush at the National Endowment For Democracy, November 2003. So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world... President George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address, January 2004.

Five different versions of the history of democratic expansion are compiled at Steve Muhlberger's site Chronology of Modern Democracy: Five Different Views - those of Francis Fukuyama, Samuel P. Huntingdon, Tatu Vanhanen, the Freedom House's End of Century Survey, and Matthew White. The last includes online maps of regime types at 10-year intervals. Multiparty democracies are coloured blue (the traditional colour of conservatism), and in the map series a wave of blue is slowly covering the planet. However, unlike many historical phenomena, this is accompanied by an explicit normative theory. The democratic theorists are not just describing what is happening, they say clearly that they want it to happen. Nevertheless, there is no inherent moral reason, why all the planet should have one system of government, and why all others should be forced out of existence. Any system or regime of government, or regime of law, which is not known to be perfect, should allow escape and evasion. A pan-democratic world would not allow this escape. Non-democrats would have no choice but to live in a society which regarded them as evil "supporters of tyranny", as people alien to its own foundational values.

democratic recolonisation

So democracy is not only a system of government, it is a war against anti-democracy. Democratic expansionism implies, in global perspective, a planetary civil war between democrats and anti-democrats. When the democrats have won, the planet will be democratic: from their perspective a war of conquest is logical. However, the minimal western definition of democracy, in places such as Kosovo, Timor, and now Iraq, is simply 'rule by democratic forces'. In order to rule, these democratic forces must kill (or at least defeat) the anti-democratic forces, usually with western help. But the 'democratic forces' in such territories are generally a small elite anyway: pro-American, English-speaking, and usually upper-middle-class. On this definition, the new democracy leads to the creation of a specific political structure in such territories. Bosnia, Kosovo and Timor have seen a remarkable development in geopolitics, unforeseen by most IR theorists - the return of the protectorate. Occupied Iraq was governed, at first, in true colonial style, by a military governor. The real power in Iraq still rests with the United States - the de facto governor is US Ambassador Negroponte. (If internal security collapses, some form of official UN protectorate might still be installed). In the new protectorates, the majority of the population are excluded from the political and administrative structure by language and cultural barriers. On Timor, there were riots when the UN administration made knowledge of English a condition for employment - excluding 90%, perhaps even 99%, of the population. Here and in other countries, 'democratic transition' and 'democratisation' are processes administered in English. The protectorate imported administrators, and was externally financed, at least in the beginning. The powers of these administrators are very great - including in Kosovo the choice of music played on local radio stations. The accurate term for such political regimes is 'colonial'. They display the classic characteristic of a colonial regime, namely the imbalance in the exercise of power. Australian troops imposed a new Portuguese-financed civilian administration in East Timor, but the Timorese population was not given a piece of Australia, to administer by their standards. Nor are they allowed to vote in Australian or Portuguese elections. Kosovars were not given a piece of the United States, where they can tell the local radio stations what music to play. Yet this onesided process is described as 'democratisation'. Whatever the justification for the arrival of the troops, the democratisation becomes the justification for their stay. A new type of territorial unit has emerged - the democratising protectorate - but it is firmly within the general category of 'colonies'. Recolonisation is apparently the present specific form of democratic expansion. The next 20 years might see a spectacular growth in the number of protectorates. Much of Africa is affected by intermittent or endemic conflicts, including 'official' wars among states. All of these are potential justifications for intervention, and often there are pro-intervention lobbies in the west. The most serious are the Sudan civil war and the interconnected wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ruanda and Burundi. A few Latin American states with endemic internal conflicts, such as Colombia, might also become protectorates: they are already targets of military intervention in varying degrees. And there are always other justifications available, such as 'weapons of mass destruction', or simply the threat that they exist. A general recolonisation unthinkable during the Cold War - is now a medium-term possibility.

Colonialism can be distinct from democratic expansionism. The wave of colonisation in Africa from 1870 to 1910, the 'scramble for Africa', was not driven by any ideals of democracy. It was driven by commercial pressure and great-power rivalry, and legitimised by doctrines of racial superiority and the 'civilising mission'. However, the crusade for democracy and human rights could become the 'civilising mission' of a global recolonisation - and democratising protectorates the standard form of colony. In a worst-case scenario, about 1000 million people could live in such protectorates in 2020 - ruled by administrators from Europe and North America, and a local English-speaking elite. Influenced by a global pro-democracy elite, western public opinion might genuinely believe that this is the final triumph of democracy. However, in the protectorates 'democracy' is simply the militarily-enforced rule of non-European ethnic groups by imported administrators. That is no different from the political regime of 19th-century colonies, and it is difficult to claim it has any special moral legitimacy, especially when cultural and linguistic barriers separate the administration from the population. 'Liberated Iraq' will no doubt provide more examples, of life under a democratising imperialism.

Justifying democracy
Democratic theorists attempt to justify democracy - that is, to explain in the language of ethics, why there should be democracy. As with the definitions of democracy, there is a standard list of justifications, indicating a well-developed and stable ideology. They fall into 3 or 4 clusters: moral autonomy and sovereignty of the individual; the requirement for consent of the governed; the basic equality of individuals or at least citizens; and the educative capability of democratic citizenship. The first two are often linked together. There are also justifications with a more nationalist emphasis: they see the sovereignty of 'the people' (meaning the nation) as the primary justification of democracy. And in liberal political philosophy, there are justifications of democracy on the ground of procedural fairness. This justification is typical of liberalism, which can almost be defined by its claim that 'process justifies outcome'. The objection to such claims is also well known: Morality requires that procedures tend to produce good laws and policies, and good laws and polices are not just any which happen to result from a certain kind of procedure. William N. Nelson (1980) On Justifying Democracy. London: Routledge. (p. 33). All these are formal criteria used to justify democracy. In the democracies, three other justifications are common - less formal and less philosophical. The first is the historical comparison with totalitarian atrocities, especially with the 'unholy trinity' of Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot. The second is simply the widespread belief, that there must be a democracy, and there can be no valid opposition to it. Thirdly, some purely instrumental arguments are also used to justify democracy: they say it will produce a specific desirable effect. The democratic peace theory is almost always used in this way - on the assumption that everyone wants peace. However, some of the formal justifications can also be used to justify totalitarian or authoritarian regimes. Even the doctrine of consent can be used in this way. Most democrats claim that

government must derive from the consent of the governed, or consent of the people. However they also say, that this does not mean factual consent. Factual consent would be, for instance, a letter from me to the government, giving them permission to govern me. As noted above, some specific categories are excluded from this principle anyway, in typical democratic theory. The immigrant or asylum-seeker, who is stopped at the border of a nation state, is clearly 'being governed'. But unless they are admitted, and given citizenship, they will not be able to participate in the democratic process. And democrats often promote the military imposition of democracy which contradicts any real consent. So the 'consent' in democratic theory is either implied, or it is a philosophical fiction. But if consent is a fictional construction, with no relation to political reality, then a totalitarian state can equally claim to derive legitimacy from the consent of the governed (especially if there is free emigration). If a dictator allows all critics to leave the country, then it is just as plausible to say that those who remain have 'consented' to the dictatorship. At first sight, the doctrine of consent is self-evidently right. Imagine there was a list of all possible actions of the state, divided into two categories: 'acts with consent' and 'acts without consent'. The first category seems to correspond to the list of 'good actions', the second to the list of 'bad actions'. However, there is no automatic equivalence of this kind. Acts which are good in themselves require no consent. They can not be made wrong, by lack of consent to them. In a more politically realistic form: certain acts, goals, and policies do not require the consent of the governed, or the consent of the people. Innovation does not require the consent of the people. Justice does not require the consent of the people. It is therefore not necessary to have a government which always acts on the basis of consent. This 'necessity' can not be a justification of democracy. There is a second reason why a democracy can not be justified from a requirement for the consent of the governed. It is very simple: the population of a state can be so arranged as to produce the consent of the governed - once again, the issue of the exact nature of the demos in democracy. If, for any decision of any government, a group of people can be found who consent to this decision, and these people are formally considered to be the people governed, then all government decisions have the consent of the governed. No special political regime is necessary to guarantee this consent. Is this a real option? Historically, it clearly is: there is a long tradition of forced migrations and population transfers of unwilling subjects. The section on alternatives to democracy lists other options for adjusting the demos. It is for the supporters of democracy to demonstrate explicitly, what they claim implicitly - that a democracy is the only structure which generates consent of the governed. The classic phrase 'government of the people, by the people' can not be the basis of a justification of democracy either, at least not of existing liberal-democracies. They are all majority-rule democracies. Exactly the same arguments, which are used by democrats against rule by an elite, can be used against rule of the minority by the majority. If the people are fit to govern themselves, then why are the minority within the people not fit to govern themselves?

It is true that in a perfect consensus-democracy, the problem would not arise, because no minority would feel disadvantaged. But in a real democratic state, any minority dissatisfied with the majority decisions, could claim to be a 'people' - and that is exactly what secessionist groups do. And that simply brings the issue back to the question of what constitutes a legitimate people, a legitimate demos, or a legitimate secession. Government of which people, by which people, for which people? The fact that the arguments against elite rule can also be used against majority rule, does not in itself justify elite rule. But any justification of democracy should be consistent. If the principle is that 'the people' govern themselves and not a group external to that people, then the same principle should be applied to the composition of the people. If they must govern themselves, let them select themselves also. And since this would open the door to unlimited secession, it would in itself end the present order of liberal-democratic states. Consent and autonomy justifications are related to the ideal of individual freedom. Democratic theorists claim, that human political freedom exists only in conditions of where the individual is not governed by another. Participation in a democracy, in their view, makes the individual 'selfgoverning'. They recognise that most voters never participate in the day-to-day decisions of the government: their theory on this point is intended to get around this objection. There is, however, no individualist-libertarian argument for democracy. On the contrary, democracy is collective, by definition. The demos decides, the people rule - not the individual. Democracy does not give you 'control of your own life', democracy gives most 'control of your life' to your fellow citizens, millions of fellow citizens. And most democratic theorists reject individual freedom to choose tyranny, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism. Rather than democracy, personal political autonomy implies a Robinson Crusoe 'society' - or at least an explicitly voluntary state. If the state is voluntary, the individual can reassert individual control by leaving it - and so back to the issue of secession. This approach is summarised well by Thomas Christiano: Social organization could accord with our own will if society were like a club that we could join or leave at will. If we could enter societies that have laws of which we approve and leave societies that have laws of which we do not approve, then we would be self-governing on this view. This conception of self-government does not require democratic participation: it merely requires that we be able to leave one society to join another. We do not need the right to a vote to satisfy this liberty but merely rights to enter and exit. Even a world of small dictatorships is compatible with this liberty as long as each person can leave one for another. Thomas Christiano (1996) The Rule of Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory. Boulder: Westview. (p. 22). Christiano, as a democrat, rejects this option, on three grounds. First, the high social cost of migration (including perhaps learning a new language and culture), which makes it unrealistic. Second, that these costs would be more easily met by the rich, who could convert this advantage into political power. And third, that a world of many small states would require some larger authority anyway, and the issue of participation would re-appear at that level. This issue is known, after a book by Albert Hirschman, as 'exit versus voice'.

Democratic theory therefore rejects a choice of societies (states), as an alternative to democracy in each society (state). But is this rejection consistent with the reality, that all democracies are free market economies? After all, the defenders of free markets emphasise, that true freedom is freedom to choose. How does the free market look, if you apply the tests of democracy? If you go to buy ice-cream or software, are you allowed to participate in the running of the ice-cream or software firms? Do you become a 'citizen' of these firms? Are you allowed to attend their deliberative assemblies, or vote for your representative there? The answer is no, not unless you are a shareholder. I am not: yet according to the theory of the free market, that does limit my freedom in any way. My 'freedom' as a consumer, consists in my ability to choose between products of different entrepreneurs. If I do not like one, I can choose another. Apart from a few producer-consumer co-ops, the market economy is never run on the basis of participation. As Hirschman pointed out, in the market the principle of 'exit' applies. If you don't like the ice-cream, you take your custom elsewhere. If you go to the ice-cream factory and demand to vote on the flavour of next weeks production, they will laugh at you. They will tell you to buy your ice-cream from someone else. If that is 'individual free choice', then why is it wrong for a dictator to laugh at pro-democracy demonstrators? Why not just let them take their citizenship elsewhere, to another state? This analogy with the free market does not, in itself, justify such a multiple-state alternative to democracy. But again, democrats should be consistent in their justification of democracy. Democrats can not claim that governments must allow participation, when at the same time they allow business firms to reject it. What is not demanded of the firm, can not logically be demanded of the state.

instrumentalist arguments for democracy: democratic peace

Instrumental justifications are claims that "democracy will achieve a certain result, therefore there should be democracy". The claimed capacity of democracy to educate citizens, as citizens, is an example. The best known instrumental justification is the democratic peace theory. None of its supporters are neutral scientific investigators: they all use it as a justification for the spread of democracy. Their claim, which they often state explicitly, is that the whole world should consist of democracies, in order to bring universal peace. As mentioned already, the evidence for the democratic peace hypothesis is not convincing. As more research was done, it became more apparent that democracies do go to war, even against other comparable countries. Supporters of the hypothesis responded, by changing their definitions to fit the observations. In every embarrassing case of war between democracies, at least one combatant is reclassified as nondemocratic: the counter-example disappears. A recent book on the democratic peace hypothesis uses the categories "genuine democracies" and "well-established republics". And some wars, the author suggests, are not wars either... We cannot study wars between well-established democracies, for no such wars have existed....There were confrontations in which democracies deployed military force against one another, although they did not quite go to war. And there were wars between regimes that somewhat resembled democracies. Spencer Weart (1998). Never At War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another New Haven: Yale University Press. (p. 6).

Weart's case studies are typical of the methods used: redefinition and reclassification, to fit the democratic peace hypothesis. Spain in 1898 (when it fought the USA in Cuba) was nominally democratic, but "...was actually controlled by an oligarchic and aristocratic elite..." (p. 311). In 1990 there were free elections in Yugoslavia, but "The public had not learned how to choose wisely in such an election..." (p.316). And the CIA intervention in Guatemala in 1954 was not a war between Guatemala and the USA, because Guatemalans did all the fighting (p. 314). If you allow this kind of manipulation of the categories, you can prove anything at all. The fall of the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia in 1991 led to a peaceful secession of Eritrea: that was quoted as an example of the success of democratisation in Africa. But by 1998 the two exemplary democratising states were at war, in a border dispute over desert land. Supporters of the democratic peace hypothesis will simply re-classify them as 'not fully democratic' or 'not wellestablished'. Since the majority of states in history were not democracies, let alone 'wellestablished', the hypothesis shrinks to a group of about 20 or 30 states in the post-1945 period, many of them allies of the United States anyway. So ultimately the democratic peace hypothesis is, that this limited group of states will not fight each other. The hypothesis therefore relies on a special definition of 'peace'. It refers to the kind of peace that applies between Britain and Canada. But outside of this 'peace', some of the members of this group are engaged in quasi-permanent military conflict, certainly the United States and Britain. This list of post-1945 British interventions and colonial wars is from a website specifically dedicated to Britain's Small Wars:

Alternatives to democracy
Alternatives to democracy fall into four main categories: the systematic modification of democracy to remove its ethical defects; the simple overthrow of democratic governments; a non-democratic political system, and innovation in the system of states, with redistribution of territory and populations. But first it is useful to reconsider what they would replace: the relevant characteristics of the existing democracies. The older definitions of democracy referred to historical origins, or simply to 'the rule of the people'. They were followed the polyarchy definitions, and later by rights-and-procedures checklists. None of these give a complete picture of modern democracy. A new definition would have to start at the global level, the level of world order. By now it is clear that democracy is not a one-country regime, not a characteristic of single states. Just as the ideology of the nation state implies a planet of nations, democracy implies a planet of democracies. A democratic world order starts from the premise that only certain groups are a legitimate 'demos'. At any one time, therefore, there is a fixed number of legitimate regimes, each corresponding to a democratic state. For democrats, no other regime is legitimate. They claim that these non-democratic regimes may be converted (by military force or external pressure) into democracies. When this process is complete, and the fixed number of legitimate democratic states has been reached, no further change in the order of states would be legitimate. This

corresponds to the claim made by nationalists, that only a world order of nation states is legitimate. This should be qualified by the recent trends in democratic interventionism. Although the number of cases is small so far (Bosnia, Kosovo, Timor) the democratising protectorates are also considered part of 'global democracy'. A world order consisting of (mainly western) full democracies, and their democratising protectorates, might simply be accepted as 'global democracy'. However, with or without protectorates, the pan-democratic world would have a fixed number of regimes, corresponding to a fixed number of states. In a world where democrats consider each state to correspond to a legitimate demos, democracy is an implicit prohibition of new state formation. Once again, the prohibition of secession appears to be a defining characteristic of democracy - far more than any of the characteristics listed in the polyarchy definitions. There is also no place in democracy for any 'trans-demos' or 'extra-demos' political decision. Democracies can work together, but in the last instance each democratic state has its own democratic elections. In other words, no group can constitute a political unit comprising members of more than one demos. They can form associations, but not a regime or a government: that would require formation of a new state. Since a cross-demos grouping is (by definition) not itself a demos, democrats would not allow it to form a state anyway. The emergence of a single global democracy would not help a cross-demos group - they would simply become an internal minority in a global demos. The alternatives to democracy are alternative to this emergent world order of stable democracies - a world in which there is literally no place for social and political innovation. From this perspective, it is possible to reformulate the definition of democracy. The most helpful literature for this new definition was not the existing definitions, but Joseph Weiler's description of the eurosceptic No-Demos thesis.

A democracy is a political regime in which political power is exercised by controlling the membership of a demos, a group within which political decisions are taken, in practice a nation state. Control of territory and migration are preconditions for democracy. A democracy claims political legitimacy from both the claimed legitimacy of the demos, and the claimed legitimacy of the decision-making procedures. Often, the procedures are claimed to legitimise the demos, and the demos is claimed to legitimise the procedures. A democratic world order is a world order with a fixed number of decision-making units (demos, plural demoi), and in which those units are considered legitimate, and those units only. In turn this world order is considered legitimate, and the only legitimate basis for state formation.

This definition implies, that the most comprehensive alternatives to democracy can only be found at the level of the world order, and in state formation processes. Nevertheless there are also 'internal' alternatives.

rolling back democracy

'Rolling back democracy' (borrowed from Margaret Thatcher's commitment to "rolling back the state") is a non-spatial strategy. It could be applied inside an existing democratic state, and it would often be incompatible with the spatial anti-democratic strategies described in the next sections. The 'rollback' uses the checklist definitions of democracy. The outcome of the democratic process can be improved, if not all of the checklist applies to all of the people, all of the time. The right to vote is the best example, since it is considered the core political right of individuals in democracies. Bill Gates has an individual right to vote, as a US citizen. That includes the so-called passive voting rights - the right to stand as a candidate for political office, to receive the votes of others, and to be elected. But Gates is also the world's richest man. Even without his connection to Microsoft, his influence on the US government is almost certainly more than that of the million poorest voters in the USA. The exercise of his individual vote in elections will not change that. So why should he have the right to vote? In practice the rich (and some other categories) have a double, and more than double, vote. Depriving them of formal voting rights partly corrects this structural injustice in western democracies. Voting and candidacy rights could be removed from such categories as:

persons with personal wealth above a fixed limit: in the EU approximately 100 000 in liquid assets would be appropriate. persons with high personal income: in the EU above approximately 50 000 per annum. entrepreneurs, since the organisations of entrepreneurs already exercise a disproportionate influence on governments. The exclusion should cover not just the typical individual entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates or Richard Branson, but also the more anonymous executive managers who run most enterprises. advisors to the government, who exercise influence on government policy through their work anyway. This should include the policy staff of influential think-tanks.

That may seem a broad range, but it would probably be less than 5% of the population in EU member states. Limiting the right to vote can only be a first step in rolling back democracy. The next step would be to restrict political pluralism. Freedom to form political parties, and their freedom to operate, feature on all the checklist definitions of democracy. The conservative effects of democracy can be reduced, by prohibiting conservative parties, including associated conservative think-tanks and lobby organisations. In the USA many organisations openly describe themselves as 'conservative': the Heritage Foundation database lists over 300 of them. In Europe, conservatives often hide behind another label. Religious parties, which seek to impose the principles of a religion on non-believers, should also be forbidden - that would include all the European christian-democratic parties. (Religious parties with a protective role, for their own members only, would not be covered by this prohibition). The next step could be to exempt certain types of decision from the democratic process. The example of the European high-speed rail network shows how democracies filter and restrict innovation. Exemptions from the democratic process, in such cases, allow the innovation to proceed without it. In Europe, exemption could apply to...

infrastructure planning in general, and specific infrastructure projects which would remain unbuilt in a market democracy reform of the units of local government, where localist and traditionalist opposition preserves obsolete territorial divisions spatial planning in general, including demographic and regional planning - at least, alternatives to the market-led planning in the democracies redistribution of wealth and housing transfer taxes, to fund development in eastern Europe and Africa.

One issue which should certainly be removed from the democratic political arena is immigration. Demographics are probably the most urgent planning issue in Europe: demographic collapse will affect most of the continent within a generation. However, European electorates are hypersensitive to immigration issues, and clearly prefer zero immigration. Policies for replacement migration - with tens of millions of immigrants - can not be formulated in this political climate. In general, 'The People' can not be trusted with the immigration issue - because the manifestation of 'the people' on this issue is without exception a racist populism. A more specific type of exemption from democracy relates to basic values. The European constitutional treaty explicitly lists the 'values of Europe'. However, despite much talk of 'national values', such lists are not usual in national constitutions. The German Constitution does open with a deliberate choice of national fundamental value: The constitution of a state can list its fundamental values, or value hierarchy - deliberately removing them from the political arena. For instance it could place equality above property rights (a classic conflict of values). Inevitably, this would lead to more pressure for secession: the secessionists would be able to clearly indicate what values they rejected. On the grounds of its values, there are legitimate objections of conscience to the existence of the German nation itself - the constituent 'demos' of German democracy. People can legitimately say that an entity with such a value hierarchy has no existence rights. The political case for secession is then clear: those who reject even the existence of the 'demos', are clearly not part of it. If all nation states had explicit lists of national values in their constitution, many more people might discover, that they do not belong in their own nation.

spatial alternatives to the system of democratic states

Secession is one of the few geographical issues in political and moral philosophy. Usually issues of space, geography and territory are considered irrelevant to ethics. Some theorists, such as Lea Brilmayer, try to keep these issues out of democratic theory also, and simply reject secession. However, it is difficult for democratic theorists to claim that secession is never acceptable: most of them live in states which once seceded from a larger empire. Recognising even one secession as legitimate, introduces a territorial element into the ethics of democracy - and secession is only one way to change the pattern of states. Those changes are 'geopolitics' rather than 'politics' secession, acquisition of territory, creation of artificial territory, transfer of territory, the division of states by barriers, the creation of new states, and transfer of population. There are historical examples of all of these processes, but very little discussion of the ethics.

The truth is, that by manipulating geopolitical factors, you can can almost any result out of any political process. The referendum examples (on prohibition of pork) show how this is possible within a democratic system. Changing the electorate changes the referendum result, and Muslims are a clearly identifiable group who will vote in a predictable way. And that is, after all, what secession means in a democracy - it changes the electorate. If it is internal to an existing electoral process, territorial interference of this kind is called gerrymandering - manipulating electoral districts to include or exclude specific populations, with known political preferences. A classic example was the manipulation of the electoral boundaries in the city of Derry, in Northern Ireland, to maintain Protestant control over a Catholic majority. The basic complaint in these areas is that the present electoral arrangements are weighted against non-Unionists...In Londonderry County Borough there was the following extraordinary situation in 1967: Catholic Voters North Ward: Waterside Ward: South Ward 2,530 1,852 10,047 Total: 14,429 Other Voters 3,946 3,697 1,138 8,781 23,210 Disturbances in Northern Ireland Report of the Commission appointed by the Governor of Northern Ireland, 1969. Democratic theory says this is wrong - it rejects all internal manipulation of the electoral process. Democratic theory says there should be a 'fair' arrangement of electoral districts, or a 'fair' national voting system, without districts. But democratic theory can not say that about the global system of states: there is no clear conception of what exactly global gerrymandering would mean. For a start, it is not clear what a 'fair' global arrangement of states would be. The present system, where the African poor are excluded from voting in the rich western states, certainly does not seem fair. If anything, it is the existing system of states which is 'gerrymandered' and unfair. So why not change it? And why stop at a few secessions? Why stop at one new state per year? Why not 100 new states, or 100 new population transfers? The spatial, geopolitical, and territorial alternatives to democracy form a reservoir of nondemocratic options for the future. They contravene the democratic order, yet they do not necessarily imply a transfer to authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Perhaps because the options are not taken seriously themselves, there is no serious attempt by democratic theorists to criticise them. The simplest spatial definition of a democracy is that decisions are taken by those who live in an area or zone, and that these decisions then apply to that area (zone). The hypothetical opposite to this is only possible on an infinite land surface: namely, that every possible use of a zone is allocated a sufficiently large territory to allow effective existence of that zone. Or, in social terms, that every possible form of society is allocated sufficient territory to exist. The planet's surface is finite - but that does preclude some form of territorial allocation. Seats 8 Unionists 4 Unionists 8 Non-Unionists 20

Starting from these two opposites, a simple definition can be given of a post-democratic state: a state is a territory with a purpose. The conventional definition of a state, learnt by all International Relations students, is that a state consists of: a territory, a government which controls all or part of it, and its population. At its simplest, the extent to which that population controls the government determines the degree of democracy. Democracy concerns specific territory: here again is the symbiosis of democracy and the nation state. In a world of nations, a democratic regime governs a historically constituted people inhabiting a specific territory - a classic nation state. Exceptions to that principle are very rare. In July 2000, a convention in Praha (Prague) proposed European Union recognition of the Roma as a non-territorial nation, with its own Parliament. However this is so completely contrary to the standard pattern of one parliament, for one nation, on one territory, that recognition is unlikely. Recognition of a non-national territory, as such, is even more unlikely. Yet that is what the definition of a post-democratic state implies: a state is a territory with a purpose, and therefore does not even need a population. If the purpose of a territory is fixed before it has a population, obviously there can be no democratic process. Any suggestion of this type is treated with deep suspicion among liberal political theorists. Three formal characteristics define the spatial order of a post-democratic world:

state formation is free and multiple states formed do not necessarily have an initial population the population migrates to occupy states formed.

In other words, the transition to post-democratic space involves the migration of the population of the Earth, to achieve a maximum of possible states, or at least a plurality of states. The main obstacle to such a migration is not economic feasibility, or the transport system, but political resistance. Ignoring that issue, and assuming such a migration, what kind of states could be formed? The least productive grounds for state formation are the irreconcilable ethical universalisms. It would be possible to partition countries with abortion controversies (Poland or Ireland, for example) into two states: one where abortion is legal, one where it is not. However, very few people would be satisfied with this: they regard it as a moral issue, concerning in principle the whole world. On the issue of abortion, there is no ethical or cultural relativism, and there is no territorial solution to the problem of conflicting universal beliefs. State formation on this basis could only be a form of territorial clarification, an illustration of the ethical divide. A second category of possible states allows for evasion of moral wrong or injustice. This category includes forms of 'refuge states', in effect an extension of the principle of asylum, to state formation by victims of injustice. If no existing state offers asylum protection, a new state offers the only effective guarantee of protection from discrimination, persecution, injustice, racism and oppression. There is already one state which claims refuge from persecution as legitimation for its formation: Israel. However Israel has never used that as the only justification of its existence - relying instead on the more usual claim to a national homeland for a specific people.

A third type of possible state is founded on non-universal ideologies or beliefs. As an example, it is possible to imagine state formation on the basis of existing political parties. In the electoral geography of western Europe, some regions have long-term political preferences, over centuries. (Political geographers in France have been the most successful in tracing these regional preferences). Even medium-term concentrations of support for political parties, over one generation approximately, could serve as a basis for state formation. In practice, there are legitimate objections to using political parties as the basis for division of territory. They would collectively gain a near-monopoly of territory, but their active membership is rarely more than 1% or 2% of the population. A fourth category relates to certain semi-political historical preferences, usually ignored in political theory. Many people have a preferred 'Golden Age' related to their political views. For European Christian Democrats, it is often the Catholic Middle Ages, for classic liberals the freetrade era of the early 19th century. If people wish to return to the past in this way - in whole or in part - they could be given territory to do so. State formation, based on the reconstruction of a preferred past, is a feasible way of dividing territory - 'nostalgia states'. For instance, when the territorial integrity of Italy seemed under threat during the last 20 years, proposals for the reconstitution of the Papal States surfaced. The Italian nation state has proved more durable than expected, but the political consequences of a revived Papal state are interesting. Traditionalist Catholics from all over Europe would gain a 'homeland' to which they could migrate. These first four categories are related to familiar issues in political theory, but they are far from exclusive. There are many other possible bases of state formation. Among existing nation states it is possible to find differences in social organisation and constitutional tradition. But these are the tip of a huge iceberg. Many options of this kind are so far apart, that they could not be accommodated in the same state. A modern nation state assumes some underlying cultural unity or shared basic values: 'multi-cultural' might work, but not 'multi-constitutional'. This is an indicative list of the types of option involved...

social organisation: is society hierarchical or egalitarian? is the family treated as the basic unit of society? is the educational and workplace tradition hereditary or meritocratic? legal systems: are there universal laws, or separate group laws and courts (such as existed in many colonial territories)? economic structure: is there a central bank and a single currency? are there any banks and other modern financial institutions? is there a free market? organisation of production: is it competitive-entrepreneurial, or centrally planned, or by some form of non-competitive organisations? taxation: is there a unitary tax system? is control of expenditure centralised or can the individual influence it? does the tax system allow conscientious objection to, for instance, military expenditure? military organisation: is there any armed force at all? is there a centralised army, or a citizen militia? ownership and property rights: is there any restraint on transfer and use of property? is wealth systematically redistributed? constitutional structure: is the state centralised, federal, or confederal? is there any separation of powers? is there any separation of church and state?

public administration: is it bureaucratic, etatist, interventionist, arbitrative or traditionalist in style? parliamentary and electoral systems: is there a parliament? does it have more than one chamber? which electoral system is used? external relations: is the state pragmatic or 'idealist' in its dealings with other states? does it recognise other states? does it trade - or strive for autarky?

A society could be, for example, a centralised theocracy with a professional standing army and a closed economy based on subsistence peasant agriculture. It could be a libertarian federation with local citizens militias and an export-driven economy. But no society can be both of these at the same time, and neither can any state. Whatever arrangement such incompatible societies might enter into, would not be a state in standard terms - but two separate states are entirely feasible. One purpose of compiling such a list is to indicate the huge gap between the number of existing states, and the number of possible states. The reservoir of territorial alternatives to democracy is vast. Again, many of these options are related to familiar political controversies. However, an entirely different factor would probably be the main driver of new state formation, in a post-democratic world. It is a factor generally ignored in state theory and political geography: technology. The common view is that technology is a unit, developing in a linear fashion through history. This picture of unity is false: there are technologies, in the plural. Technologies contradict each other, they are opposed to each other, they compete with each other. And in principle, each technology requires its own state, to guarantee its existence. In existing nation states, there is a tendency to standardise not only national culture and language, but technology. This tendency will in the long term produce a world order of national technologies, parallel to the world order of nation states. There is no guarantee, that these national technologies will differ among themselves: they might be only superficially different. They are in any case limited by the number of nation states. In the long term that will limit or block technological change. Technological state formation does for a 'dissident' technology, what the technology can not do itself - secede. Energy technologies in Europe are a good example. The trend at present is to co-ordinate national policies involving a 'mix' of technologies - coal, natural gas, oil, solar energy, wind, nuclear energy. In reality, the mix is dominated by some technologies, and others are marginalised. Creating a plurality of states, to guarantee a plurality of energy technologies, would produce a totally different Europe. It would be a continent divided into the states of Carbonia, Methania, Petrolia, Solaria, Aeolia, and Nuclearia, among others. Such possible states, with a specific technology as core value, are alien to conventional political theory - yet this list is only one possible division. There are many technologies, and many possible combinations. Such a spatial order does not necessarily consist of closed blocks. In the case of energy technologies, it is possible to apply a technology with extra intensity in a core zone. (This applies to any characteristic which can be graded across territory). Each of the hypothetical states listed above could consist of a core zone where only one technology is applied, an outer zone where it is dominant, and a border zone of transition to an adjoining state with a different technology.

This principle - cores and transitional areas - is familiar in cultural and linguistic geography. It has an unrealised potential as a 'design principle' for a new system of states. The word 'technology' can itself be broadly interpreted, including, for instance, infrastructure, construction, architecture, and urban design. States based on a specific urban form are an example of a new state of this kind. Existing cities in nation states tend to reflect the national urban culture: one French city looks like another French city. A post-democratic urban policy could mean the creation of a plurality of new city-states, on the basis of possible urban forms. And here consideration of a post-democratic world returns to the issue of the 'ideal city' - an old value conflict between liberals and utopians. Were the ideal cities of early-modern Europe wrong? The theoretical answer of liberal democracy is "yes, they were wrong because they were not the outcome of democratic process, but of autarchic will". The historical answer is also clear: Europe did not evolve into a multitude of ideal cities, but into a collection of nation states. In historical perspective, it is hard to avoid the impression, that the liberal-democratic nation state evolved to limit innovation. The abolition of the present liberal market democracies might bring the multitude of ideal cities into existence.

justification of non-democracy
Abolition of democracy, and a subsequent non-democratic state, can be justified on grounds surprisingly similar to those used to justify democracy. A few justifications are specific to nondemocracy. Abolition of democracy can be justified on grounds of individual sovereignty and political freedom. Specifically, destruction of the unity of the demos creates at least temporary individual sovereignty. (This is the 'anarchist justification' of non-democracy). A non-democratic state can be justified on grounds of individual moral autonomy: the individuals political choice is not mixed with thousands or millions of others. It is characteristic of liberal democracies that they have complex procedures for ordering, weighing or summing preferences. Cyberliberal theorists of democracy see the Internet as a means to further increase this complexity (allowing multiple iterations, for example). The more complex the process, the less chance that the outcome will correspond to any individual moral choice at the start of the process. By definition, this is not moral autonomy: abolishing the democratic process (including e-democracy) would correct this. A non-democratic state can be justified on instrumental grounds of protection - protection of the individual and minorities from the democratic process. As with illegal immigrants, the democratic majority often subjects 'despised minorities' to treatment which is harsh and humiliating, even if it is legal. In market democracies, abolition of the market democracy protects individuals and groups from market forces. A non-demos (and therefore non-democratic) state is necessary to implement sovereignty and liberation of minorities, which can not meet accepted democratic criteria for secession (that is, they are not a demos).

A non-democratic state is the only way to separate of the state from the population ('the people'). In the hypothetical case that a democratic state declared all its residents illegal aliens, including its own employees, it would no longer have 'a people'. It would simply be a bureaucracy, administering a territory with residents. This is not inherently wrong: it would allow the state to adopt fundamental values different from those of the people. However, by definition, it would no longer be a democracy: the demos is gone. Such a separation is impossible in a democratic nation state - where the state is intended to express in some way the 'will of the people', and the national culture. A non-democratic state can be justified by the necessity of creating 'consent' to options which do not have democratic majority support. In more abstract terms, 'to create the political conditions for utopia' - the utopian justification of non-democracy. Many possible projects, and entire possible societies, do not come into existence because there is no corresponding democratic decision to support them. So long as some of these possibilities have intrinsic value, they constitute an instrumental justification for non-democracy - in order to bring them into existence. This justification applies especially to reconstitution of the system of states, and redistribution of territory, to form new non-democratic states. Specifically, a non-democratic state can be justified from the intrinsic value of innovation. If it innovates or facilitates innovation, where democracy does not, can not, and will not, then it is justified. This is probably the most fundamental justification of non-democracy.

Conclusion
This concluding list summarises the arguments given in all the other sections. Implicitly, they form a program to abolish democracy. Why do that? To start with, because it is time for a change. The western democracies have been democratic, depending on the definition, for 50 to 150 years, and most people there have no experience of non-democracy. Democracy should disappear, to facilitate the end of global inequality, famine and avoidable disease, by the introduction of global transfer taxes. The end of democracy would end the legitimisation of the nation state from democratic principles, and allow innovative types of state to be formed. It would facilitate social innovation, end conformist suit-and-tie societies, and prevent the emergence of a uniform global society. The construction of utopias and ideal cities (without the consent of the people) requires the end of democracy. Its abolition would also allow construction and implementation of projects - especially infrastructural projects - which are unpopular and uneconomic. Abolition of democracy would prevent, or reverse, morally wrong decisions of democratic governments. This applies especially to policies targeted at unpopular minorities (witch hunts), which are a regular feature of democratic regimes. It would end the political and social marginalisation of anti-democrats, and the 'democracy-only' mentality of democratic societies, and allow a society with multiple attitudes to democracy. In short, the end of democracy would create at least the possibility of a different world, and a diffe

Systems of Democracy

Basics

Structures

Different Systems of Democracy

Democracy is not a sharply defined form of government that would need to be implemented in just one and no other way. Both in theory and in practice there are as many systems of democracy than democratic countries. Nevertheless there are some general features as well as some groups of democratic systems that may be distinguished from each other. Contrary to other authors, I will not try to present pure and ideal theories but rather start from the other side: how can the different systems of democracy be distinguished in everyday political life.

History

Links

The Common Features of Democracy

Before we look at the differences it might be useful to recall the basic principles common to all forms of democracy, however. Separation of Powers: Legislative Power: parliament normally in two chambers Executive Power: government and administration Judicative Power: courts of justice Constitution Laws debated and passed by the parliament Decrees by the government based on laws and regulating the details how to the laws shall be applied in practice Elections Political Parties Referendums Though there are massive differences on how frequent referendums are and on which level they apply (constitution or single laws), the concept as such is known in any practical form of democracy.

Three Basic Types of Democracy

Any form of democracy tries in its own way to ascertain the will of the people and to bring public affairs into line with it. Theoretically this can be achieved by direct participation of all citizens (Direct Democracy) or by a body of elected representatives (Representative Democracy). Within the group of Representative Democracies the focus may be on a strong president (Presidental Democracy) or on a strong parliament (Parliamentary Democracy). As already mentioned, the question is not whether there exist some forms of direct participation or of representation but rather on how much importance they are given in a certain system.

Direct Democracy
Example: Switzerland

Presidential Democracy
Examples: USA, France

Parliamentary Democracy
Examples: UK, Germany, Spain, Italy Head of State is a differnent function than prime minister, it may be a monarch (queen/king) or an elected person Government elected by the parliament based on a majority, may be dismissed by the parliament (especially when based on a coalition of several parties)

The President is head of Head of State Any member of state and leader of the government in turn (for one government year), no practical importance Government: members with equal rights, elected by the parliament, representing all major parties (not really unanimous, but extremely stable) Parliament elected for a fixed legislative period, no dissolution; changing coalitions, sometimes even extreme right and extreme left together against the center (though for different reasons) President elected by the people nominates the ministers [members of government]

Parliament elected for a Parliament elected for a fixed legislative period legislative period, dissolution and early new clear institutional elections possible if a clear separation of majority cannot be parliament and established

government (but the officials may cooperate as closely as in the other systems, if they like to do so)

Government members need Government members not be members of need not be members of parliament parliament Strong position of the people (frequent Strong position of the president (veto)

Government members must be elected members of parliament Strong position of the political parties

referendums on single laws) Laws are created in four steps: 1. Draft by the administration 2. Consultation of federal states, political parties, entrepreneurs, unions and other interested groups 3. Parliamentary debate and final version passed 4. Possibility of a referendum If a strong party or lobby threatens to call for a referendum, the parliament might be inclined to a compromise, the formal consultation process gives the public a clear view of the critical aspects and the pros and cons already at an early stage The process of making laws is rather slow, which may be a hadicap with more technically oriented laws (regulating questions of broad public interest but addressing a small number of professionals). Laws concerning everybody's everyday's actions, however, may get more attention and acceptance by the public and therefore be more effective due to the intense public debate. History shows that from time to time the Swiss people does correct decisions of parliament and goverment that give in too much to lobby pressure, so Direct Democracy seems to offer effective checks and balances. But sometimes it just takes a long time (decades, not years) until a new idea is finally broadly accepted. Laws are debated and passed by the parliament; lobbyists do not have a formal right to be heared, but do exercise some influence on members of parliament in reality; the president may block a law by veto; as the president is elected as a personality (not only as a party leader) by the people (not by the parliament), he may or may not rely on a majority of the parliament (in practice there have been some periods with a president forced to cooperate with a majority of oppositional members of parliament) A strong president may act immediately - but there is a certain risk that he rushes to conclusions he may hardly be willing to withdraw from even if they prove to be unwise from a later point of view. Laws are proposed by the government (being the leaders of the coalition of parties) laws are debated and passed by parliament; lobbyists do not have a formal right to be heared, but do exercise some influence on members of parliament in reality; if there is a solid majority, compromises are sought within the coalition (and may sometimes represent tactics rather than vonviction), the opposition may be ignored until the next elections but then laws may be revoked or changed by a new majority

If there are many small parties in a country, the close dependance of the government on a parliamentary majority may undermine the stability of the government.

The separation of powers - though it might seem very clear in theory does not automatically provide more effective checks and balances between parliament and government than in a Parliamentary Democracy.

If there are only two relevant parties and one has a comfortable majority, the parliamentary system offers few effective checks and balances.

Conclusion
Though there are remarkable formal and institutional differencies between the systems of Direct, Presidential and Parliamentary Democracy, there are more or less successful examples for any of these systems. Therefore the practical results - measurable by different factors such as national wealth (both mean income and distribution of wealth), accessability and standards of education, life expectancy, infant mortality, corruption and so on - tend to depend less on the choice of one system or another but rather on what might be called an "established culture of democracy", consisting of both know-how (experience how the system once chosen works in practice) and trust that it works and it pays for the society as a whole as well as for the individuals.
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rent world order. And last but not least, the end of democracy would mean the removal from office of Jrg Haider, in March 2004 again the winner in the democratic election in Carinthia, and the negative inspiration for this critique of democracy.

Why is NATO wrong? The ethics of secession Nation Planet

Types of Government: Autocracy, Democracy & Oligarchy

Legitimate governments are those that are elected by the people. Democracy, autocracy and communism are the main types of governments currently being employed in the vast majority of countries around the world, though there have been many other types throughout history, including oligarchies, monarchies, theocracies and others. What defines each system is where the power lies: either with the rulers or the people they rule, who manage change through fair, legitimate elections. Related Searches:

1. Democracy
o

Democracy is a very broad term that means "rule by the people," which implies that all the people gather to make the decisions that affect them. This is not possible in the modern world, so in most democratic countries, including the United States, representatives elected by the people make the rules. There are many different forms of government that operate in democratic countries, such as democratic republics, constitutional monarchies, parliamentary monarchies and others, but these governments get their power and legitimacy from the people. These types of governments have a leader, such as a president or prime minister, who make rules in assemblies, such as the House of Representatives, that are interpreted and applied through a system of courts. The key to a democracy is that if the people are unhappy with their government, they can elect another one.

Autocracy
o

An autocracy is defined as "rule by oneself," as in a dictator who, through the use of a party or the military, wants to hold absolute power of the state. Autocrats can be elected or assume power through military coups. It is common that once elected, autocrats will imprison or murder opponents and silence all forms of democracy while either upholding the facade of democracy through sham elections and different political parties or outlawing both. Hitler was an elected autocrat who, in 12 short years, turned Germany into a brutal dictatorship

controlled by fear. Augusto Pinochet was the autocratic Chilean ruler who overthrew a democratically elected government to instill a military dictatorship.

Oligarchy
o

Oligarchy, in contrast to democracy, is "rule by the few." These "few" are rich, powerful or both, and are usually nobles, aristocrats, military groups or any distinguished group that rules tyrannically with their own interests at heart. Although there are no governments today that would call themselves an oligarchy, by definition, the apartheid-era government in South Africa could be seen as an example. This rules was based on race, where the white 20 percent of the country ruled the black majority through force and control of the economy. Those who are not part of the ruling party have little, if any, political voice.

Communism
o

Communism has much in common with both autocracies and oligarchies, such as rule by a few who control economic forces through oppressive means. The difference with communism is that, in theory, it does have the interests of the people in mind, in that it aims to make all citizens equal. Many communist regimes are called Democratic Republics, People's Republics or similar euphemisms, but are neither republics nor democratic, as the people can't vote and there are no political powers or most of the freedoms associated with either.

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Democracy is hampering India progress

Posted by Admin on Thursday, May 19th 2011 India being the largest populated country exhibits its democratic nature which is acquired through the constitution. But the concept with which it is made democratic is to grow freely in terms of expression and exhibit a free form of growth in all areas. Arguments towards the topic

Democracy has given the freedom to express and live ones own way of living. By following democratic ways no organization can earn profits for its social welfare motive. Organizations exhibit growth only if they run with profit motive. But, the democracy makes the people to restrict the operations of a business to see its meeting the public, democratic issues. On the other hand the politicians are taking advantage with corruption and violating rules. As everyone has a say in a democratic country, whose voice is to be heard and followed is a big question of confusion. Illiterate politicians often make mess with democratic views of public. Everyone acts in their own views and express their language which hurts the feelings and sentiments of others which leads to communal disturbance which weighs on the government a burden to provide more internal security. Nepotism is the other outcome of democracy where bureaucrats favor their social circle in providing services against to the procedures and rules. Red-tapism is another evil of democracy where intentional delaying of work is done due to laziness or the unaccountability and irresponsibility with a view of no challengers for their deeds. Arguments against the topic Democracy always served the purpose for which it is meant to be. Being a democratic country greatly favoured the nation to excel in terms of its growth and development. Otherwise, monopolistic influence might dominate the society wiping out the social welfare concept which leads to aggregation of wealth in the hands of few wealthier people. Democracy has brought wings to the freedom of innovation and exploring ideas, thoughts that always favoured all sections of the society. Democracy provided certain basic needs of all individuals like education, food, work and the freedom of speech, to pursue the religion you wish and work and migrate from any location to other in the nation. Liberalization has lead to generation of more income through innovative ways of working which has been possible with few amendments to the constitution which supports to favour the people in the long run. Otherwise, communism or dictatorship forms of government would hamper the growth of social and economical freedom of public. Democracy has served its purpose by showing its free expression of living. Democracy is never a constraint for growth.