Democracy as the panacea?
F. Gregory Gause has an interesting article in the September/October Foreign Affairs, and an abridged version appeared in several newspapers, including here.
He argues that democracy is not the solution to terrorism, and points out that terrorism is far more common in democracies than in totalitarian states. He compares India and China, for example.
We should instead, he writes, focus our efforts on supporting the political organizations with whom we agree the most (Contras? Taliban?) in the countries that do have elections.
Of course, the United States has never been very worried about terrorists who attack their own countries, unless the terrorists are U.S. citizens.
We didn't go into Afghanistan because we were sick of Afghan terrorists commiting violent crimes in Afghanistan
Gause is correct that democracies sometimes get attacked by their own people. It becomes an international concern, however, when terrorists attack a country other than their own.
He does present a compelling body evidence suggesting that democracies should expect more terrorism from their own citizens than other types of states. But while of course that's a problem, that's never been the main problem we've had with totalitarian states.
It's only when terrorists that they support attack Western states that we want to get involved. Or when the state attacks a neighbor to acquire some additional territory -- but that's a whole different subject.
Either way, what we hope is that the public in a democracy would not vote for actions that could bring about U.S. military intervention or other punishment such as U.N.-ordered sanctions. Despots tend not to worry about such actions as much.
He argues that democracy is not the solution to terrorism, and points out that terrorism is far more common in democracies than in totalitarian states. He compares India and China, for example.
We should instead, he writes, focus our efforts on supporting the political organizations with whom we agree the most (Contras? Taliban?) in the countries that do have elections.
Of course, the United States has never been very worried about terrorists who attack their own countries, unless the terrorists are U.S. citizens.
We didn't go into Afghanistan because we were sick of Afghan terrorists commiting violent crimes in Afghanistan
Gause is correct that democracies sometimes get attacked by their own people. It becomes an international concern, however, when terrorists attack a country other than their own.
He does present a compelling body evidence suggesting that democracies should expect more terrorism from their own citizens than other types of states. But while of course that's a problem, that's never been the main problem we've had with totalitarian states.
It's only when terrorists that they support attack Western states that we want to get involved. Or when the state attacks a neighbor to acquire some additional territory -- but that's a whole different subject.
Either way, what we hope is that the public in a democracy would not vote for actions that could bring about U.S. military intervention or other punishment such as U.N.-ordered sanctions. Despots tend not to worry about such actions as much.
posted by bp at
8:48 AM
2 Comments:
Gause is right on his particular point that democracies elicit more terrorists. Democracies facilitate organziation and fundraising. (The IRA for example did most of its fundraising in the US and Canada, as do many other loosely nationalistic terror groups.) He neglects though the terrorism that has emerged from totalitarian states and not spilled over into others. The ETA campaigns under Franco for example were largely undermined by increased 'democracy' if 'democracy' is viewed as increased opportunities for political participation. A good deal of potential terrorists can be eliminated simply by eliminating percieved injustice; 'democracy' does this domestically.
The problem we're faced with now in regards to terrorism and democracy is about external imposition of governance ('a free and democratic Iraq' from Mr. Bush rather than a native Iraqi alternative) rather than the methods themselves. It is a poor test for the relationship between terrorism and democracy and shouldn't be portrayed (as Gause implies) as a disproof of the value of a truely democratic approach. More interesting (and you might look into this a bit in regards to Iraq) are the relationships between civil society and state in totalitarian states. The former Soviet Bloc has (by and large) transitioned to democractic governance through domestic (though externally encouraged) means. The result has been far less violent than regime change and much more satisfying. Gause correctly hints at this approach in his argument to focus efforts on supporting political organizations. It may be that this approach is far more common to foreign policy and Iraq should be seen as very exceptional.
By
Anonymous, at 10:52 AM
I think Gause also suffers from a common definitional problem known as the "electoral fallacy". That is, that elections = democracy. They don't.
Democracy isn't just an election (otherwise the USSR, Cuba, Saddam's Iraq, Egypt, and a host of other examples would be democracies). A democracy, to be meaningful, also implies a set of institutional protections that allow elections to be meaningful. A free press, freedom of conscience, etc. And those institutional protections also mean protecting against majority tyranny (9 voters decide the lynch the tenth, for example).
But those things take time. And transitions are difficult periods. A totalitarian or strong authoritarian state can prevent terrorism because the state itself exercises terrorism on a daily basis (Soviet gulags, Cuban concentration camps, Taliban vice police squads, etc). A democracies have the least amount of restrictions, since we even protect hate speech (the ACLU defends the freedom of speech for the KKK). In a functioning democracy, there is little reason for terrorism (except by fringe groups, which exist in any society).
But the states in the middle category, moving from authoritarian to democracy, that's were you see more terrorism. The ETA example is useful. ETA sprang up in the waning years of the Franco regime, when the Spanish state was in transition (slowly) to democracy. ETA died out after democratic norms protected the rights of minorities and made the cost of terrorism too high. Why blow up children for a separate state when you get 90% of what you want by just showing up to vote?
By
Miguel Centellas, at 2:54 AM
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