Western Democracy Loses Ground to Autocrats

THE DECLINE OF AN AMERICAN EXPORT
Western Democracy Loses Ground to Autocrats
By Erich Follath
It's the best of all bad forms of government, but for many it's no longer good enough. Today democracy leaves lots of people cold, and in Asia and Africa, many prefer autocratic systems. Damaged by Bush, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, few are interested in the model of democracy exported by the United States.
Once upon a time, there was a king who was called the "Precious Ruler of the Dragon People." The monarch loved his people and his people loved him in return. One day he announced that he was going to descend from the throne and voluntarily give up his position of absolute power. He said the time had come for his people to govern themselves and that this would make the country's people better able to realize their philosophy of "Gross National Happiness."
 
The people were unsure. They thought everything in their little kingdom had been just fine the way it was. On the other hand, they didn't want to go against the trend of the times or against the wishes of their king. So they went ahead and founded political parties. Despite their continued skepticism with regard to democracy, they obediently went to the polling stations to cast their ballots. Voter turnout was around 80 percent. An overwhelming majority of the electorate voted for the Peace and Prosperity Party. You see, it can be done, the king observed, delighted with the results. He said he was looking forward to his own disempowerment and to taking part in parliamentary debates.
This may sound like a fairy tale or a story based on a figure in ancient history, but it actually happened, and not all that long ago. On March 24, Bhutan -- a small country high in the Himalayas, nestled between India, China, and Tibet -- was transformed by order of its king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, from an absolute monarchy into a democratically legitimated constitutional monarchy. Nine years ago television was legalized in this remote kingdom with its majestic mountain peaks, Buddhist monasteries and population of 680,000. Now democracy has been introduced through what has been a carefully planned, top-down procedure -- like almost everything here in the "Land of the Thunder Dragon," perched atop the world's tallest mountain range.
 
Chalk one up for Democracy. At Freedom House, a Washington-based organization that compiles and regularly updates surveys on the status of freedom in the world, staff members pinned a green flag indicating "free" to a map of the world. It was high time there was something positive to report.
 
After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union the West declared that liberal democracy had triumphed. Given the fall of Slobodan Milosovic in the wake of non-violent student demonstrations in Belgrade in 2000, the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005, the trend seemed to be towards the spread of democracy. Belarus looked like it would be the next domino to fall, followed by Azerbaijan and perhaps Burma. Authoritarian regimes throughout the world seemed to be on their way out, or at least this was what the young "Democracy-makers" were e-mailing back and forth to each other at the time, along with recipes for organizing the next civil disobedience coup and "Revolution Inc."
However, it soon became evident that authoritarian regimes could be removed by means of non-violent demonstrations only if they had already been weakened and some sort of oppositional movement already existed. It did not work against very repressive regimes. Police brutally beat down demonstrators in Minsk, Baku, Rangoon, and Tashkent. The same thing happened in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, on orders from the Chinese communist leadership in Beijing in response to demonstrations held by Buddhist monks this March.
After nearly two decades of hopeful developments the world suffered painful setbacks in 2006 and 2007 -- at least in the eyes of experts at Freedom House, a watchdog organization that is largely financed by the United States government but also gets some private donations. The organization reported a global decline of political rights and civil liberties. Democracy is on the wane, a model in crisis. In Germany democracy continues to be unchallenged as a form of government, but itdoesn't elicit a great deal of enthusiasm anymore (more...) either. In terms of the levels of public support and interest it requires to be successful it is seen as being under threat here as well.
 

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Graphic: Dwindling Interest in the Democratic Process
Voter turnout in German state elections has been in decline for years. At the local government level there are no longer enough candidates to ensure that every mayoral election is an exercise in democracy. The country's traditional major parties -- the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) -- are experiencing an enormous loss of membership. Among young people there has been a dramatic decline in those who regularly follow political happenings. If things continue this way Germany will end up being a democracy without a dêmos. At any rate, a clear majority of the people in the eastern German states are no longer satisfied with the way their form of government works.
 
Worse yet, business leaders and politicians are expressing enthusiasm about the can-do spirit of the authoritarian camp and are doing so with increasing openness. Seeing stagnation for the most part in their own countries, they look to the economic booms taking place elsewhere and often express uncritical admiration for them. New centers of economic strength such as Moscow, Shanghai, Dubai, and Singapore constantly impress them with new superlatives, the tallest and most beautiful "cathedrals" of globalization. They have a desire to be part of this economic growth and, indeed, they need to if they don't want to lose access to future growth markets.
In today's global competition many companies are all too willing to kowtow to authoritarian regimes for the sake of gaining new orders for business. Paying lip service to values such as human rights is consideredbothersome and counterproductive (more...). Success is measured by the fact that a German technology like the Transrapid magnetic levitation train can be built in a city like Shanghai. The circumstances under which that came about are of secondary importance. Heinrich von Pierer, a China fan and former CEO of German engineering and electronics giant Siemens, once said, "We simply can't afford to ignore the Chinese."
 

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Graphic: Democracy Worldwide
And so the obvious is pushed aside. Whatever it is that links the Putinists, the Communist Party capitalists, the authoritarian sheikhs and the repressive clingers-on-to-power, it is anything but the brand of democracy that is still so highly touted and praised by our politicians. Even the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, normally so proud to be living in "the world's biggest democracy," recently groaned that he sometimes wished for the kind of fast and uncomplicated decision-making processes the Chinese have.
 
Are assumptions that have been near and dear to us for decades no longer correct? Things like the famous comment by Winston Churchill that "democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried"? Are separation of powers and human rights in actual fact not universally valid concepts for success? Could it be that repressive systems may actually work better? Short deliberation periods instead of long discussions, issuing orders instead of hammering out compromises? Is it racist or simply true when former Secretary of State Colin Powell says: "There are some places that are not ready for the kind of democracy we find so attractive for ourselves. They are not culturally ready for it, they are not historically ready for it and they don’t have the needed institutions."
 
When it comes to the overall state of democracy, bad news has dominated lately. When genuinely free elections are actually held in the Third World, as happened in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and most recently in Nepal, it is the radicals who win. This, in turn, confronts the West with the dilemma of whether to recognize a terrorist organization, if it has been legitimized in a democratic election. Important countries such as China, Egypt, Nigeria and Venezuela are examples of the advance of authoritarianism. And there's a danger it could spread like wildfire. What we have here is not the "end of history" as professor Francis Fukuyama believed in 1992 -- i.e. the resolution of all problems in a blissful and democratic environment -- but rather a "return to the past" with fragmented and aggressive failed states.
Part 2: Bush Damaged American Democracy, but it is Healing
 
Just take the example of Zimbabwe. People are allowed to vote there, but if the results aren't to despot Robert Mugabe's liking, he has his opponents beaten and tortured and the election results manipulated. Sadly, the only thing that counts is who does the counting. Vladimir Putin, in cooperation with his successor and in all likelihood junior partner, is moving Russia's "managed" democracy ever faster in the direction of a demotatorship with arbitrary rule instead of genuine elections and rule of law. Should we make it just a little more than 70 percent, Mr. Medvedev, one can imagine them saying behind the Kremlin walls.
There are instruments of repression that everyone in the West condemns, governments and the general public alike. Not so in China or Russia. When 300,000 people are killed in Darfur as a result of the policies being pursued by the Sudanese government, and when the military junta in Burma has peacefully demonstrating monks beaten to death, the men at the helm in Moscow and Beijing remain silent and stand together shoulder to shoulder. The German lyrics to the famous socialist song "The Internationale" encourage adherents to "fight for human rights," but this new alliance of autocrats are either united against or turn a blind eye to them. Strategic interests -- first and foremost access to the raw materials that are distributed so unevenly around the world -- rule. These interests make political systems susceptible to dictatorships. Of the 23 countries with the world's largest reserves of natural resources, only Norway has democratic institutions. The trend is clearly in the opposite direction.
We are not hearing calls from Asia and Africa for a Western-style separation of powers in government or for press freedom. People there have grown cynical. There have not been improvements in the standard of living in places where democracy is loudly propagated, such as the Philippines. Rising food prices (dictated by global markets), incompetent governments and rampant corruption have made a farce of the institutions that are allegedly working for the people.
Progress has been made, on the other hand, with theChinese model (more...). Its increasingly open economic system and closed political system seem attractive to many Third World countries. Personal happiness is not defined in terms of free elections, a free press or freedom of assembly, but rather in terms of opportunities for economic advancement. According to recent polls taken by social scientists at the World Values Survey, people in Moldova, a poor but formally democratic country, are among the least happy in the world, while the inhabitants of the People's Republic of China, a one-party state, are among the most optimistic.
 
The flavor of the season is pragmatic authoritarianism à la Lee Kuan Yew. Singapore's elder statesman has self-confidently stated that Western democracy is not suitable for Asians and that they would go a different route, one that is much better for them.
Something that has characterized democracy in the Western sense of the term right from the beginning is a promise of justice and participation in government, a prospect of progress. In the course of history dêmos and krátos, people and rulers, have rarely been in perfect harmony, and certainly were not at the time of the founding fathers.
In ancient Greece, which gave us the words that describe this form of government, only free male citizens were allowed to participate in decision-making. Slaves, women and people from other cities had no voting rights. Although the Roman Empire created the foundations of an early system of government based on laws, it was not until the passage of the English Bill of Rights in 1689 that parliamentarianism was institutionalized. After that the French also came into the picture. Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire took up the fight for freedom of thought and equality before the law. But it was not until 1789 that a genuinely democratic government was created, on the basis of the American constitution.
Many of the idealized basic rights formulated by Thomas Jefferson were never implemented, having been tempered by the realities of his era, which were far from ideal. Despite assurances to the contrary, Jefferson had no intention whatsoever of abolishing slavery. It was much too profitable a business and as a landowner he owned slaves himself.
The United States had a long and difficult road ahead of it in the question of slavery. In general Americans gained their constitutional freedoms by fighting for them, and this impetus came from the people themselves. It was not until the mid-1960s that the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King attained equal rights for African Americans. Democracy involves the gradual acquisition of rights through a laborious process that requires patience and perseverance. Democracy does not provide automatic solutions and nor does it offer a recipe for instant happiness.
The United States developed into a system with model character on the basis of its democratic rights, including free elections, separation of powers (through the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government), freedom of expression, and protection of minorities. But America has lost much of the attractiveness it once had for other countries. So much so that more than 50 percent of Germans and French now judge the policies of the leading Western power negatively. It's highly unlikely that this has anything to do with a general sense of skepticism with regard to democracy. There is an obvious connection between this decline in popularity and the record of the Bush administration. The laundry list of issues includes permission to torture prisoners, conditions in Guantanamo, the violation of international law by invading Iraq, provocating allies with abductions and extraordinary renditions to CIA black sites. That's not exactly what one could call living in accordance with democratic ideals.
Many Americans share that assessment of the Bush administration. Gallup polls taken this spring have shown Bush with the worst disapproval rating ever measured for an American president. More than 70 percent of the American population believe their country, long seen as an example for the rest of the world, to be moving in the wrong direction.
This is a radical change that could also provide an opportunity. The simplistic view of the world taken by neocons, including their belief that America's ability to project power abroad is absolute, has been shattered. A nation in crisis is slowly finding its way back to its core values. On a number of occasions independent supreme court judges have handed down rulings that have clipped the administration's wings. The news media are no longer holding back in their criticism.
 
The self-healing powers of democracy have started to kick in. The presidential primaries have shown how strong the tradition of political contest is and how closely a large majority of the populace is following the competitive effort to find the right candidate who has the right policies. This spring has been the Obama-Clinton-McCain show. After years in which democracy was emasculated, we are finally seeing a living example of American pluralism.
 
The Republican candidate doesn't talk about exporting Western values or arrogantly taking unilateral actions without consulting with the rest of the world. He refers to himself as a multilateralist. He knows that in the eyes of his fellow countrymen and of the world in general America's status as a superpower has been considerably weakened both militarily and morally by its occupation of Iraq. At present the world isn't inclined to trust the United States as a torchbearer for democratic values any more than it is to trust the Chinese as torchbearers for the values associated with the Olympic Games.
The question for the West in the coming years is not so much what countries will open up to the Western model of parliamentary government or even to adopt this model. The immediate problem being faced by the United States and other democracies is that of slowing the advance of autocratic countries and limiting their attractiveness to others. There can be no doubt that lots of things can be done more easily in an authoritarian system. "Who wouldn't prefer to do business in a country that doesn't have free labor unions? Who would pass up the chance to reconstruct entire cities without the public getting to have its say?" asks prominent author Ian Buruma, who advises against preaching purism in matters of democracy.
With the end of the Cold War, what were once clear distinctions between democracy and autocracy began to blur on either side of the former Iron Curtain as well as in the US and Soviet client states in Asia, Africa and Latin America. On closer examination and in the view of those concerned, democracy is no longer seen in every case as something extremely positive to be admired and worked towards (if, indeed, it ever was viewed this way). Autocracy is no longer seen in every instance as something terrible or something to be afraid of. And this is perfectly understandable. Governments don't come in distinct forms and colors but rather in many shades of gray.
If democracy continues to be a construct imposed from the outside it will end up calling itself into question. All too often the West has contented itself with mere compliance with some empty formulistic criteria. In Nigeria, for instance, "parties" were created in accordance with the Western example.
On paper, at least, it looked wonderfully democratic. These parties, however, were not places where policies were formulated and political decision-making was carried out. They were merely facades for the interests of corrupt politicians and businessmen. Under circumstances of this kind elections can be absolutely counterproductive for the development of the countries in question, particularly if they are divided up into tribal areas and the parties are dominated by specific ethnic groups. Elections in Nigeria and Kenya have tended to exacerbate ethnic conflicts instead of helping to promote national reconciliation. Sustainable democracy is based on more than just elections. It requires a functioning civil society that has confidence in government institutions, is willing to work on the basis of compromise and respects the law. Stated more simply, unless you have rule of law and competent politicians free of corruption, you don't have democracy.
 
Part 3: Democracy Can only Come from Below
 
Good governance -- i.e. governing in the best interests of the people -- is not possible without their participation, but it can be managed without copying Western ideas. Although the country is governed in a patriarchal manner, no serious observer would deny that Singapore is governed competently. The people there benefit from the freedom they have to shape political decisions. At the same time they benefit from the fact that the government provides them with basic economic security, access to education and basic health care.
These social benefits are also guaranteed in the United Arab Emirates, at least for the country's own nationals. However, the latter make up only about one-tenth of the overall population. Most of the rest are underprivileged Indian and Pakistani guest workers. With the Federal National Council ("Majlis"), which has an advisory function in decision-making processes and also addresses critical issues, the far-sighted rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai see themselves following in the tradition of the prophet.
Conservative Muslims and radical Islamists perceive Western forms of democracy to be a threat to their religion. This is not hard to understand given that their experience with the export of democracy from the United States or Europe has been as something imposed on them, often with military force, as in the case of Iraq.
The most dissatisfied and pessimistic people in the world are living in post-Soviet states and Iraq -- all formally defined as democratic countries. Professor Ronald Inglehart at the University of Michigan notes that it is simply not the case that people live happily ever after when constitutions are adopted. It is obvious that democracy in and of itself does not automatically make people happy. Rather it is happy people who make a democracy.
Inglehart refers in this context to South Korea and Taiwan, societies that up until the 1980s were strictly regimented development dictatorships that nonetheless offered their citizens opportunities for education and career advancement. As the populations of these societies became increasingly affluent they also succeeded in gaining political freedoms. Today elected representatives of parties dominate the political scene both in Seoul and in Taipeh.
But can this be seen as a general rule? When authoritarian rulers liberalize their economies will this gradually lead to the development of democratic institutions and political freedoms? Will the people demand these freedoms and will the rulers accommodate their wishes? Experts have said that the South Korean scenario is likely to happen in China.
 
So far there is no evidence that would prove the assumption that authoritarianism and economic growth go hand in hand. The majority of Chinese seem to be satisfied with the opportunities they have for economic advancement and attach very little importance to participation in political decision-making processes. Beijing is at most taking baby steps in the direction of democracy. It now offers elections at the local village level, for example, but not beyond that. There is a constitutional guarantee for private ownership and a right to freedom of speech, at least in theory. On the other hand, when a minority like the Tibetans voice the slightest protest this is seen as an attempt to destabilize the country and their voices are silenced with brute force.
 
The Chinese Communist Party talks a lot about democracy. President Hu Jintao calls it "the common goal of mankind." But the party refuses to give up its monopoly on political power and has no intention whatsoever of allowing the other attributes of a pluralistic system such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and a genuinely independent judicial system. Serious human rights violations abound in China. Human rights activists are subject to arbitrary arrest and often sentenced to long prison sentences. Excessive use is made of the death sentence and condemned prisoners are executed by the thousands. Communist Party assurances as to its pursuit of democratic policies seem to be mere mockery.
There is one thing the Chinese leadership can rightly take credit for: "We have implemented the biggest human right there is. We are able to feed our 1.3 billion citizens," the Communist Party's mouthpice, People's Daily, wrote. Never before in history have so many people been able to lift themselves out of abject poverty and build a normal existence for themselves in such a short period of time, i.e. in the three decades since Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms were introduced. Most Chinese are still willing to tolerate the growing divide between the rich and the poor. Most migrant workers are still willing to see the poorly paid jobs they do in China's major cities as an opportunity and not as a humiliation.
But the numerous spontaneous demonstrations against arbitrary actions on the part of administrative authorities, cronyism and scandalous working conditions in coal mines and sweatshops show that something of vital importance is missing in the Chinese system, despite the continued impressive levels of economic growth and record foreign exchange reserves. There is no outlet for channeling anger at the authorities and using it to help counteract negative social trends and political decisions. China's major competitor, India, clearly has such an outlet for the expression of worker discontent: a critical press and free elections.
The People's Republic of China and democratic India, the two most populous countries in the world, are among its most successful economic powers, the Chinese dragon currently a little more than the Indian elephant. There are a number of factors that would seem to indicate that India's democracy could have a chance of winning out over China's dictatorship in the long run.
 
Indians vote incompetent governments out of office. They don't tolerate restrictions on their civil liberties. They insist on legal security. Amartya Sen, a professor of economics and Nobel laureate from West Bengal who is no stranger to criticism of Indian government policies, noted that it is not autocracy but rather democratic forms of government that help prevent extremely negative economic trends. He cited as an example the fact that there has never been a major famine in a democracy. Politicians seeking re-election cannot afford to allow major social disasters to occur.
 
Sen, who teaches at Harvard, added that democracy contributes towards national unity, pointing out that India is ethnically much less homogeneous than China while the latter has significantly greater trouble dealing with its minorities. He suggested that Delhi, which leads in the area of elite training, and Beijing, which has an outstanding record in satisfying material and knowledge-related needs, could learn from each other.
Optimists say that democratic societies have proven to be more stable, also economically, than their authoritarian counterparts. They are still better at achieving a more equal society. As a result, there is no long-term reason to feel discouraged. Democracy is perhaps only in a temporary downturn, a transitory crisis. We would doubtless have more success in exporting democracy if this were to be done more carefully and without insisting that it always is the right model.
The decisive trend in the direction of pluralism and separation of powers can only come from below, from the grassroots level of a country. It must be connected with hope for improvement in living conditions and personal freedoms. It is only in this way that we can break away from the "self-inflicted dependence" Immanuel Kant spoke of.
"Democracy is the only form of government that allows for the peaceful correction of errors committed and, as such, continues to be the most attractive political model around," assesses German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler. There's no doubt that that's the case. Word still needs to get around to more people. At the moment the trend is still pointing in the other direction.
Thus it is that Bhutan, a tiny country high up in the Himalayas, and, on the other side of the world, Paraguay, in the pancake-flat expanses of the pampas, are the only countries to have succeeded in adopting a democratic form of government in the recent past. In mid-April Fernando Lugo, a former bishop and hero to the poor, won a sensational victory in the presidential election in Asunción, defeating a candidate from the Colorado Party, which had ruled Paraguay for more than 60 years prior to that. It isn't clear yet whether the corrupt elite that has controlled the country for so long is going to hold back or if they are going to try to undermine Lugo's land reforms. Obviously skepticism is warranted here. Nonetheless, a new democratic experiment has begun.