The current Administration has made spreading democracy a fundamental tenet of its foreign policy. It has a near magical belief in the ballot box. I believe this policy is misguided. There are a number of reasons why:
1) Increasing resistance to the “new colonialism”. Foreign powers are becoming increasingly adept at turning this aggressive push for systemic change into a contest of local vs. foreign values. The current issue of Foriegn Affairs addresses this subject.
2) Systemic change doesn’t mean attitudinal change. Many “non-democratic” regimes in the Mid-East are favorable towards the US. A number of “democratic” regimes are not. The victory of Hamas in Palestine is an example of what can happen here.
But you’ve heard all this before.
The bottom line here is that the policy of spreading democracy fails to take history into account. Democracy as practised in this country is the result of 800 years of evolution. Since the Magna Carta, power has been slowly devolving to larger and larger groups, in both England and, later, here in the US. In just this country, we have moved, since pre-Revolutionary times, from a rule by psuedo aristocracy to voting rights for non property owners, to voting rights for women, to voting rights for all citizens. Even now we have not perfected the system (witness the 2000 Presidential elections). Expecting a society to make full use of a system that they have no history of is asking people to change a lot.
More importantly, we somehow have the idea that democracy is the ultimate form of government. Even the founders of this country viewed it as simply the least worst of the alternatives they had considered. The key to making any system of government work is to create a system where everyone perceives they have a stake in the outcome. It makes no difference if I perceive that you have a stake in the outcome - you have to perceive it as well. Further, you have to actually believe that the promises made by the system will actually be fulfilled. Creating this perception does not necessitate democracy.
A society without trust cannot easily deliver on such promises because politics is also the art of compromise. It is extremely rare for all stakeholders to get everything they want. Even if it were possible at some isolated point it time, this would only result in a change in the desires of the stakeholders. It is thus nearly inevitable that politics will be viewed to be and will actually become a zero sum game. This means that everyone has to sacrifice something. If the various stakeholders do not believe that their sacrifices will be rewarded, they are less likely to make them(1).
If we cannot create a system where everyone believes they have something to gain, then the only power a government has left is to create an environment where everyone believes they have something to lose. If a government cannot do either for the vast majority of the population, it will not long last. Those who have nothing to gain from the status quo and nothing to lose see no impediment to changing the system at any cost - because the portion of the cost to be borne by them will be perceived to be small compared to the potential gains.
Thus it becomes imperative that any governing body know how to foster a society where everyone has something to lose - something to live for. In almost every case, this boils down to money(2). History is replete with examples of governments coopting potentially dangerous groups in their societies by providing them with some level of prosperity. China today is a perfect example of this.
This prosperity in turn promotes good governance. Those with something to lose pay attention. And as more and more groups have something to lose, there emerges an interesting dynamic. These groups have less incentive to promote radical change, while having stronger incentives to promote better governance and other measures that improve the stability of society. This, in turn, promotes prosperity. And the cycle continues.
Net result: We should promote broad prosperity first - good governance will be the natural consequence. Compare what is happening in India and China with what is happening in the Middle East. While it may not be our national intent to promote prosperity in India and China, it is happening. And good governance is happening as well. And it has all been accomplished profitably - rather than by a costly war.
Final comment: Prosperity is intrinsically a devolution of power.
NOTES:
(1)In a system of divided power (the fundamental tenet of democracy) the ability to fulfill promises can be nearly non-existent. This is particularly true in young systems where it’s easy to know how to sabotage something, but hard to know how to make it succeed. It turns out that authoritarian systems have a much easier time delivering on promises simply because they need make fewer compromises.
(2) While that might seem crass, money is the mechanism that people use to obtain the things they want. As such, it makes a convenient surrogate and measuring tool that enables us to ignore many details.