What’s So Great About Democracy?

We Americans are taught early, as part of our national catechism, that democracy is good.  We are a people who have the freedom to choose our own leaders.  Of course, that sentiment is correct and worth celebrating.  But the thought is incomplete. 

For we also honor – I suggest more so – that we are a free people with individual rights that are protected even in the face of majority opposition. 

In fact, political scientists would term the American political system as a “liberal democracy” (even more formally as a republic/representative government which respects minority rights).

The term liberal, classically, stands for liberty.  Its coupling with democracy seems redundant for most Americans.  But that is certainly not the case in most parts of the world. 

Democracy was tried by many new African nations after the demise of colonialism on that continent fifty years ago.  In practice, it usually meant “one man, one vote, one time”.  Liberty wasn’t part of the political prescription.  Why was that so?  It’s not a factor of geography.  A country’s history is the reason.  The new African nations had no experience in self-government.  Consider:

Both the American and French revolutions of the late 18^th century were initiated with the purpose of enshrining self-government.  Why did it succeed in the former but not the latter?  Edmund Burke, a noted British philosopher and legislator of the time, wrote a classic on the subject, Reflections on the Revolution in France.  His main point was that the foundation of a free society must be in place before self-government can survive.  He contrasted the experiences of the British people with that of the French.

From the Magna Carta of 1215 to the Glorious Revolution of 1680 and beyond, England’s history was one of a lengthy and evolutionary movement away from monarchy toward increasing self-rule and individual rights. 

France had no comparable past.  In 1789, the French Assembly proposed to plant democracy in unreceptive soil.  Unsurprisingly, it did not take root.  Even worse, the uprooting of the ancien regime which was to be replaced by democracy instead left anarchy in its place until the tyranny of Robespierre and other practitioners of the French terror filled the void, themselves to be supplanted shortly thereafter by Napoleon.

Fast forward to the 20^th century.  Efforts to introduce democracy in Russia in 1917 after the ouster of the Czar failed for the same fundamental reasons, as was the case in many other parts of the world to include, I predict, both Iraq and Afghanistan.  There is, and was, no significant history of self-government,

It is one of the enduring - and endearing - qualities of Americans in general (and, I might add, an example of our exceptionalism) that we want to share our blessings with the rest of the world.  We are who we are in part because we are idealistic and optimistic.  But, unlike most other peoples, we are also impatient and unrealistic in our expectations that others are willing – and able – to adopt what we offer.

The gift of liberal democracy requires a ready and grateful recipient if it is to be accepted.

Burke was - and conservatives are – not being ungenerous in pointing out these truths.  Ignoring reality not only dooms efforts but invites horrors much worse than that which prompted the change.  Ask French liberals of 1789 or the Russian variety of 1917.