Words: 3761
Unfortunately, these moronic, ungrateful, stone-age Jerk-offs either refuse that generous gift out of arrogance or are too stupid to put it together correctly (It’s not like It’s an Kea dresser, folks). Is the developing world hopeless, or are the efforts of developed countries? Has democracy simply run its course among those who are capable of handling It? What developed countries could democracy work or not work In? Regardless of the answer to those questions, which I will address, the people of any given nation have to want democracy. The U.
S has been a leader in trying to sit on the chest of developing countries trying to spoon-feed this lattice medication to them, but even when it goes in their mouth, the spit it back out the moment they stand back up. For the sake of humor though, I’ll juxtapose the U. S as a successful democracy against that of other countries in its history for the first part of my essay. The second of potential and current democracies in the modern world, and last, whether and how much democracy I believe there will be in the next 20 to 25 years and solutions to achieve it.
Get ready to hop on the Magic School Bus not to the Prehistoric era or inside a human body, but… To the land of democracy? Sorry, Ms. Frizzle got sent to rehab by some marc who found LSI under the driver’s seat. Suffice to say this ride won’t be as fun as past “adventures”, but I’m going to give It a damned good try. Now let’s take a trip back to 1783 in the great land we’ve just come to know as the united States of America. For the first time, it appears as though democracy truly has a shot.
The British actually surrendered to the American revolutionaries and those who remained in opposition exiled themselves! Talk about a clean break! As most now in modern times, this is not the usual case in revolutions. Even the supposedly peace-loving and wimpy French were chopping off heads in the name of democracy. There’s always the Greeks right? Sadly, the esteemed Athenian democracy met its ends through the violence and civil war it had allowed to fester throughout it’s reign.
However, America Is deferent – not simply due to apple pale and barbecue – but like most great achievements, due to impeccable timing. Had what’s now known as the united States been colonized centuries prior when Europe was still trudging through the Feudal Ages, democracy would almost certainly falter, especially In an emerging nation. And regardless of the ascribed poverty of our country’s childhood, most of the influence, and at worst, they were of a middle-merchant class.
In addition, they were also working with an Eden of resources and real estate. As the Proof. Said and I paraphrase, “they would have to be pretty stupid to mess this up. ” Furthermore, this was post-renaissance and ideas like democracy and morally-rich thought had been being nurtured for a good portion of time. And one of the more important aspect was that while the colonists were poor, they had an entire ocean to separate their ‘oppressors’!. Back to the point of comparing the U. S with other countries past and present, the U.
S has not yet proven either its ability to wield democracy successfully nor whether democracy is even a successful form of government. “Hell to the no, wiener-brain”, I can already hear you shouting, but I implore your to consider this quote from Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. ” This was said in 1787 and while is hasn’t come to fruition in the United States, it has certainly done so in many other upstart democracies. Hearkening upon my early statement about the U. S. ‘s success, I pose two questions to gauge the democracy’s success. What is the best kind of democracy? The U.
S has a representative democracy hat is actually more akin to a republic (the latter being an especially deft blow to its potential claim of success). How can a government’s ability to conquer an entire form of policy be Judged on one particular? How much time must pass before a democracy is to be deemed a success or not? The U. S is going on 250 years, not much greater than Greece (in more strict democratic terms), well beneath the Roman Republic which peaked around 500 years, and vastly short of the longest-living globally successful civilizations in history.
For the sake of argument however, let us assume that the U. S is indeed all that ND a bag of Chests (why would you choose plain chips when there are so many better options? ) and that it will survive until Jesus flies down and raptures all of its citizens up to heaven for being so loyal (except the gays and Democrats). Despite all of its political prowess and embodiment of benevolence, America cannot be a role model to most countries because its situation differs far too much from other countries.
Two countries may have the same recipe for chocolate chip cookies, but if the U. S has butter and Ghana only has butter-substitute spread, guess what – you’re not goanna end up with chocolate chip cookies. To start, as I said in the previous paragraph, America had what few countries have had or will ever have: a blank canvass and the brushes to paint onto it. When the pilgrims escaped the despotic rule of the English, despite their difference, they shared far more in common.
As the American Revolution was waged and goals were made in the aftermath, common interest on the macro level was still abundant. In contrast, “The countries of the bottom billion are, for the most part, the opposite of America. Rapidly put together in nation…. The now-successful states were built through a painfully slow and circuitous recess of formation that turned them into nations with which their citizens identified. This enabled them to undertake the collective action that is vital for the provision of public goods.
Most modern states were once ethnically diverse. The boundaries of a modern state generally emerged not out of deepening bonds forged out of a primordial ethnic solidarity but as the solution to the central security issue of what size of territory was best suited to the creation of a monopoly over the means of violence” (Collier, 2009). This lends a crucial similarity to the U. S and developing countries: violence. Not even a century into its lifespan, the United States was already destroying itself – not quite the idyllic picture modern citizens paint for it.
Even the political process that had brought the U. S to that point relied on conflict: “The evolution of the modern state was, on this analysis, violence driven. Step by step, the predatory ruler of the mint-state had evolved into the desperate-to-please, service-promising, modern vote- seeking politician. ” (Collier, 2009). Throughout the 19th century the U. S political system potentially gave a voice and ammunition to any self-centered megalomaniac ho may have planned to use the system to satisfy his and his friends’ appetite for profit.
The electoral process of the early U. S was rife with corruption with politicians bribing for vote and boxing out undesirables from the polling booths (e. G. Blacks, anyone who disagrees). This is hardly the system most would want to see implemented in developing countries even if the eventual outcome is a successful system like the U. S enjoys now. Kenya is currently considered by many to be the most successful democracy about developing nations. Sadly, this is like saying it is the prettiest turn in the toilet.
Lash out if you will, but I say this to emphatically point out that Kenya is a part of a larger failing system and its successes are simply not great enough to warrant any sort of complacency. And when the U. S is considered hypothetically as a marker one needs to consider its current ten percent unemployment level and major election corruption as recent as 2000 in the Bush/Gore presidential race (or perhaps 2008 if one feels the need to consider the black panther incident to be on the same scale), it is quickly realized that the bar needs to be raised for all, not simply developing worlds.
In order for democracy to truly take root in developing nations first-world intervention cannot be reduced to the parental platitude of “do as I say, not as I do”. Nations such as Kenya or Zambia are not stupid or naive children and don’t want to be ordered to follow democratic dictations when their administrators renege on their promises and police themselves as they see fit (lending yet more credence to the 01′ Spider-man adage, “with great power comes great responsibility’). However, a nation such as Kenya is in role of leadership itself amidst the other African developing democracies and is thus expected to up its ante as well.
Unfortunately the lack of democracy almost always brings with it the lack of accountability in the public and media arena too. Kenya was no exception given that “The structure of the Kenya media system appears to result in many media outlets turning in to direct political instruments in election campaigns, during which politicians use ethnicity to win votes. ” (Hollander, 2010). How can the public make sound political choices when one, information from the television or literature?
The situation doesn’t look to be improving for developing countries elsewhere on the globe either. Further north – but not too distant in Africa – another prime democratic hopeful Morocco shares its breather’s woes. “Morocco has the longest record of multi-party elections – 1963 on. Yet whenever the king risked losing, the king dissolved the assembly and changed the rules. ” and “Most of these countries have held elections at least occasionally, but all too often these have been fake elections orchestrated by the government in favor of one party. ” (??tag??re, 2003).
This paints a rather bleak picture for democracy in developing countries given that Kenya is supposed to be a hallmark of hope: if they cannot achieve it, who can? It appears that a trend, rather a disease, has a Dearth Evader death-grip on the societies’ political ambitions. Democracy is often spoken of the most ideal and viable alternative to warfare as the combatants can fight within the arena of politics rather than the battlefield, however most hopeful leaders have taken that maxim to the extreme. Rather than shoulder the burden of leadership for the greater good of Justice and their people’s welfare, “… N actual practice , in many developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the process of democracy is marked by bitter animosity and quarrel between the efferent political parties , giving an impression as if these countries are in constant turmoil all the time with one group trying to defeat another group to seize power. ” (Sir Lankan Guardian, 2010). In turn, these elections become mere contests where politicians become intoxicated in the thrill of the fight and seek only to serve their or their family’s needs in a twisted marriage of their own ego. Each political group in its anxiety to defeat the other often even go to the extent of maintaining thugs and rowdies in their groups to indulge in violence, settle scores with the opponents, indulge in malpractices in election including bribing the voters etc. Due to this approach, the law and order machinery virtually collapses. ” (Sir Lankan Guardian, 2010) While this is true for many politicians in any country, it’s especially devastating to a country like Sir Lankan, who don’t even have a sound enough political system or successful economical infrastructure to absorb the shock of those mistakes.
This kind of arrogance leads to a destitution where the populace is virtually selling itself into slavery to the government. The governments of developing countries or hat Paul Collier calls pejoratively “the bottom billion” are blind to the tremendous cost of their foolish attempt to shield themselves from cooperation with their neighbors. “The paradox is that despite having the most to gain from pooling their sovereignty, the societies of the bottom billion have pooled it the least. ” (Collier, 2009).
Many of these countries operate under a facade of democracy and subject their citizens to authoritarian rule such as despotism that “… May take the form of a “beggars’ democracy,” where people talk at will, in groups even, but can never expect to change anything. ” (Kaplan, 1996). In Latin America, one author tells how the authoritarian regimes had become so severe they should actually be viewed as a benchmark for necessary studies on democracy that scholars often ignore: “These lessons… Were learned through the bitter experiences of democratic breakdown and repressive, bureaucratic-authoritarian rule (p. 2), a claim that echoes throughout the ramifications of the violence that birthed almost every major nation in the world that I spoke of earlier, and the cause of the violence itself: ethnic identity. The idea that ethnicity is both the cause of nationalistic violence and the obstacle tanning in the way of a successful democracy is something certainly doesn’t sit well with most and may end up actually inciting violence! As I stated before, America had the advantage of being forced to deal with diversity whereas most nations have a firmly rooted cultural society, complete with enemies and collective taboos.
America’s economy was also firmly tied to its cultural identity which is important because “When the pace of expansion gets sufficiently far ahead of the process of building a common identity, the resulting superstars face overwhelming problems in trying to establish a common identity. Instead of becoming nations, by default they become empires. ” (Collier, 2009). A common identity was forged through the “state” part of the United States where the states could pursue their own interest to some degree, but were ultimately held up the to law and standard of a central government.
Even China – commonly viewed as purely an authoritarian government – has only been successful politically and economically when they unified under the emperor Kin Shih Hunting and more recently under the communist party. This illustrates a very basic and click principle of “two are stronger than one”, but is one many developing entries refuse to accept due largely to self-serving interests. This conundrum is likely most prevalent in the Middle-East and Africa where basically the same cultural wars have been waged since ancient times.
Given the relatively most economically severe nature of the latter coupled with the proportionally greatest amount of aid sent there, the stakes are the highest. “The evidence from recent surveys of attitudes across nine African countries by Aftermarket is not encouraging. It is found that if people are educated they are more likely to identify themselves through their ethnicity. “So development, with the attendant education, Jobs, and electoral competition, is increasing the salience of ethnic diversity rather than erasing it. ” (Collier, 2009).
So despite overall improvement of these developing countries, democracy still faces a disturbingly poor outlook. Despite any inclination so far to the contrary, capitalism is still necessary for a country to facilitate democracy regardless of any ethnic ties that will remain. It will lift the economic tide of the given country, and more importantly give collective identity through the society’s pursuit of better financial welfare. As it stands, African evolving countries are far from self-sufficient let alone ripe for producing democracy. The resulting reduced need to tax has been reinforced by aid: in the typical country of the bottom billion the government gets around a third of its expenditure needs met by aid… The current Uganda president Missives has deviated from his previous tyrannical leaders in that he realizes that in order to have a strong army one must must have a strong economy. ” (Collier, 2009). Coupled with American’s instant society, capitalism raised the income of the average citizen throughout the country’s history and prevented any one entity from ruling the entry or forcing its hand political (with a few exceptions of course).
When the economy is healthy enough to support a widespread computer access in developing countries,”The use of Sits (Information and Communication Technologies) can lead to accountability’ in democratic elections. (Modern Democracy, 2010). However, neoclassical capitalism will not suit the country seeking democracy, especially given their ethnic circumstances; regulation is necessary to ensure that the market doesn’t become corrupt or unstable as is the case with so many African countries (and notably the United States in the recent financial crisis).
As for the argument that regulation stifles innovation, Stilling cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Blocker, who said: ‘it’s hard to find any evidence from anybody who’s not in the industry that can show any clear link between the so-called financial innovations and increased productivity in our economy. ‘”(CNN, 2010). Here the relationship between ethnic identity and capitalism becomes even more important: the population of a developing country must not think simply for themselves, but for what they believe is the betterment of their country as a whole given that “… Racket is not one individual; Robinson Crusoe does not make for much of an economy. ” (Smith, 2010). So given capitalism and ethnic identity, we now have two strong ingredients for the recipe of democracy, but how do we make developing countries go by the recipe? Any tactful parent knows the best kind of method to get your kid to do what you want is through incentives or misleading rather than direct positive punishment. In this line of thinking I propose two solutions – one that I’ve up with myself and one I am borrowing from one of my sources.
The first is a leader of a leader or group of adders coming together using the old adage of “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” in that larger groups paint each other as the devil and consolidate their political sovereignty in Africa into two to three larger states. The leader(s) hopefully will understand this strategy is merely for political purposes and in turn practice enough restraint to prevent the whole from barring all contact with each other. The would eliminate much of the ethnic conflict by saying “look how much we have in common given that these people don’t truly understand our collective struggles. This is no bout at least a mite idealistic as managing ethnic conflicts that have lasted for centuries through a one of the biggest escapades of charm the world has ever known would be a task not suited for the current political leaders of developing countries. The second strategy is one the author Paul Collier suggests is positive reinforcement in the form of international military intervention – not the kind that’s most thought of though. In developing countries governments, especially newly formed ones, the first thing they fear is military upheaval or coups De teat so what is it that they’d want most – the prevention of them.
Basically what he proposes is that the international community lay out a list of rules for democracy that a given country has to follow and in return they will protect them from any sort of military coup. To support his theory, Collier goes through a test “game tree” where all the possible scenarios that could occur in response to this proposal would all end up in at least one or some the countries agreeing to this proposal. The latter would take place because nobody wants to be the only ones on the chopping block by themselves.
Furthermore, Collier suggests that “coups need to be harnessed, not eliminated” (Collier, 2009). The international community can then guide countries into democracies through protection and support of viable leaders who want to see the process through. Requires meticulous manipulation and time, while the latter basically is forcing democracy through non-democratic means. Unfortunately, response to this criticism comes down to saying, Mimi got a better idea? ” Within a time frame of 20-25 years, I believe democracy is certainly achievable – through means such as the ones I suggest or variations of it otherwise.
Following the end of the Cold War, the developed worlds made almost all the mistakes possible in the handling of evolving countries: they either intervened too much militarily or not enough (Rwanda). Another strategy, bridled with or instead of the former, would be centered around ramping up the amount of aid that developing countries are so heavily reliant on in exchange for a structured system on how it is spent. Further-along democracies such as Thailand or India could benefit from these programs as well.
Plus, as these maturing democracies develop, they will be given more say and weight when dealing with international matters – a kind of recognition they likely feel is long overdue. Much of the Western world needs to stop treating these countries like they are simply children (or at least don’t let them think that you are). The Democracy that Americans enjoy is an exception, not the standard. Many of the protections economic standards that Westerners employ need to be disbanded to support global financial growth and in turn, a more healthy domestic economy.
Compassion and self-interest need not be enemies, however, helping developing countries make the feasible transition to democracy requires a genuine altruism that’s not often seen in political endeavors. Being that I’m no economic or political expert, I almost feel that writing this paper is pointless outside of a grade because managing this subject successfully is something that requires an entire career, but in a message that needs to be transmitted to the entire developed world: we need to start somewhere.