Conditions for Democracy: What does it Take?

1. Conditions for Democracy: What does it Take? Normative and Empirical Questions (Chapter Nine)

2. Goals for this section • You should be able to discuss the question of democratization using the ten conditions discussed in chapter nine of the text. • You should have an understanding of the historical evolution of democracy, including the debate about its inevitability.

3. Normative Questions • Normative theorists of democracy continue to ask thought-provoking questions about the nature of democracy in the modern world. As examples, we might think about the following; • At what stage do we consider political systems to have become democratic? (South Africa? Russia? Other transitional societies? Switzerland? The United States?). If the answer to the last of these seems obvious, can we say that the United States was democratic under slavery? Before the Civil Rights Act? What about women? Some normative theorist have begun to use the term incomplete democracies to designate countries that have predominantly democratic institutions, but in which full political rights are not available to the whole population. • Should external states intervene to help countries build democracy? Witness right now the intervention in Iraq. We argued that it was mostly to rid the world of Sadaam Hussein, but now there seems to be a second, necessary part, which is building democracy. Where do we draw the line? • Should external states intervene to protect democracy? • These are all questions for a good, lively discussion.

4. Empirical Questions • However, if we are to turn our minds to the empirical examination of democracy, some of the more commonly asked questions are; • What are the key pre-conditions for democracy? • How can these pre-conditions be achieved? • Is democracy here to stay? • Note that they are all somewhat linked!

5. Sources of data • To answer any of these questions, it would help to have a sense of the range of countries that we are dealing with. One way of doing this would be to think about the critical dimensions upon which we might be able to classify democracies. • Two different dimensions have been used to build a categorization of ‘the democratic experience’; • Old democratic states versus new democratic states • Stable versus unstable democracies • By using these dimensions, and comparing across countries classified by each, we might be able to tease out the answers to our questions.

6. Classification scheme • Just as examples, let’s think about where we would place some of the democracies in the world. • Old-stable democracies include Britain, the US, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand. Actually, there are surprisingly few of these in the world, just a handful. • Old-unstable democracies include France, Argentina, Brazil. There are rather more of these, but still not as many as in the newer categories. • New-stable democracies include Germany, Japan, Israel, Jamaica. Of course, we should really have defined rather better what we mean by stability. But I think that none would argue with the placement of these countries in this group. • New-unstable democracies include India, and then a whole host of other countries that we could find around the world. Actually, this group is surprisingly large!

7. What are the factors that are pre-conditions for democracy? • Sodaro outlines ten factors in the text that scholars have often pointed to as preconditions for democracy: Functioning state institutions, elites committed to democracy, national wealth, private enterprise, a stable middle class, support among disadvantaged for democracy, a “civic culture”, education, homogeneous society, and a favorable international environment • You should read the discussion of each in the text. As you will note, not all of them are important in equal measure.

8. How important are these factors? • In the text, the author divides these factors up into those which appear to be consistent with the argument that they are necessary pre-conditions for democracy, those for which the evidence is mixed, and those which appear inconsistent with the argument. • Consistent – state institutions, elites committed to democracy, support of the disadvantaged, active civil society, education, favorable international environment • Mixed – National wealth • Inconclusive – private enterprise, middle class, homogeneous society

9. How can pre-conditions be achieved? • Let us think for a moment about this evidence. If we are to think that it should be the role of non-domestic actors to intervene in support of democracy, which of them can they actually influence? • Factors that may be fostered by non-domestic actors: state institutions, active civil society, education, favorable international environment • Factors that are not controllable by non-domestic actors: elites committed to democracy, support of the disadvantaged. • This tells us that, even if we believe that countries should intervene in the internal affairs of other countries to build and promote democracy, not all the relevant factors are actually in their control.

10. Is Democracy here to stay? • Political scientists are, for the most part, very interested in the question of whether we have entered a new period in which democracy is unchallenged as the principle way to organize government. The predominant answer among those who study the question is… • YES! • The best known example is Francis Fukuyama, who wrote an influential 1996 book called “The End of History and the Last Man Standing”. • Fukuyama argues that liberal democracy, as both a set of ideas and a set of practices, has arrived as unchallenged today in the world. • His view of the end of history is an ironic swipe at Karl Marx and ‘dialectical materialism’. • However, Fukuyama does not necessarily see this as a completely satisfying turn of events! He laments the fact that politics is no longer as exciting as it once was, in the era when those who believed in liberal democracy had to defend their ideas against the great force of communism.

11. Is Democracy inevitable? • Given Fukuyama’s arguments, we might be tempted to think that there is some sort of inevitability to democracy. • Certainly, if we look at recent events in countries like the Ukraine, Khyrgyzstan, Indonesia, etc.), it looks as if there is some validity to this argument. In recent years, we have seen a number of autocratic regimes overthrown by ‘people’s revolutions’ in favor of democracy. • However, the generally accepted answer to the questions is.. • NO • The analysis of the question can be found in Samuel Huntington’s book The Third Wave • Huntington thinks that the current wave of democratization had its beginning in the mid-1970’s, and that it was accelerated after the end of the Cold War • Huntington then compares with the two previous waves, which occurred from 1828-1926 and 1943-62 • What he concludes is that both previous waves were actually accompanied by a reversal, meaning that there is nothing inevitable about democracy even in countries that have some experience with it.

12. Question for further discussion • Having read your way through these notes and chapter nine of the text, where do you stand on the issue of countries intervening in the internal affairs of other countries to help build and promote democracy?