It is refreshing to read a paper on the long term evolution of democracy and what its author sees as its positive prospects for the future. The quantitative analysis in Professor Modelski's paper is quite interesting. His thesis is that democratization is a major world process, a powerful and long term trend which is bound to come to full fruition in the not too distant future. Soon the entire world will be democratic. If we consolidate all will be well.
I hope he is right. But my own view on the topic, recently published in the Widener Law Review under the title "The Perils of Dumb Democracy" argues that unless there is a fundamental modernization of the concept of Democracy itself, to fit it to 21st century realities, the democratic gains we are currently seeing around the world can be illusory and short-lived. In that article, I make a distinction between what I call "dumb" or superficial democracy (the caricature of the real thing) and "smart" or sustainable democracy (a political regime which is not only desirable but also efficient and practical and therefore sustainable). My overall forecast is positive but is much more qualitative and conditional than quantitative and categorical. Here then are my specific comments (constructive I hope) regarding Professor Modelski's paper.
1. Trends vs. Cycles
Are the quantitative data presented by Prof. Modelski evidence of a true long term uni-directional process or the upswing of a long cycle, to be later balanced by a future counter-trend? History is replete with cycles that masquerade as unidirectional trends. Herman Kahn, one of the fathers of modern "futurism", argued that there are two major errors in forecasting: the first is to assume that a present trend will continue into the future. The second is to assume a present trend will not continue into the future! Unless we know what are the forces behind the perceived trend we cannot make a judgement as to its future course. Extrapolation is a perilous game and inflection points and trend reversals are the norm rather than the exception. Change is ubiquitous. What goes up must come down and conversely what goes down must come up.
A decade ago "endism" was the flavour of the moment. We were treated to "The End of History", the "End of Work", the "End of War", only to be cruelly contradicted by facts. History did not end, work is still with us and so is war. The current flavour seems to be the opposite of "endism" which I call "birthism". It should also be viewed with caution. What looks like "the beginning of a new age", a "new wave", a "major paradigm shift", etc. may or may not materialize as permanent change. More often, like the seasons, we are experiencing repetitive cycles, some short, some long. Very little seems to be permanent in Nature. Change and mutation including full circles seem to be the rule rather than the exception.
Applied to the evolution of Democracy, with a capital D, the long term historical evidence is, unfortunately, not encouraging. The plain fact of the matter is that Democracy was tried many times in the past only to be subsequently replaced by totalitarian regimes. Fifth Century Athens, the birthplace of democracy eventually succumbed to tyrants and foreign occupation. Roman democracy, led to the Roman Empire with authoritarian emperors. In contrast, the Byzantine Empire, the most successful multinational political regime in history, which lasted a thousand years, was not particularly democratic. The French Revolution mutated into Napoleonic rule, not once but twice, in the 1790s and the 1850s with Napoleon III. The Weimar Republic in Germany was followed by Hitler. Russian liberalization under Gorbachev and Yeltsin is now being replaced by the doubtful credibility of Putin-style democracy. China, with a quarter of Humanity, is still not democratic and many countries of Africa and Latin America have alternated between democratic and authoritarian rule. Finally, we should note that, for a Martian visiting Planet Earth, the most sustainable political regime by far, over the millennia, would appear to be not, sad to say, democracy, but hereditary monarchy. In macro history it is that form of government which Planet Earth's inhabitants seem to have chosen overwhelmingly, with Democracy being a footnote.
For all these reasons, the powerful democratization trend identified by Prof. Modelski must therefore be viewed with great caution. Democratization appears to be not a one-way street but at least a two-way highway with the possibility of U-turns.
2. Democracy is not a homogenous concept.
It is culturally relative
Democracy is not a simple product. It is highly relative and subject to modifications by different cultures and ethnic groups. Therefore, to monitor its long term evolution purely quantitatively, as one would measure say arithmetic improvements in life expectancy, is an oversimplification. There are three reasons for this.
First, we must note the existence of fictitious democracies. Modelski seems to take it for granted that if a country's political regime looks like a democracy it is therefore a true democracy in the Western sense of the word. There are currently 193 countries who are members of the United Nations. Most, if not all, pay lip service to democracy and have some form of parliament, a measure of democratic consultation, sometimes by plebiscites with 99% voting for the reigning regime. Does that make them true democracies? Some observers have argued that the number of true democracies, in the Western sense, is less than 50 in the 193 sovereign nations members of the UN.
Second, it must be noted that even if we shy away from the pejorative adjective "fictitious," even "real" democracies around the world are very different from one another. This has been true throughout history. Fifth Century Athens would probably not be considered a democracy today because the electors, Athenian "citizens," were a small part of the residents of that city. Women and slaves did not vote. By the same token, contemporary US Democracy might be considered suspect by purists because of the excessive link that exists between the electoral process and money. The overwhelming influence of media with spin doctors gives such importance to election financing that there is a danger of moving from a "one-person-one-vote" to a "one-dollar-one-vote" system, winner takes all. In the end, actual democracy, even of the real type, may be as relative as national cuisines. What is tasty and considered good in some cultures may be anathema in others. Like cobblers, democratic engineers must realize that one size does not fit all and a customization procedure is needed for the successful implant of sustainable democracies, especially in non-Western countries.
Third, above and beyond cultural relativity, even if all the 193 countries members of the UN were truly democratic, this would not automatically make the world democratic. Under the UN formula of sovereign equality, all states, big or small, have the same one vote. The operating system is "one state-one vote" independently of size. This tends to over-represent small countries like Luxembourg and Iceland and under-represent the large ones like China and India. The individual voter in Luxembourg exerts considerable more power than the individual voter in India in decisions made by intergovernmental organizations. This counter-intuitive situation tempts the larger under-represented countries to look down or ignore decisions and recommendations made by IGOs. In addition, when one country like the United States exerts such enormous power over the rest of the world, there is a serious democratic deficit. Because of the extent of American power, true global democracy would expect the US President to be elected by the whole world and not just by American voters. "No governance without representation" would be an appropriate extension of the original "No taxation without representation", the well-known motto of American democracy. Yet obviously this cannot be so. Consequently, a world of democratic states would not automatically lead to a democratic world without global parliaments or some forms of global federalism.
3. How successful will the Democratic form of government be in dealing with emerging global issues
Perhaps the most important single criterion of sustainability of the democratic form of government will be how well it can deal with contemporary and emerging global challenges. There is an implicit assumption among idealists that Democracy is a panacea. Once democratic institutions are in place, problems disappear, there is planetary peace, prosperity and security for all. Tout le monde il est beau, tout le monde il est gentil, as they would say in French.
This, unfortunately, is not automatically the case. On the radar, as we speak at the beginning of 2008, there are looming challenges facing the world. These include growing human insecurity (vis-ˆ-vis wars, terrorism, criminality, the threat of unemployment, etc.), natural disasters, climate change, economic inequality, potential pandemics, etc. How effective can Democracy be in dealing with these threats, especially given the fact that problems are global and the democratic institutions, when they exist, are all at the national level? Already we have seen that when faced with the trade-off between civil liberties and security against terrorist or criminal threats, the public's response is to sacrifice some freedom for more security. The same is true for economics, where people will prefer jobs and a decent income, especially at subsistence level, to free elections. In the extreme case of hurricanes, earthquakes, war or pandemics, democracy is temporarily suspended even in Western countries and authoritarian rule takes over at least temporarily. This implies that the democratic form of
government is judged not to be well suited, in its present form, to crisis management, and full executive power concentrated in an individual or supreme ruling body is preferred. Sustainable Democracy requires that it adapts well to crisis management otherwise, as soon as there is a crisis, democratic institutions will be set aside.
In the end, the true litmus test of Sustainable Democracy is like the test for Sustainable Development itself, is durability, not just flash-in-the-pan green, orange or blue revolutions which come and go. Modelski says it himself: "In more narrowly political contexts, the way to consolidate the gains of the past is to cultivate and to strengthen the institutions that have proved their worth in the past century." This is true, but I would add that the road ahead is qualitative, not just quantitative. Plotting the quantitative extension of democracy throughout the world is not enough and actually can be misleading, given the existence of fictitious and pseudo democracies. What is needed is more R&D in order to make this democratic regimes truly innovative and competitive, well beyond the mantras and the clichés. Ideally we need adaptive mechanisms which can translate the will of the people into meaningful strategies and actions for the common good. Such a system is yet to be perfected.