Why democracy is wrongWHY DEMOCRACY IS WRONGDemocracy does not deserve the semi-sacred status accorded to it. In Europe, democratically elected politicians such as Jörg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Silvio Berlusconi, Umberto Bossi, Gianfranco Fini and Pim Fortuyn are a reminder of democracy's defects: an anti-racist dictatorship is preferable to a racist democracy. Democracy is expanding globally, but not because of its moral superiority. Military intervention is now the standard origin of democratic political systems. Any universal ideology will tend to crusades and messianic conquest, and democracies feel entitled to 'bring freedom' to other countries. Below, more on the ethical problems, definitions of democracy, the issue of inequality, the defects of democratic culture, the nation as the 'demos', the claimed justifications for democracy, and alternatives to democracy. Revised December 2002, last changes 13 May 2006.In a large ocean there are two neighbouring islands: faultless democracies with full civil and political rights. One island is extremely rich and prosperous, and has 10 million inhabitants. The other is extremely poor: it has 100 million inhabitants, who live by subsistence farming. After a bad harvest last year, there are no food stocks, and now the harvest has failed again: 90 million people are facing death by starvation. The democratically elected government of the poor island asks for help, and the democratically elected government of the rich island organises a referendum on the issue. There are three options: Option A is a sharp increase in taxes, to pay for large-scale permanent structural transfers to the poor island. Option B is some increase in taxes, to pay for immediate and sufficient humanitarian aid, so that famine will be averted. Option C is no extra taxes and no aid. When the votes are counted, 100% of the voters have chosen Option C. After all, who wants to pay more taxes?So 90 million people starve. Yet all electoral procedures on both islands are free and fair, the media are free, political campaigning is free, there is no political repression of any kind. According to democratic theory, any outcome of this democratic process must be respected. Two perfect democracies have functioned perfectly: if you believe the supporters of democracy, that is morally admirable. But it clearly is not: there is something fundamentally wrong with democracy, if it allows this outcome.The defect is not hard to find: the people most affected by the decision are excluded from voting. The issue is the composition of the demos, the decision-making unit in a democracy: it is a recurrent theme in the ethics of democracy. Democratic theory can legitimise a political community in the form of an island of prosperity, and then legitimise the selfish decisions of that community. This theoretical possibility corresponds with the real-world western democracies. Millions of people are dying of hunger and preventable disease, yet the electorate in rich democracies will not accept mass transfers of wealth to poorer countries. They will not accept mass immigration from those countries either. A causal relationship has developed at global level, between democracy in the rich countries, and excess mortality elsewhere (famine, epidemics, endemic diseases).This is not the only such problem with democracy. Despite its quasi-sacred status, democracy has many ethical defects which are either evident in practice, or easily illustrated by hypothetical examples.The treatment of minorities is perhaps the most recognised defect of democracies. Between the mid-1930's and the mid-1970's, the Swedish government forcibly sterilised thousands of women, because of 'mental defects', or simply because they were of 'mixed race'. Yet Sweden has been a model democracy for the entire period. The democracy worked: the problem is that democracy offers no protection to marginalised and despised minorities. The usual answer of democrats is that excesses can be prevented by constitutionally enforced individual rights. There are two problems with that.First, no constitutional rights are absolute: President Bush showed how easy it is to overturn fundamental constitutional protections. Simply by redefining some American citizens as 'illegal enemy combatants', he was able to intern them. Some groups are in any case openly excluded from the usual democratic rights, most notably illegal immigrants (more on this later). The Australian government detains asylum seekers in internment camps in the desert: its hard line accurately reflects the attitudes of a racist electorate. The detainees can't vote, can't engage in political activities, and have no free press, but Australia is still considered a democracy.The second problem is that basic rights allow wide limits. Treatment of minorities may be harsh and humiliating, without infringing their rights. A recent example in the Netherlands is a proposal to impose compulsory genital inspections for ethnic minorities. The aim is to combat female genital mutilation, but every ethnic Somali parent, regardless of their own circumstances, would be obliged to present their daughters for annual genital inspection. Eritreans, Egyptian and Sudanese might be included under the legal obligation, even if they were naturalised Dutch citizens. The proposal has majority support in Parliament. It is not law yet, but since Somali's are a marginalised and often despised minority in the Netherlands, there is nothing they can do to prevent its implementation.So long as they avoid certain types of policy, and outright violence, democracy allows a democratic majority to impose its will on a minority. They can impose their language and a culture, and both impositions are normal practice in nation states. They can also impose their values, which may be unacceptable to the minority: the best example is democratic prohibitions of alcohol or drugs. Alcohol prohibition in the United States, enforced through a constitutional amendment, was a direct result of democracy. Since there was (and is) no 'right to drink', the Christian anti-alcohol majority could simply use the democratic process, to make their values the national values. 'Prohibition' was repealed in 1933, but the 'War on Drugs' of the last 20 years is at least as comprehensive in terms of policy and effects. Successful prohibition movements are a special case of the inherent anti-minority bias in democracies. There is a more general effect: it is very difficult for an innovative minority to succeed in a democracy - and most innovations are first proposed by a minority. Like many political systems, democracy has an inherent bias toward the existing, as against the possible. Innovations must go through the political process, which in that sense is an anti-innovative barrier, but the existing social order does not have to prove its existence rights. A large-scale example of failed innovation in democracies is the European high-speed rail network, first proposed in the 1970's. Since then, not even planned national networks have been completed. The pan-European project failed primarily due to lack of political enthusiasm. But should it be abandoned, simply because there is insufficient 'will of the people'? If an innovation has no democratic mandate then a democracy will not implement it - but should democracy have this priority over innovation? The issues are scarcely considered in democratic theory: the priority is simply taken for granted.Empirical: testable propositions about democraciesThe best-known classic hypothesis about democracies is the so-called democratic peace theory. It is promoted by pro-democratic campaigners and by politicians, as 'scientific evidence' of the need for democracy. The claim is that 'democracies do not go to war with each other'. The research typically compares dyads - pairs of countries/states. A statistical measure (frequency of war) is possible for different categories - democracy against democracy; democracy against non-democracy; and non-democracy against non-democracy. It is one of the few classic 'testable hypotheses' in international relations theory. Unfortunately for the democracy lobby, research failed to demonstrate conclusively that democracies are more peaceful among themselves. Nevertheless, it suggests other testable propositions about democracy. Several of the criticisms of democracy presented here, can be stated as sociological or political-science hypotheses, indicating possible research projects: they are given in separate boxes such as this one.Definitions of democracyDefinitions of democracy follow a standard pattern, a sign of a stable and established ideology. Often, as in the version by Thomas Christiano, the definition separates the historical ideal, and the structure of modern democracies. The historical ideal is usually Athenian democracy, but there is no real continuity between ancient and modern democracy. The comprehensive survey Antike Traditionen in der Legitimation staatlicher Systeme shows that most western political regimes appealed to classical predecessors.a) Reiche in der Nachfolge des Imperium Romanum. b) Absolutistisch verfaßte Fürsten-Staaten.c) Aristokratische Stadt-Republiken.d) Stände-Konföderationen.e) Herrschafts-Vikariate und Kolonialverwaltungen.f) Konstitionelle Republiken. g) Demokratische Republiken (i. S. eines parteilichen Volksbegriffs). h) Konstitutionelle Monarchien.i) Moderne Diktaturen. k) Moderne imperiale Systeme.l) Moderne internationale Gemeinschaften.Antike Traditionen in der Legitimation staatlicher Systeme, Christian Gizewski, TU Berlin.It is very unlikely that all these regimes correspond exactly to one regime 2500 or 2000 years ago. The appeal to classical models is itself a tradition in western culture - not an absolute historical truth. As modern industrial societies, Nazi Germany and democratic Britain probably had more in common with each other, than either of them with ancient Athens.Robert Dahl's version is the best known of the dual definitions. He was one of the first to revise the simple definitions of democracy, and introduced the word 'polyarchy' to describe modern democracies. The polyarchy definitions, which emphasise political pluralism and multi-party elections, have become the standard political science definitions of democracy. The newest definitions emphasise democratic rights, rather than the democratic regime itself. But remember that most definitions of democracy (including those quoted below) have themselves been written by supporters of democracy. No neutral definitions exist......the Greek democracies were not representative governments, they were governments run by the free, male citizens of the city-state. All major government decisions and legislation were made by the Assembly; the closest we've come to such a system is "initiative and referendum," in which legislation is popularly petitioned and then voted on directly by the electorate. The Greek democratic states ran their entire government on such a system. All the members of a city-state were not involved in the government: slaves, foreigners, and women were all disbarred from the democracy. So, in reality, the democratic city-states more closely resembled oligarchies for a minority ruled the state - it was a very large minority, to be sure, but still a minority.World Civilizations general Glossary: Democracy, Richard HookerLet us focus more closely on the basic ideals of democracy. First, in a democracy, the people rule. Popular sovereignty implies that all minimally competent adults come together as one body to make decisions about the laws and policies that are to regulate their lives together. Each citizen has a vote in the processes by which the decisions are made and each has the opportunity to participate in the deliberations over what courses of action are to be followed. Second, each citizen has the right to participate as an equal. Political equality implies equality among citizens in the process of decision-making....Third, each citizen has the right to an opportunity to express his or her opinions and supporting reasons to every other citizen as well as a right and duty to hear a wide spectrum of views on subjects of public concern. Each has a right, as well as a duty to participate in open and fair discussion. These are the ideals of democracy.These ideals are partly realized in features of modern democratic societies. One-person one-vote is observed in the process of electing representatives to the legislative assembly; anyone may run for election to public office; in elections, a number of political parties compete for political power by advocating alternative visions of the society; the political campaigns of candidates and parties consist in large part in discussion and argument over the worth of these opposing views, and everyone is permitted to have a say in this process; and the society tolerates and often encourages vigorous debate on all issues of public interest.Thomas Christiano (1996) The Rule of Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory. Boulder: Westview. (p. 3)....polyarchy is a political order distinguished by the presence of seven institutions, all of which must exist for a government to be classified as a polyarchy.1. Elected officials. Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials.2. Free and fair elections. Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon.3. Inclusive suffrage. Practically all adults have the right to vote in the election of officials.4. Right to run for office. Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices...5. Freedom of expression. Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political matters broadly defined, including criticism of officials, the government, the regime, the socioeconomic order, and the prevailing ideology.6. Alternative information. Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative sources of information exist and are protected by laws.7. Associational autonomy. To achieve their various rights, including those listed above, citizens also have a right to form relatively independent associations or organizations, including independent political parties and interest groups....all the institutions of polyarchy are necessary to the highest feasible attainment of the democratic process in the government of a country.Robert A Dahl (1989) Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. (p. 221-222).Democracy literally means rule or government by, or power of, the people. Logically and historically implicit in this is the notion of majority rule. Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which the people govern indirectly, through elected representatives, rather than directly governing themselves.Constitutional implications from representative democracy, Jeremy Kirk...democracy in its 20th Century form means:- regular elections for the most powerful government positions,- competitive political parties,- near universal franchise,- secret balloting, and- civil liberties and political rights (human rights).Democracies don't fight non-democracies, Rudolph J. Rummel. (Peace Magazine)It is by now a truism that what's most important is not a country's first election, but rather its second and third. And what matters is not simply that people have the right to vote, but that they are offered a real choice, under conditions that are truly free and fair. Elections, moreover, are but one note in the democratic symphony. A full orchestra is required, including markets that reward initiative; police that respect due process; legal structures that provide justice; and a press corps that is free to pursue the facts and publish the truth.lecture by US Secretary of State Madeleine AlbrightIn der alten DDR war es also mit der demokratischen Legitimation nicht weit her, wie in allen autoritär-kommunistischen Staaten, auch wenn eine erste Grundbedingung erfüllt war: es existierte eine formal-demokratische Verfassung. Diese Bedingung ist aber nicht hinreichend.Die Verfassung muß zweitens auch materiell rechtsstaatliche Verfahren, die Willkür ausschließen, garantieren.Drittens müssen Grundrechte und Grundwerte durch Verfassung und Rechtspraxis auch für kritische Minderheiten verläßlich garantiert und geschützt werden.Viertens müssen diese Verfahren und Grundrechte vom Bürger anerkannt werden, und er das Vertrauen haben können, daß er sich auf sie verlassen kann.Probleme der Demokratie und der demokratischen Legitimation, Ulrich von Alemann.Entgegen der wörtlichen Bedeutung des Begriffs sind bislang Versuche, das gesamte Volk direkt an der Herrschaft zu beteiligen (zum Beispiel in Form von Räten), nirgendwo dauerhaft verwirklicht worden. Grundlage der meisten westlichen Industriegesellschaften ist die bürgerlich-parlamentarische Demokratie. Sie hat sich im Kampf gegen den Feudalismus herausgebildet, blieb aber auf die Vorherrschaft der Bürger bedacht. Nach der Durchsetzung des allgemeinen, gleichen und geheimen Wahlrechts hat das Volk die Möglichkeit einer indirekten politischen Mitwirkung:.... Das Hauptkennzeichen von Demokratie ist die Möglichkeit des Machtwechsels ohne Blutvergießen, das heißt ein Machtwechsel nach anerkannten Regeln.Sociologicus: LexiconWhat exactly is democracy? We must not identify democracy with majority rule. Democracy has complex demands, which certainly include voting and respect for election results, but it also requires the protection of liberties and freedoms, respect for legal entitlements, and the guaranteeing of free discussion and uncensored distribution of news and fair comment. Even elections can be deeply defective if they occur without the different sides getting an adequate opportunity to present their respective cases, or without the electorate enjoying the freedom to obtain news and to consider the views of the competing protagonists. Democracy is a demanding system, and not just a mechanical condition (like majority rule) taken in isolation.Democracy as a Universal Value, Amartya Sen, Journal of Democracy. (US Congress publication).At a minimum, a democracy is a political system in which the people choose their authoritative leaders freely from among competing groups and individuals who were not designated by the government.Freedom House Annual SurveyVoor wie de klassieke idealen van de democratie wil handhaven, lijkt het daarom voor de hand te liggen, in een zekere analogie tot Dahl, onderscheid te maken tussen democratische idealen en democratie. Deze is dan een specifiek procedureel en grondrechtelijk kader dat gebaseerd is op de democratische idealen van vrijheid, gelijkheid en volkssoevereiniteit en waarin deze idealen tegelijk in open competitie staan met andere doelstellingen. Zo is elk land waarin dit kader bestaat een democratie.Uwe Becker (1999). Europese Democratieën: Vrijheid, Gelijkheid, Solidariteit en Soevereiniteit in de Praktijk. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. (p. 11).Democracy is a form of government in which the major decisions of government -- or the direction of policy behind these decisions -- rests directly or indirectly on the freely given consent of the majority of the adults governed.Encyclopedia AmericanaDemocracy is a political system in which different groups are legally entitled to compete for power and in which institutional power holders are elected by the people and are responsible to the people.Tutu Vanhanen (1997). Prospects of democracy: a Study of 172 Countries. London: Routledge. (p. 31). The book summarises definitions of democracy of the last 40 years on p. 28-31.Most contemporary definitions of democracy have several common elements. First, democracies are countries in which there are institutional mechanisms, usually elections, that allow the people to choose their leaders. Second, prospective leaders must compete for public support. Third, the power of the government is restrained by its accountability to the people. These are the essential characteristics of political democracy. Some writers add additional criteria to the list of what makes a polity a democracy. Larry Diamond argues that a democracy must have "extensive civil liberties (freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to form and join organizations)." Samuel Huntington recognizes that democracy "implies the existence of those civil and political freedoms to speak, publish, assemble and organize that are necessary to political debate and the conduct of electoral campaigns."Why the United States Should Spread Democracy, Sean Lynn-Jonesmore Academic definitions of democracy, collected by William Su.Demokratietheorie: Eine vergleichende Analyse verschiedener Demokratietheorien, Emanuel Möcklin.It is now standard to include political and/or civic rights in the definition of democracy. The best known example of this approach is the Freedom House Annual Survey. In fact, rights checklists seem to be the emerging standard definition of democracy. The online paper The theory and measurement of democracy (Gizachew Tiruneh) includes a list and comparative table of indices of democracy: most are rights checklists. Here is the Freedom House political rights checklist:Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority elected through free and fair elections?Are the legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?Are there fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, fair polling, and honest tabulation of ballots?Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system open to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings?These rights are associated with the alternation of government: they allow one government can be replaced by another. The polyarchy definitions of democracy insist, that there must be a possibility to change the government, through democratic procedures. However democrats also insist, that there should be no other possibility to change the government.The Freedom House checklist on civil liberties and the rule of law includes:Are there free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression?Are there free religious institutions and is there free private and public religious expression?Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion?Is there freedom of political or quasi-political organization (political parties, civic organizations, ad hoc issue groups)?Is there an independent judiciary?Does the rule of law prevail in civil and criminal matters? Is the population treated equally under the law?Is there protection from political terror, unjustified imprisonment, exile, or torture, whether by groups that support or oppose the system?Is there open and free private discussion?Is there personal autonomy? Does the state control travel, choice of residence, or choice of employment? Is there freedom from indoctrination and excessive dependency on the state?Note again that this is largely a checklist of rights, yet I am quoting it as a definition of democracy. That is how it is used in practice. It reflects the current idea of democracy, among theorists and public in the democratic countries. Civil rights, political rights, and democratic government are all seen as integral components of democracy.the opposite of democracySupporters of democracy refer to Hitler and Fascism, to imply that anyone who opposes democracy is "like Hitler". That is usually intended as an insult, rather than an insight into the nature of democracy. However, political theorists do contrast democracy with dictatorship, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism, and the last of these is indeed based on the Nazi regime, as a historical model.The theory of totalitarianism was formulated in the United States in the early 1950's, in a climate of anti-Communist hysteria. Its central claim is that the ideology, regimes, and social systems under Hitler and Stalin were more-or-less identical. In the Second World War the United States and the Soviet Union were allies against Hitler, but the 'reversal of alliances' at the start of the Cold War made the theory of totalitarianism attractive.Coined in the interwar years, but coming into wide usage only after 1945, the term pointed to features of Nazi and Communist regimes that were said to make them "essentially alike" and that distinguished them from traditional autocracies....Whatever the theory's analytic merits, in the 1940s and 1950s it performed admirable ideological service in denying what to the untutored eye was a dramatic reversal of alliances. It only seemed this way, the theory asserted; in fact the cold war was, from the standpoint of the West, a continuation of World War II: a struggle against the transcendent enemy, totalitarianism, first in its Nazi, then in its Soviet version.Peter Novick (2000). The Holocaust in American Life. New York: Houghton Mifflin. (p. 86).By the 1960's the theory was out of fashion, although the comparison Hitler-Stalin is still used by liberal propagandists. And 'totalitarian' is still the word most democracy theorists would use, if they were asked to name a political system opposite to democracy. Second would probably be 'authoritarian' - and terrorism would not be named at all. Although President Bush may speak of a 'war on democracy and freedom' by terrorists, that does not mean he sees terrorism as a system of government. It is possible to speak of a totalitarian regime, or a totalitarian society - but it is difficult to imagine a permanently 'terrorist' society or a terrorist parliament.With hindsight, the definition of totalitarianism is too obviously a description of regimes and political styles of the 1930's and 1940's. Like George Orwell's '1984", also written at the start of the Cold War, its image of oppression now seems dated. In 1953, Carl J Friedrich listed 5 defining characteristics of totalitarian societies:1. An official ideology, consisting of an official body of doctrine covering all vital aspects of man's existence, to which everyone living in that society is supposed to adhere at least passively; this ideology is characteristically focused in terms of chiliastic claims as to the "perfect" final society of mankind.2. A single mass party consisting of a relatively small percentage of the total population (up to 10 per cent) of men and women passionately and unquestioningly dedicated to the ideology and prepared to assist in every way in promoting its general acceptance, such party being organized in strictly hierarchical, oligarchical manner, usually under a single leader....3. A technologically conditioned near-complete monopoly of control (in the hands of the party and its subservient cadres, such as the bureaucracy and the armed forces) of all means of effective armed combat.4. A similarly technologically conditioned near-complete monopoly of control (in the same hands) of all means of effective mass communication, such as the press, radio, motion pictures, and so on.5. A system of terroristic police control. depending for its effectiveness upon points 3 and 4 and characteristically directed not only against demonstrable "enemies" of the regime, but also against arbitrarily selected classes of the population, such arbitrary selection turning upon exigencies of the regime's survival, as well as ideological "implications" and systematically exploiting scientific psychology.Carl J Friedrich (1954) 'The unique character of totalitarian society'in: Totalitarianism. New York: Grossett & Dunlap.Historically, the vast majority of regimes were non-democratic - but most of them do not fit this profile. And today, a society with none of these characteristics might also be seen as fundamentally undemocratic. In 1953 'human rights abuses' were not mentioned - yet they are now considered a definitive characteristic of non-democracies. So totalitarianism is not usable as a general ''definition of non-democracy'. Probably, the early theorists did not intend that anyway, but the term has acquired a secondary meaning of 'non-democratic'. Since the definitions of democracy are increasingly checklist definitions, the word totalitarian is used simply to mean 'a regime without a, b and c' - without free elections, without political pluralism, without a free press, without all the other elements on the checklists. So although most pre-modern regimes had none of Friedrich's characteristics, they are sometimes thrown into the general category 'totalitarian'. A similar problem exists with 'authoritarian' and 'authoritarianism' (and often with 'autocratic' as well). Although specific definitions exist for specific types of authoritarian political system, the term is often used to mean simply 'non-democratic'...There are a wide range of alternatives to democratic government. We shall call regimes that have little or no element of democracy, authoritarian or autocratic governments. There are, of course, many kinds of authoritarian regimes including traditional monarchies and aristocracies; non-traditional dictatorships and military juntas; and totalitarian regimes. For the purposes of this paper, we will ignore the important differences between these different authoritarian regimes.Are Democracies Stable? Compared to What?, Marc Stier and Robert Mundt.Democracy exists where the principal leaders of a political system are selected by competitive elections in which the bulk of the population have the opportunity to participate. Authoritarian systems are non-democratic ones.Samuel Huntington and Clement Moore (eds., 1970), in their 'Conclusion' of Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: the Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems New York: Basic Books. (p. 509).When Huntington and Moore wrote that in 1970, the one-party state seemed the definitive modern form of non-democratic state. Like the definition of totalitarianism, however, that now seems too historically specific, too obviously based on the 'Soviet Bloc' state.defining the democratic ethic: legitimacy and secessionThe 'democratic ethic' is easier to formulate, than a definition of a democratic system. In a perfect democracy with no anti-democrats, the inhabitants would all adhere to this ethic. Two of its basic principles are given below. It is not fictional or hypothetical - most inhabitants of the democracies do indeed think like this. However, that can not in itself justify democracy.The first and most important component of the democratic ethic is so obvious, that it is rarely explicitly named. It is the principle of ethical and political legitimacy: "a democratic government should not be overthrown". In the normal course of affairs, democratic states rely on legitimacy to preserve their own existence and cohesion. Overthrow of the government is totally off the political agenda: it is taboo to even discuss it. There is no large army to suppress armed revolts, because there are no large armed revolts - and no small ones either. The United States is a nation of gun-owners, but despite a month of political feuding over the Gore-Bush election result in 2000, not a shot was fired for political reasons. That was a remarkable achievement, in a country with a history of secessionism, Civil War, and military conquest of ethnic minorities. The 'normal course of affairs' is historically not normal at all.What would happen if legitimacy disappeared completely? In principle, you could hold free and fair multi-party elections in an open society - and then overthrow the democratically elected government, after each election. That could happen every week, but it would not be considered 'democracy'. This emphasises the formalism and proceduralism of democracy: once followed, the democratic procedures are claimed to produce legitimacy. The government which is elected by the democratic procedures becomes the absolutely legitimate government. If legitimacy is strong, then it becomes culturally taboo to overthrow it. It even becomes taboo not to see it as 'our government'. Because US citizens think this way, the United States is politically stable.To be a democrat means, that you think this should happen: you believe that the democratically elected government is legitimate and must be accepted as legitimate (unless it is itself anti-democratic). The procedures are not an ornament, they are the essence. This legitimacy claim is a major ethical defect of democracy - because procedure is no substitute for morality. Most democrats go much further, and would claim explicitly that a democratically elected government, which has acted on a decision made in accordance with democratic procedures and the rule of law, should not be overthrown, even if the action is morally wrong.At the heart of democracy is something which is morally unacceptable. What democrats are saying, is that no value may override democracy. In terms of regime preference, they are saying, for instance, that a democracy which tortures, is preferable to a dictatorship which does not. Now, all states claim political legitimacy - that their laws should be obeyed, that their judges are entitled to judge, that they may raise taxes. However, the claims of democrats imply ethical legitimacy, a claim to moral authority. It is more like the infallibility claim made by the Catholic Church, which asserts that certain declarations by the Pope are the absolute moral truth. The democracy theorist Christiano writes...Other values may compete with democratic ideals and sometimes override them...Thomas Christiano (1996) The Rule of Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory. Boulder: Westview. (p. 4).But democratic governments do not generally concede this. Instead the word 'democratic' is widely used as a synonym for 'legitimate", legitimate in both the political and moral sense. This moral judgment is extended outside the narrow political sphere. Many democrats see democracy as a morally legitimising force, which can be applied to any decision - a sort of moral detergent. These views are vaguely held, but democrats are more explicit about the mirror image of this attitude. They generally believe that there is no moral force, or authority, or principle, which can legitimise non-democratic reversal of democratic decisions.In the democratic ethic, the only remedy for any defect of democracy is democracy itself. In a democracy, there is certainly no political authority external to the democratic process: there is no 'appeal to a higher tribunal'. No other method or process is accepted as a legitimate response to the democratic process, and certainly not the use of force. The word 'undemocratic' is used as a synonym for 'criminal' or 'hostile'. It is used to suggest an attack on society, a form of terrorism.Christiano and other theorists of democracy are ignoring these political realities, if they suggest democracy is not an absolute. In practice, democrats accord an absolute moral priority to democracy, and an absolute legitimacy. The evidence for this is simple: they will concede nothing that overrides it. Not even principles such as justice: the democrat will simply say that democracy is itself justice, or at least the path to justice. If democrats deny that any moral principle can override democracy, then it is correct to say that they treat democracy as a moral absolute. These claims for democratic legitimacy indicate the primary function of democratic theory in western democracies. It serves to legitimise the existing order, however wrong that order may be. Pro-democracy theorists have a lot on their conscience.The second important component of the democratic ethic is the prohibition of secession. Unlike the legitimacy claim, the democratic principles concerning secession are often discussed - for instance in Canada, in connection with Québec secessionism. Unlimited secession would make democracy pointless. If free and fair multi-party elections are held in an open society, but anyone who disagrees with the result can set up a separate state, no democrat would accept that as a democracy. For democrats there must be a unit, beyond which secession is not permitted: this unit is the 'demos'. Again, its modern expression is the democratic nation state. The indivisibility of the demos is as important as legitimacy, because legitimacy collapses in the face of secessionism. Secessionists see the existing government as 'foreign', and they no longer feel any obligation to its laws, institutions, and policies. So a democratic government ultimately depends on military power to sustain itself in office, and to prevent the unlimited secession of minorities. This aspect of the democratic ethic brought democrats into a long-term alliance with nationalism. No guns,no democracy.Inequality and democracyDemocracy has failed to eliminate social inequality, and this seems a permanent and structural failure. It is undeniable that all democratic societies have social inequalities - substantial differences in income, in wealth, and in social status. These differences have persisted: there is no indication that inequality will ever disappear in democracies. In the stable western democracies, inequality is apparently increasing. The pattern established in the United States is, that the lowest incomes do not grow: all the benefits of economic growth go to the higher-income groups.Average household income before taxes grew in real terms by nearly one-third between 1979 and 1997, but that growth was shared unevenly across the income distribution. The average income for households in the top fifth of the distribution rose by more than half. In contrast, average income for the middle quintile climbed 10 percent and that for the lowest fifth dropped slightly. Furthermore, income growth at the very top of the distribution was greater yet: average income in 1997 dollars for the top 1 percent of households more than doubled, rising from $420,000 in 1979 to more than $1 million in 1997.Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979-1997., Congressional Budget Office, 2001, p. 5Some form of social inequality is inherent in democracy - a fact neglected by most democratic theory. In a theoretical democracy of 100 voters, a party of 51 voters can confiscate the property of the other 49. They can divide it among themselves. However, if one voter is sick on election day, they lose their majority. A party of 52 has more chance to divide the property of the minority, but now the minority is 48 and there is slightly less to divide. A party of 99 will have guaranteed success against a minority of one, but the shares after division will be small.In practice, a coalition of two-thirds, or three-quarters, can successfully disadvantage a minority (one third, one quarter). For instance, the majority might exclude the minority from the main labour market, and then force this excluded underclass into workfare. The emergence of an underclass is usually seen as a structural change within a society, but it might be simply a side-effect of democracy. Every democracy is a temptation (to the majority) to disadvantage minorities. In practice, every existing liberal democracy is a dual society, with some politically marginalised minority (typically the urban underclass).Testable propositions: inequalitySeveral testable propositions are available for the hypothesis of structural reinforcement of inequality in democracies:in all democratic states there is inequality of wealth and incomeinequality of wealth and income has not declined permanently in any democratic state in democracies stable over more than one generation, inequality of wealth increasesin democracies stable over more than one generation, inequality of income increasesThe first proposition is more or less self-evident: the inequality is there. The fact that democracy is rarely investigated as a causal factor is itself a political choice. Most sociologists are democrats: they are not likely to blame democracy for inequality.In the past, aristocratic conservatives feared that democracy would allow the poor to confiscate the wealth of the rich. In reality, the historical trend seems exactly the opposite. Increasingly, western democracy is not about 'ordinary people' against the elite: it is about ordinary people joining with social elites to 'bash the underclass'. Guarantees of fundamental rights do not prevent a low-status minority being targeted, politically and socially. In several European countries political parties compete against each other, to show how tough they are against an unpopular minority - for instance asylum seekers. There is nothing the minority can do, so long the political parties do not infringe their rights. Unfortunately this development is probably still in the early stages: the worst is yet to come. In a democracy, those at the bottom of the social scale can expect steadily worsening conditions of life.a fatal transition to democracyThe post-1989 transition in central and eastern Europe provided the first comprehensive indication of the negative effects of democracy. (Liberal democracy in combination with the free market, which is what western media and governments mean, when they talk of democracy in eastern Europe). In the older democratic states, the present model of democracy was formed over 100 or 200 years. Britain in 1800 can not be compared with Britain two centuries later: the huge differences are not simply 'the result of democracy'. However, in eastern Europe modern states acquired a new political and economic system within a few years - with a complete statistical record. Russia in 1985 can be compared with Russia in 1995: the difference is largely due to the economic and political transition. The UN Development Program listed 7 social-economic costs of the process (the reference to "life expectancy levels achieved in the 1990s" should apparently read "1980's"):The process of transition in the region has had huge human development costs, many of which still continue unabated....The biggest single 'cost of transition' has undoubtedly been the loss of lives represented by the decline in life expectancy in several major countries of the region, most notably in the Russian Federation, and most strikingly among young and middle-aged men....Most regrettably, the trends in life expectancy have meant that several million people have not survived the 1990s who would have done so if the life expectancy levels achieved in the 1990s had been maintained....The second cost of transition has been the rise and persistently high level of morbidity, characterized by higher incidence of common illnesses and by the spread of such diseases as tuberculosis that had been reduced to marginal health threats in the past....A third cost of transition has been the extraordinary rise in poverty - both income and human poverty....A major contributor to the increase in poverty - along with falling incomes and rising inflation - has been the rise in income and wealth inequality, and this has been a fourth cost of transition....A fifth cost of transition has been rising gender inequalities. During the Soviet era, quotas for women helped to incorporate them into positions of economic and political decision-making and authority, but the advent of more democratic regimes has led paradoxically to lower percentages of women in such positions. Women have found themselves progressively pushed out of public life. Simultaneously, their access to paid employment has declined and their total work burden both within the household and outside it has increased....A sixth cost of transition has been the considerable deterioration of education....A seventh cost of transition has been the rise in unemployment, underemployment and informalization of employment....Summing up the seven costs of transition across the whole region underscores the dramatic and widespread deterioration of human security....TRANSITION 1999: Human Development Report for Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS, UNDP (Chapter 1).The report itself has more detail on all of these aspects, and especially on poverty. In historical perspective, this is clearly not indicative of a voluntary choice for emancipation and progress. Instead these characteristics are consistent with the traditional historical pattern of expansion by conquest: more on this 'democratic conquest' below.So what would happen if the existing market democracy was abolished, in an older liberal-democracy such as Britain or the Netherlands? It is not possible to recreate 1980's 'Soviet-bloc' societies in these countries, but experience in eastern Europe indicates the possible benefits of a reverse transition...life expectancy would risepublic health would improve: the incidence of infectious diseases would fallpoverty would decline sharply, although the mean income would probably also fallincome inequalities would fallwomen would have higher social status, more access to political-administrative structures, and more access to employmentthere would be more resources for education, and access to education would improveunemployment would fall: there would be fewer people in insecure jobs, and possibly also fewer in low-productivity 'junk jobs' (also a form of underemployment)Supporters of democracy themselves use social and political comparisons between very different societies - for instance between Stalin's Russia (or Hitler's Germany) and the present USA. The western lobby in favour of the transition process in eastern Europe also quote its successes - again using longitudinal comparisons of non-comparable societies. If cross-generational, cross-cultural, cross-societal comparisons are acceptable in justification of democracy, then why not in criticism of it?death in democracyIncome inequality is probably not the best indicator of structural inequalities in democracies. The statistics on health give a more comprehensive picture of a fundamental, long-term, inequality - apparently resistant to all declared government policy. The evidence for a worsening gap is also clearer in the health statistics.Above all, inequalities in mortality are a moral defect of democracies. This comment is on western European countries: all of them are democracies:The differences in mortality and morbidity are quite shocking. Economically inactive men have three times the risk of premature death observed for employed men. While strong health selection increases the risk of exclusion from the labour market, it seems likely that there is also reverse causation due to social isolation and stress. Finland and Norway were used to illustrate the concept of healthy life-expectancies. Norwegian and Finnish men with post secondary education live 3-4 years longer than men with basic education, and 10-12 years more of healthy life, that is, without chronic debilitating illness. One important change between the 1970s and the 1980s is that Sweden, Norway and Denmark have lost their relatively favourable international position in terms of the size of mortality differences between classes. There are some other striking findings; French men in lower socio economic groups had much greater excess mortality than the European average, which Kunst et al suggest may be due to the level of alcohol consumption; and while Nordic countries show large morbidity differences by education level, Great Britain shows large mortality differences by income. Health and health care policy : inequality and the risks of exclusion, Council of Europe Human Dignity and Social Exclusion Project. See the CoE site for footnotes and references, deleted here.Public health and epidemiology journals are full of such examples of health inequalities. In several countries there have also been major national studies, which confirm that health and mortality inequalities are a general pattern. In Britain, the 1998 Acheson Report on health inequalities showed that they had worsened since the last major study, the Black Report in 1980. Those were the years of the Conservative governments in Britain, so perhaps the Conservative policies are responsible. But that is the point: those Conservative governments were democratically elected. If democracy was a system which prevented inequalities in death rates, then democracy would prevent a government which worsened those inequalities. If democracy was a system which prevented inequalities in death rates, then there would be no inequalities anyway. But there are, and democracy is apparently making them worse....Over the last twenty years, death rates have fallen among both men and women and across all social groups. However, the difference in rates between those at the top and bottom of the social scale has widened. For example, in the early 1970s, the mortality rate among men of working age was almost twice as high for those in class V (unskilled) as for those in class I (professional). By the early 1990s, it was almost three times higher. This increasing differential is because, although rates fell overall, they fell more among the high social classes than the low social classes....not only did the differential between the top and the bottom increase, the increase happened across the whole spectrum of social classes....Death rates can be summarised into average life expectancy at birth. For men in classes I and II combined, life expectancy increased by 2 years between the late 1970s and the late 1980s. For those in classes IV and V combined, the increase was smaller, 1.4 years. The difference between those at the top and bottom of the social class scale in the late 1980s was 5 years, 75 years compared with 70 years. For women, the differential was smaller, 80 years compared with 77 years....Premature mortality, that is death before age 65, is higher among people who are unskilled. Table 4 illustrates this with an analysis of deaths in men aged 20 to 64 years. If all men in this age group had the same death rates as those in classes I and II, it is estimated that there would have been over 17,000 fewer deaths each year from 1991 to 1993....Inequalities in Health: The Current Position, Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health Report (Acheson Report). Footnotes and references deleted.The estimate of excess deaths - excess in comparison with equal death rates - gives an idea of the scale of suffering involved. Research in Spain estimated a national 10% excess mortality by geographical areas:Excess number of deaths in the most deprived geographical areas account for 10% of total number of deaths annually....Total annual excess of deaths was estimated to be about 35 000 people in Spain.Juan Benach and Yutaka Yasui. Geographical patterns of excess mortality in Spain explained by two indices of deprivation, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 53 (1999): 423-431.It is hard to show that democracy causes these deaths, but it certainly does not prevent them. That is, in itself, reason to question its moral legitimacy. In eastern Europe, the scale of deaths associated with the transition to market democracy was far greater. Roland Scharff estimated the total excess deaths in the reform years (1992-1996) at 3,5 million.Als vorläufiges Fazit bleibt festzuhalten, dass sich während der fünf Reformjahre ein Natürlicher Bevölkerungsverlust in einem Umfang von 3,5 Mio. "toten Seelen" aufsummiert hat.Roland Scharff . Transformation und Bevölkerungsbewegung in der Russischen Föderation, Osteuropa-Wirtschaft 43, 3 (1998): 255-268.This mortality episode is the best documented in history, and the transition itself was its cause. Yet even this fades into insignificance, compared with excess mortality at global level.... the issue of Africa: global inequalityAlthough the democratic states are the most prosperous in history, democracy has failed to eliminate inequality at global level. Despite the great personal wealth evident in some democratic nations, millions of people in the poorest regions of Africa live under conditions, comparable to mediaeval European averages. Although not all states were democratic during the 20th century, the richest states were. Nevertheless, the general global distribution of wealth has not shifted substantially in the last 150 years. This also seems a permanent and structural failure of democracy. Democracy does not induce the rich to give their money to the poor: not locally, not globally. Not as individuals, not as societies, not as states.Every year the wealth of the democracies increases: every year the gap between the richest democracies and the poorest countries increases. Mass resource transfer, for instance in the form of transfer taxes, is increasingly feasible - and also increasingly urgent. Some democratic states have organised programmes of resource transfer: the largest in history is probably the aid to East Germany after reunification, financed by an extra income tax. But that is a special case of a divided 'Volk'. The European Union has an explicit policy that no regional 'GNP' should stay below 75% of EU average. It also aids applicant states, with a maximum of 6% of their GNP in any one year. Yet no such transfer programme exists for the poorest countries. Probably, only the German programme matched the level of resource transfer from the Soviet Union to Mongolia: approximately 30% of GNP. The collapse of the Soviet Union promptly led to widespread extreme poverty in Mongolia, with famine in the spring of 2000.The pro-democracy development theorist Amartya Sen claims that democracy prevents famines:...in the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look: the recent famines of Ethiopia, Somalia, or other dictatorial regimes; famines in the Soviet Union in the 1930s; China's 1958-61 famine with the failure of the Great Leap Forward; or earlier still, the famines in Ireland or India under alien rule. China, although it was in many ways doing much better economically than India, still managed (unlike India) to have a famine, indeed the largest recorded famine in world history: Nearly 30 million people died in the famine of 1958-61, while faulty governmental policies remained uncorrected for three full years. The policies went uncriticized because there were no opposition parties in parliament, no free press, and no multiparty elections. Indeed, it is precisely this lack of challenge that allowed the deeply defective policies to continue even though they were killing millions each year. The same can be said about the world's two contemporary famines, occurring right now in North Korea and Sudan.Democracy as a Universal Value, Amartya Sen, 1999.Yet the rich democratic states had enough resources to feed all these people: and they did not. Structurally, they did not. They could have flown these millions of hungry people to the United States, western Europe, or Japan, where there was enough food. They did not. Amartya Sen does not regard this as a defect of democracy: indeed, he seems blind to the issue. If opposition parties in parliament, a free press, and multiparty elections stop famines, and the worlds richest state has all of these, then why are there still famines on this planet?A causal relationship between democracy and famine exists primarily at a global level. It would be most acute, in a world order of perfectly democratic nation states. Such a world order would institutionalise the selfish behaviour of the hypothetical rich democracy, described in the introduction. Nation states generally consider the national wealth as reserved for that nation - not available for total redistribution to others. In nation states, by definition, the national territory is reserved for members of the nation. The democratisation of a nation state reinforces there inherent qualities. The electorate generally does not want to give 'their money' to foreign countries, and they do not want to dilute their standard of living by mass immigration. A democratic and national world order does not cause droughts or crop failures. However, it destroys two standard historical responses to famine: redistribution of food, and migration to non-famine areas. Although there is no historical tradition of mass migration for medical care in response to high mortality, it destroys that option also. The national-democratic world order - the dream of Kofi Annan - imprisons the poor in poverty and ill-health. In some cases their situation is improving: in Africa it is acutely worsening.Testable propositions: global inequalityIn terms of inequality, it seems that a planet is better off without any democracies. Historically, the rise of democracies coincided with a period of unprecedented global inequality. Supporters of the democratic peace theory imply causal relations from this kind of simple correlation ("if there is no war, then democracy caused the peace"). Similar conclusions can be drawn in connection with these testable propositions, such as these about inequality...absolute global inequality between states, as the gap between the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the poorest and the richest state, is greater since modern democracies emerged relative inequality between states, as the ratio of per capita GDP in the richest and poorest states, is greater since modern democracies emerged statistical measures of 'national-income' inequality will show a greater coefficient of inter-state inequality in the period of democracies (about the last 150 years) than before itinter-state inequalities of this kind are greater between democracies and non-democracies, than within the group of democracies, or the group of non-democraciesTesting some of these would be difficult: historical economic data is limited. But it would be very surprising if they are not true - for the simple reason that the democratic countries are the rich countries.There is already enough data on long-term patterns of economic growth, to conclude that the rich-poor gap among states is increasing. Research by Angus Madison for the OECD, indicated that the gap (in GDP/capita) between western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa was about 3-to-1, in 1820. By 1990 it had increased to 20-to-1. During this long period western Europe was not continuously democratic, so this Europe-Africa gap is not equivalent to the gap between democracies and non-democracies.However, that has changed: in the last generation, 'democracy' and 'rich country' have become almost equivalent. According to the 2004 World Bank estimates, over 1,1 billion people live on less than $1 a day, the same as a decade earlier. (These figures are already corrected for the differences in purchasing power). In sub-Saharan Africa the proportion living under this official 'extreme poverty' limit rose to 46%.The income ratio - of the poorest 20 countries to the richest 20 - has doubled in the last 40 years. And for that time at least, most of these rich countries were democracies. There are a few rich non-democracies, such as the United Arab Emirates, and some poor democracies such as Cape Verde. But the correlation between a democratic regime and prosperity is now so strong, that some democracy theorists see prosperity as a precondition of democracy. Others claim a causal link in the other direction - "democracy makes you rich'. Perhaps - but the statistics suggest it does so by keeping others poor.In broad terms, sub-Saharan Africa has a European 19th-century standard of living. It would take 150 or years to follow the path to prosperity taken by western Europe - and western Europe had no massive HIV/AIDS epidemic. 150 years may not even be enough. At the current rate of progress, according to the UNDP Human Development Report 2002, it would take more than 130 years, simply to rid the world of hunger. The UNDP seeks to reduce child mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa by two-thirds by 2015, but the 2003 Human Development Report estimates it will take 150 years more at current trends. Figure 2.1 gives estimates of the time needed to achieve all the 'Millennium Goals' relating to poverty, health and equality: it extends to 2200. In some areas 'progress' is negative - at current trends the goals will never be reached. Here too, the negative trend at global level is most acute in the mortality statistics:....while there is heated debate on whether income inequality is increasing between rich and poor countries, inequality in child mortality has gotten unambiguously worse. In the early 1990s children under five were 19 times more likely to die in Sub-Saharan Africa than in rich countries - and today, 26 times more likely (figure 2.2). Among all developing regions only Latin America and the Caribbean saw no worsening in the past decade relative to rich countries, with children still about 5 times more likely to die before their fifth birthdays.United Nations Development Programme.Human Development Report 2003, 39-40. Inequality for the mothers is even worse: the 2004 World Bank estimate is that mothers in the poorest countries are 100 times more likely to die in childbirth or pregnancy, than mothers in the rich countries. More detailed statistics from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) show that the estimate was too optimistic. Chapter 7 of the State of World Population Report 2004 gives the ratio between maternal deaths per 100 000 live births in the developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa. It is 20 to 920, or 46 times worse. Because birth rates are higher, the 'lifetime risk of maternal death' is 1 in 2800 in the developed regions, but 1 in 16 in sub-Saharan Africa - 175 times greater. The difference is so great, that almost all maternal mortality would be prevented, if the health care standards of the developed world applied globally. About 500 000 lives would be saved each year. It is the worst measured health inequality:But huge differences - up to a hundred-fold - exist in the risk of pregnancy between women in rich and poor countries, the highest differential of any public health indicator monitored by WHO. The lifetime risk that a woman in West Africa will die in pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 12. In developed regions, the comparable risk is 1 in 4,000. Because they receive prompt and effective treatment, women in the developed world rarely die or experience permanent disabilities from pregnancynatives to the market-led planning in the democraciesredistribution of wealth and housingtransfer taxes, to fund development in eastern Europe and Africa.One issue which should certainly be removed from the democratic political arena is immigration. Demographics are probably the most urgent planning issue in Europe: demographic collapse will affect most of the continent within a generation. However, European electorates are hyper-sensitive to immigration issues, and clearly prefer zero immigration. Policies for replacement migration - with tens of millions of immigrants - can not be formulated in this political climate. In general, 'The People' can not be trusted with the immigration issue - because the manifestation of 'the people' on this issue is without exception a racist populism.A more specific type of exemption from democracy relates to basic values. The European constitutional treaty explicitly lists the 'values of Europe'. However, despite much talk of 'national values', such lists are not usual in national constitutions. The German Constitution does open with a deliberate choice of national fundamental value:Artikel 1 - Würde des Menschen(1) Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt.Bundestag: GrundgesetzArticle 1 [Human Dignity](1) Human dignity is inviolable. To respect and protect it is the duty of all state authority.Constitution of GermanyThe constitution of a state can list its fundamental values, or value hierarchy - deliberately removing them from the political arena. For instance it could place equality above property rights (a classic conflict of values). Inevitablylly increased in sub-Saharan Africa.It is not morally acceptable to insist that Africa should 'develop itself' by duplicating the poverty and inequality of 19th-century England, while suffering a demographic crisis comparable to the Black Death. It is not morally acceptable to demand 130 years of avoidable hunger, even if the result is universal prosperity. The 'development' option is no longer an option at all.Yet this is apparently what the democracies are demanding. Certainly there is no 'political will' in the democracies, to introduce the massive transfer taxes that would be necessary to close the gap. Democracies seem structurally unable to generate this political will. The UN aid target of 0,7% of GNP has never been reached. According to the OECD Development Assistance Committee, its member states donated 0.33% of GNI in 2005. That was up from 0.26% in 2004, but most of the rise in 'aid' was accounted for by one-off debt relief arrangements, and the Development Assistance Committee expects a fall in aid in 2006 and 2007. The UNCTAD Least Developed Countries Report 2004 shows a total aid to the poorest countries of $15 137 million (Table 23). For their 700 million inhabitants, that is $22 per year, or 6 dollarcent per person per day. That is a gesture, not a transfer of wealth and income. An indicator of the unwillingness to transfer is provided by the World Health Report 2004: 4 to 8 million people need immediate treatment for AIDS, and at most 10% are getting it.All the DAC members are democracies, with maximum scores for 'political rights' in the Freedom House Survey. What chance is there, that they will ever approve the 70% income transfers needed to evenly spread global 'GNP'? The realistic answer must be: it is simply not possible to close this gap, so long as they are democracies.The conservatism of democratic cultureAt best democracy is no more than a system of government, but in western democracies it has acquired a sacred status, and it is taboo to question it. Yet there is no moral basis for this cult of democracy, for this sacralisation. As Bhikhu Parekh says of liberalism:Unless we assume that liberalism represents the final truth about human beings, we cannot indiscriminately condemn societies that do not conform to it.Bhikhu Parekh (1993). The cultural particularity of liberal democracy, in David Held (ed.) Prospects for Democracy: North, South, East, West Cambridge: Polity. (p. 169).A democracy is different from other possible societies, cultures, and regimes: by definition it substitutes itself for them. This substitution is not inherently good: democracies have specific defects, in their culture and society. Most prominent is the conservative bias: democracy and democratic culture structurally limit innovation.The uniformity and conformity of liberal-democratic societies has been criticised, for almost as long as they exist - from the 19th century on. At first, these criticisms amounted to a nostalgia for aristocratic individualism, and it is still a favourite tactic of democrats to label all criticism of democracy as 'elitist'. John Stuart Mill is typical of this type of aristocratic criticism, directed at the emerging mass society:It does seem, however, that when the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that tendency would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of those who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, instead of being deterred, should be encouraged in acting differently from the mass. In other times there was no advantage in their doing so, unless they acted not only differently, but better. In this age the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.On Liberty, John Stuart Mill 1859.(Chapter III: On individuality, as one of the elements of wellbeing).However not all anti-conformist criticism can be dismissed as aristocratic nostalgia. In the 100 years after Mill wrote, the aristocratic culture of noble eccentricity became culturally marginal. Instead, new forms of individualist 'eccentricity' emerged within mass culture, especially from the 1960's onwards.Criticism of conformity is primarily criticism of liberal society, rather than democracy as a political regime. Democracy in itself can not be blamed for a uniform culture, a static culture, or social conformity. But in their political culture, democracies have failed to match the image they present. Pro-democracy propaganda, for instance in eastern Europe just after 1989, presents democracy as politically dynamic and internally diverse. In reality, all western democracies have stable party systems, dominated by elites: together they form what in Italian is called the classe politica. It is extremely difficult to break open this 'political class', from outside: the system is neither dynamic, nor open to innovation. As a result, it is not a force for social and cultural innovation either.Testable propositions...The idea of increasing political conformity and uniformity is difficult to operationalise, but these propositions could be investigated...in democracies, the range of political ideas (in the manifestos of parties elected to parliament) shrinks.in democracies, the difference in stated aims between major parties (those with more than 5% of the vote) also shrinksdemocracy inhibits the formation of major new political parties (fusions of existing parties excepted): the chance that, in any 10-year period, a completely new party will gain more than 5% of the vote, is small. democracy inhibits the formation of major new political-ideological groups of parties (comparable to the green parties in western Europe, the only such example in the last generation)Democracy has brought societies which are monotonous and uniform, at least to some of the people who live in them. But not only that. Democracy has failed to bring utopia. That is, it has failed to bring into existence any proposed ideal society, or any other proposal of a 'utopian' type. Democracy itself can be labelled a 'utopia', and the present liberal-democratic societies are historically unique - nothing like them existed before the 19th century. So, in that sense, democracy has brought at least a new democratic society, which is itself an ideal society for some people. But nothing else. No dramatically new type of society has emerged among the democracies, differing from the standard model of these societies. And most liberal-democrats would in fact be hostile to the label 'utopia' being applied to these liberal-democratic societies.The liberal tradition is resolutely hostile to utopias: anti-utopianism seems a defining characteristic of liberal ideology. That hostility has shaped the present liberal-democratic societies. Liberal anti-utopianism and democratic anti-totalitarianism are in practice the same thing. Some liberals explicitly equate the two, and see totalitarianism as the result of utopian ideals. They believe that the 20th-century totalitarian regimes derive from the European utopian tradition. The early-modern ideal city, the ideal city-states of the type described in Thomas More's original book 'Utopia", were for them the source of all later evil. (Many postmodernists share this distaste for utopia, and the belief that there is a direct line from Thomas More to Auschwitz). In other words, there are liberal-democrats who believe that the political system should be so structured, as to save society from utopian experiments. To them, democracy is (at least partly) a mechanism to prevent utopia. I think they are right about the nature of democracy: but it is democracy, not utopia, which must disappear.....historical inevitability dictated the triumph of individual human rights that was inherent in the political transformation that mankind was experiencing, particularly in the phenomenon of mass political awakening with which we wanted to identify the forces of democracy and freedom.This was our response to the challenge posed by the notion that so dominated our century: that a coercive utopia derived from dogmatic hubris, that a perfect society, a form of heaven on earth, could be constructed by political compulsion.Zbigniew Brzezinski, Morgenthau Memorial Lecture 1995.The resistance of democracy to innovation, is clearly related to the reluctance to accept any criticism of it. Although pro-democratic theorists often say they are not claiming democracy is perfect, in practice it does have a semi-sacred status. So in democratic societies, criticism of democracy, even without questioning its fundamental principles, is regarded with suspicion and hostility. Especially, democrats are reluctant to accept that a democratic system can be corrupted. They may try to associate this criticism with fascism: corruption and 'decadence' were indeed major themes of anti-democratic propaganda in the 1930's. Logically, that implies that there is an underlying belief that democracy is in some way 'pure' or 'perfect'. In turn this creates a tendency to social self-worship, at its most extreme in the United States. Widespread belief that the existing society is perfect or quasi-sacred, creates a climate for complacency and social conformity, not for innovation. Sacralisation is, by definition, a contra-innovative social phenomenon: the sacred is preserved, to abolish it is sacrilege. A conservative and anti-utopian bias has specific effects inside a nation state. No existing democracy began in an ethical and cultural vacuum of the kind used in social-contract theories. Their values are the pre-existing values of the constituent demos (nation). The 'democratic values' in a democratic nation-state are the values of the dominant ethno-cultural group, which first constituted that nation-state. Danish democratic values are Danish values, Norwegian democratic values are Norwegian values. Rejection of these values would require an individual moral choice, and the truly democratic citizen does not exercise individual moral judgment, but blindly accepts election results. That mentality is unlikely to produce innovation in the core values: most will be transmitted unchanged from one generation to the next. Paradoxically, the source of values in a democracy is often not the voters, but the voters' ancestors.The myth of moral superiority of democracyDemocratic states can claim no morally superior origin. Their own mythology places their origins in the political movements of 'the people' (starting with the older western democracies).Let me sum up the past two hundred years of democratic history. The intertwined histories of democratic legitimations, social movement activism and institutional changes generated, in some of the world's states, a significant democratization of the institutions of government. Despite antidemocratic countertrends, the long run direction of change in some of the states was a democratization of state power.Globalization and the Future of Democracy, John Markoff.(Journal of World-Systems Research, Vol. V, 2, 1999, 277-309)This mythology is sometimes linked to a belief in the superiority of a proto-liberal western civilisation - 'from Plato to NATO'. But the reality of democratic expansion has more to do with NATO than Plato, or any other philosopher. The Iraq war has shown, once again, just how bloody 'democratisation' can be.the military origins of democracy in EuropeThe NATO actions in Kosovo were the first explicit 'war for democracy' in Europe, since the end of the Cold War. With hindsight, this seems an inevitable development. By the end of the Second World War in 1945, citizens of western Europe or the United States found it normal to enforce democracy by war. During the geopolitical stability of the Cold War, however, fear of a nuclear holocaust eroded that attitude. Now, democratic conquest is back, inside and outside Europe. Once again, democratic values are explicitly claimed to justify war. Most democratic regimes in Europe were enforced from outside anyway - by invasion, occupation, or as a condition of economic aid. Democracy in Europe came from the barrel of a gun, or from the power of the dollar, but rarely from the people....AlbaniaBreakdown of central government after collapse of Communist regime in 1990/1991: stable democracy made a condition of foreign aid. Italian troops stationed to aid democratisation process.AndorraMini-state with tradition of local democratic assemblies.ArmeniaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.AustriaDemocracy re-established by four-power Allied occupation forces, between 1945 and 1955.AzerbaijanDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.BelarusNot considered democratic by western institutions. Democratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.BelgiumDemocracy re-established by US and British troops in 1944.BosniaDemocratisation enforced by IFOR and SFOR military forces (predominantly NATO), and a civilian High Representative with wide powers. Democratisation also a condition of reconstruction aid.BulgariaRegime change in 1989: democratisation of this regime made a condition of foreign aid.CroatiaThe present democratic state, in the borders of the previous Yugoslav republic, was established by rebellion of pro-secession military units in 1991. Subsequently, democracy a condition of military aid in war with Serbian forces, and of post-war reconstruction aid.Czech RepublicInternal transition to democracy.CyprusDemocratic constitution a condition of independence from Britain.DenmarkDemocracy re-established in 1945, after surrender of German forces without Allied invasion.EstoniaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.FinlandDefeated by the Soviet Union in 1944/1945, but nevertheless pre-war western-style parliamentary democracy restored, on condition of neutrality.FranceDemocracy re-established in 1944 by invasion of US, British, and exile French forces.Germany (West)Democratic Federal Republic established by US, British, and French occupation forces.Germany (East)Accession of east German regional governments (Länder) to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, automatically brought them into its system of government.GeorgiaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union. Demonstrators stormed Parliament in 2003, to install the pro-western President Saakashvili.GreecePeaceful transition from military rule to democracy.Great BritainPre-existing system of citizen representation transformed into full parliamentary democracy, between 1830's and 1930's.HungaryInternal transition to democracy.IrelandUnderground parliamentary democracy established by the IRA in 1918, and recognised by Britain in peace treaty of 1921.IcelandPre-existing local democratic tradition: democratic Republic established under US military occupation in 1944.ItalyDemocracy re-established by invasion of US and British forces in 1944.KazakhstanNot considered democratic by most western institutions. Democratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.KosovoDemocratisation programme in progress, funded and controlled by the OSCE and EU, enforced by NATO-led occupation force.LatviaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.LiechtensteinSmall principality with local democratic tradition, de facto dependent on Switzerland.LithuaniaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.LuxembourgLocal democratic tradition. Democracy re-established by invasion of Allied forces in 1944.MacedoniaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after peaceful secession from Yugoslavia.MaltaDemocratic constitution a condition of independence from Britain.MoldaviaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union.MonacoSmall principality with limited local democratic tradition, de facto part of France.NetherlandsInterim military government established by invasion of US, British and Canadian forces in 1944, re-established democracy after US pressure in 1945.NorwayDemocracy re-established in 1945, after surrender of German forces without Allied invasion.PolandInternal transition to democracy over 10-year period.PortugalDemocracy established by military coup in 1975RomaniaRegime change in 1989: democratisation of this regime made a condition of foreign aid.RussiaCollapse of institutions of previous regime from 1989 onward: present government not considered fully democratic in the west. Further democratisation is a condition of foreign aid, but Russia is less dependent on this aid than other countries in eastern Europe.San MarinoSmall principality with strong local democratic tradition, de facto part of Italy.SlovakiaDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Czechoslovakia. SpainInternal transition to democracy after death of autocratic dictator.SwedenParliamentary democracy established by 1920's, on the basis of pre-existing citizens representation.SwitzerlandParliamentary democracy established by 1920's, on the basis of pre-existing citizens representation.TurkeySince the establishment of the state several transitions between military rule and democracy. Continuing democracy is a condition of European Union membership.UkraineDemocratisation made a condition of foreign aid, after break-up of Soviet Union. Western-backed demonstrations forced new election in 2004, installing a pro-western president at the second attempt.VaticanNever a democracy, by any definition.Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)Military defeat by NATO in an air war, occupation of part of the national territory, and economic sanctions, weakened the Milosevic regime. In combination with substantial financial aid to the democratic opposition, this precipitated its fall in October 2000.The present democracies in Europe do not match the democratic mythology. They are not the product of successive popular uprisings against absolutist monarchies or totalitarian regimes. A far more appropriate term is 'democratic conquest', more on that below. There is nothing inherently noble, admirable, or moral, in such a war of conquest.Tutu Vanhanen reviews the explanations for democratisation in Prospects of Democracy: a Study of 172 Countries (London: Routledge. 1997. p. 10-21). At least, the explanations which have been proposed in English-language political science, including the many theorists who say there is no single factor. The list includes no mention of military intervention (or economic warfare) as causal factors in the transition to democracy. A theory of colonialism which did not mention the colonising powers, and suggested the transition to being a colony was a process internal to each colony, would be unacceptable.testable propositionsIf democratisation was categorised historically on the analogy with colonial conquests, these hypotheses could be researched...of the states which have made a transition from non-democracy to democracy since 1939, most have done so following a military intervention by democratic powers.past military intervention by a democratic power, rather than any traditional explanation such as economic development, is the best predictor that a country will be a democracy.of the military interventions since 1900 with the stated purpose of imposing a political system on a state, the majority (if not all) were to impose or restore democracyEven when the explanation of democratisation is expanded to include non-internal factors, there is a reluctance to mention military force. Laurence Whitehead suggest three basic models for the international spread of democracy: contagion, control and consent.The essential point is that approaching two-thirds of the democracies existing in 1990 owed their origins, at least in part, to deliberate acts of imposition or intervention from without (acts, moreover, that were undertaking within living memory). Given this, an interpretation which excludes from consideration the roles played by external actors, their motives, or their instruments of action is bound to produce a highly distorted image of the international dimension of democratization...Laurence Whitehead (1996) Three international dimensions of democratization, in The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas Oxford: OUP. (p. 9).Since that was published, there have been more explicit examples of the 'international dimension', in Kosovo, Serbia and Timor. The invasion of Iraq, for the declared purpose of 'regime change', is probably the best example of 'external actors' in democratisation. Several years before the Iraq war, USAID (the official US aid agency), had prepared a list of pro-democracy tactics. It indicates how thorough the 'external actors' can be - especially with military backing...USAID's democracy programs will support:Constitutional mechanisms, including technical andorganizational assistance to constitutional conventions andconstitution-makers.Democratically elected legislatures, including programs toimprove the material, technical, and decision-making capabilitiesof legislatures.Legal systems, including independent judiciaries andcivilian-controlled police, and alternative and informal mechanismsfor resolving disputes.Local government entities, particularly those that haverecently acquired additional institutional authority andresponsibilities.Credible and effective elections, where voters have confidencein the process.Local, national, regional, and international organizationsthat protect human rights, including the rights of workers,indigenous peoples, minorities, and women.Trade unions, professional associations, women's groups,educational entities, and a wide range of indigenous NGOs,particularly those that are partners in development programs.Political parties and other national mechanisms of politicalexpression in a strictly nonpartisan manner and, consistent withstatutory limitations, in a manner that does not influence theoutcome of an election.Independent media outlets and groups formed to promote andprotect freedom of expression.Improved civil-military relations, including effectivecivilian control of the military establishment.Institutions and organizations that increase governmentresponsiveness and accountability at the national, state, and locallevels.Educational efforts for children and adults that reflectcommunity participation, promote the development of local NGOs, andencourage tolerance within society.Finally, as a natural complement to longer-termdemocracy-building efforts, USAID, in consultation with other U.S.Government agencies and with adequate human rights safeguards, willsupport programs in transition situations for the establishment ofdemocratic political institutions and for the demobilization andretraining of soldiers and insurgents.USAID'S Strategies - Building DemocracyThis is quite different from a popular uprising. By definition, no process initiated by USAID or other external agency, derives 'from the people' inside the territory concerned. In Bosnia and Kosovo, democratic powers could implement a democratisation programme because of a military occupation. That is the stated aim in Iraq, without much success so far. Generally, such programmes emphasise funding of pro-democracy parties, groups and media. The funds go to a small elite: perhaps for that reason, no multi-ethnic political system has yet emerged, in either Bosnia or Kosovo. It is not likely in Iraq either.exclusion of the undemocratic: total democracyThe democratic claim to moral superiority is partly based on the treatment of persons within democracies. Liberal democracies also claim to be politically neutral. Nevertheless, even model democracies exclude (and often politically persecute) anti-democrats. In this respect, a democratic system is like all other regimes: it takes measures to ensure its own survival. The western Cold War slogan "at least there is free speech here", usually did not apply to undemocratic organisations. That is still true in the liberal democracies. Anti-democrats are often excluded from the use of human and political rights, and anti-democratic parties are sometimes forbidden. The new European Charter of Fundamental Rights contains such an exclusion:Article 54 Prohibition of abuse of rightsNothing in this Charter shall be interpreted as implying any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognised in this Charter....Draft Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European UnionThe Charter also includes the basic political rights now used to define democracy, including voting and candidacy rights. Article 54 therefore constitutes an exclusion of anti-democrats from those rights. The German Constitution is another example: for historical reasons, the 'defence of democracy' plays a greater role in German political culture, than in other democracies.Artikel 18 - Einbüssen von GrundrechtenWer die Freiheit der Meinungsäusserung, insbesondere die Pressefreiheit (Artikel 5 Abs. 1), die Lehrfreiheit (Artikel 5 Abs. 3), die Versammlungsfreiheit (Artikel 8), die Vereinigungsfreiheit (Artikel 9), das Brief-, Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnis (Artikel 10), das Eigentum (Artikel 14) oder das Asylrecht (Artikel 16 a) zum Kampfe gegen die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung missbraucht, verwirkt diese Grundrechte. Die Verwirkung und ihr Ausmass werden durch das Bundesverfassungsgericht ausgesprochen.Bundestag: GrundgesetzArticle 18 [Forfeiture of basic rights]Whoever abuses freedom of expression of opinion, in particular freedom of the press (Article 5 (1)), freedom of teaching (Article 5 (3)), freedom of assembly (Article 8), freedom of association (Article 9), privacy of letters and secrecy of post and telecommunication (Article 10), property (Article 14), or the right to asylum (Article 16a) in order to combat the free democratic basic order forfeit these basic rights. Such forfeiture and the extent thereof is determined by the Federal Constitutional Court.Constitution of GermanyThe suppression of political parties is normal practice in established liberal democracies. In an article on party bans in Israel, Raphael Cohen-Almagor gives the typical justification for this practice:This article argues that it is neither morally obligatory, nor morally coherent, to expect democracy to place the means for its own destruction in the hands of those who either wish to bring about the annihilation of the state, or to undermine democracy, and who take active steps to realize those ends.Raphael Cohen-Almagor (1997) Disqualification of political parties in Israel: 1988-1996But if you substitute the word 'dictatorship' for 'democracy", this formula justifies the suppression of democratic parties by a dictatorship. The line of argument is not itself coherent: it is morally arbitrary. Nevertheless it indicates the pro-democratic fervour of democracy. Democracy is not above the parties - the democrats are themselves a party. Western media and governments usually support such 'democratic forces' in other countries: the implication is that they have a special claim to be elected. If democracy was politically neutral, candidates support for democracy would be irrelevant. In reality, democrats are pro-democracy - as you would expect - and democratic systems are pro-democracy. It is even possible to define democracy by these characteristics- as a political system where democratic forces hold absolute political power, at least in relation to non-democrats, and where they institutionally persecute anti-democrats. It is not a comprehensive definition, but it is descriptive of most democracies. If democracy were truly a superior system of government, then it would (presumably) not need this harassment of its opponents.All democracies also maintain a culture of democracy - a parallel to the 'national culture', which all nation states support. It is the exclusive political culture: there can be no 'culture of totalitarianism' in a democracy. Paradoxically, in the stable democracies, this has created a 'total democracy', with the characteristics attributed to totalitarian culture. In the liberal democracies, democratic attitudes pervade all aspects of life, and especially education. At universities in liberal democracies, standard political science courses include only pro-democratic theorists.Despite this total-democracy culture,democrats often claim that living in a democracy is equivalent to 'freedom' - usually meaning political freedom. The classic example is again the Freedom House annual survey, which claims to show how many countries are 'free'. It is often quoted in the media as factual truth, without any further analysis. Many of the leading theorists of liberal market democracy work on Freedom House projects: that group overlaps with the US foreign policy establishment. (The academic advisors included Larry Diamond, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Seymour Lipset, Alexander Motyl, and the neoconservative Islam-basher Daniel Pipes). Their definition of freedom overlaps the definition of a liberal democracy: it is no surprise that liberal-democratic countries get the best scores for 'freedom'. But this is no more than circular reasoning: if political freedom is defined as 'living under a democracy', then democracies have political freedom.Nevertheless people are also unfree in democracies - in ways that seem specific to liberal market democracy itself. In general it is the market which limits social and economic freedom, rather than their political regime. The operation of the labour market, and the conditions of employment, provide the best examples. Some US employers in the services and retail sectors require their employees to smile permanently, at least in the presence of customers. In a few cases, employers have required plastic surgery, as a condition of employment. These are impositions, and restrict personal freedom. The point is, that they are apparently culturally specific to the liberal market democracies. Unlike, for instance, poverty or inequality, they are not reported in any historical non-democratic society. Apparently, the market democracies have certain specific unfreedoms, which undermine their claim to be 'free'.the illegal immigrant and democracyThe pretensions of liberal-democratic states are undermined especially by their treatment of illegal immigrants. Unlike many previous 'democratic deficits', this can not be remedied inside the political structure of these states. For instance, until the time of the First World War, women were excluded from voting in many western democracies. That democratic deficit was remedied by the introduction of universal adult suffrage in the 1920's. Still, the 'demos' in the democratic system continued to be the same nation, that formed the nation state. Britain was no less British, when British women got the vote. But conceding full citizenship to anyone who can cross the border (legally or illegally), would ultimately change the population structure of the western nation states. Most democratic theorists are apparently unwilling to welcome 500 million new African fellow-citizens: and so they defend a 'demos' equivalent to existing populations of nation states.The fifth and final criterion for the democratic process is, then, as follows: The demos must include all adult members of the association except transients and persons proved to be mentally defective. Admittedly the definition of adults and transients is a potential source of ambiguity.Robert Dahl (1989). Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. (p. 129).How does a typical western democracy, such as the Netherlands or Britain, appear to an illegal immigrant? Again the Freedom House checklist can be used - this time to check on the people who wrote it, or at least the system they defend. First the political rights of illegal immigrants, the 'transients'...Can illegal immigrants vote for the head of state and/or head of government in free and fair elections? No.Can illegal immigrants vote for the legislative representatives in free and fair elections? No.Have they equal campaigning opportunities? No, in practice, since any public activity can lead to their arrest.Do illegal immigrants have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice? No. Formal legal registration of any association would be difficult: registration of the party for electoral purposes would be in practice impossible, since the illegals would have to disclose their address. Such a party could operate only by using legal residents as a front.The civil rights checklist, especially, indicates the second-class status of illegal immigrants...Can illegal immigrants have their own free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression? No. Any offices of a newspaper, any TV studio, would be subject to possible police raids and detention of the illegals. Their media would also have to operate through a front.Have illegal immigrants free religious institutions, and is there free private and public religious expression? Yes, in private. Police in the EU member states rarely arrest immigrants at a mosque, for instance. But public expressions, religious or otherwise, expose the speaker to arrest and detention.Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion for illegal immigrants? No. A demonstration or meeting, specifically for illegal immigrants, would be an invitation to the police to detain all the demonstrators. In practice immigrants can only participate in demonstrations or meetings organised by legal existing groups. They must rely on the political influence of the organisers, to prevent their arrest during the activity.Is there freedom of political or quasi-political organization for illegal immigrants? No. Again, any organisation specifically for illegals could not operate from a fixed address, or with legal registration. Illegals who participate in existing political organisations must trust that organisation to protect them from arrest.Is the population treated equally under the law? No. Illegal immigrants are excluded from participation in the legal system, as judges and lawyers, and as jurors in countries with a jury system.Is there protection from unjustified imprisonment and exile? No. In fact this is the standard fate of the illegal immigrant: detention and deportation. (The term 'exile' implies that native-born citizens somehow suffer more from a deportation than an immigrant - a racist distinction).Is there personal autonomy for illegal immigrants? Does the state control travel, choice of residence, or choice of employment? Yes, the state controls all of these, or attempts to. In the Netherlands you must have a valid residence permit to travel on the train, rent a house in the social sector, or get a legal job. If these kind of controls limit personal autonomy, then illegals do not have full personal autonomy.It is clear that the treatment of illegal immigrants in western countries would be called 'repression', if it was applied to political dissidents or ethnic minorities elsewhere. The treatment of asylum seekers is similar - although they are not 'illegal immigrants' while their application is being processed.The 'Tampa incident' illustrated the realities. The Norwegian container ship Tampa had picked up asylum seekers at sea, and entered Australian territorial waters in August 2001. The right-wing Howard government made a stand on the issue - explicitly refusing to admit the asylum seekers to Australian territory. They were kept on board the ship, and prevented from leaving it by soldiers of the elite force SAS. They were isolated from the media and lawyers: only the Norwegian ambassador was permitted to visit the ship at first, and later one delegation. In effect the asylum seekers were placed in detention - which is in any case their normal treatment in Australia. Now, people held incommunicado on a ship, guarded by soldiers, obviously have no political rights - none at all. There is no question of them voting in Australian elections, demonstrating, or participating in any way in the political process there. The soldiers prevented all access to the rest of society, a policy emphasised when the asylum seekers were transferred to an Australian troop ship (the media were excluded from this military operation). This de facto military detention was nevertheless enforced on people, who had committed no crime in Australia.The question for the defenders of democracy is this: if a recognised legitimate democracy can treat one group like this, why not others? From the point of view of an illegal immigrant, a western democracy such as Britain or Australia has most of the characteristics attributed to dictatorships or 'authoritarian regimes'. Yet they meet the criteria of Freedom House for political freedom. If a clever dictatorship can arrange repression, in such a way as to meet the standard of 'democracy' and 'freedom' applied to illegal immigrants, then why is such a dictatorship wrong? And if any dictatorship can meet these standards, merely by clever administrative arrangements, than why is dictatorship fundamentally wrong?And from the other side: why is a political regime, which treats people like the Howard government treats refugees, morally desirable? Why is it noble and good? It is not because the system failed - the Australian democracy works perfectly well. Howard was democratically elected, in free and fair elections, in a society with a free press and guaranteed civil rights. Opinion polls showed he had the backing of a huge majority, for his hard line toward the asylum seekers on board the MV Tampa. Australia recognises and implements all the human and civil rights, which are supposed to protect minorities against the tyranny of the majority. But, as the Tampa case shows, they are no guarantee at all. The Howard government is not a distortion of democracy, it illustrates how democracy works. The people rule, and in this case 'the people' are a xenophobic people. The political system expresses their collective will, exactly as intended. But is it right?The constitution of the demosModern democracy is inextricably linked to nations, to nationalism, and to the nation state as form of state. Liberal democracy and nationalism developed together in Europe. To a large extent, democracy and nationalism are parallel. Democracy presupposes a demos, a community in which 'politics' takes place. The demos of modern democracies, and the nation of modern nation-states, are the same thing. Western politicians speak interchangeably of 'the nation", 'our nation", 'the people", 'the community'. Democrats, almost by definition, believe it is necessary to maintain the demos as a political unit: this has led to an association of democracy and conservative nationalism.Most democrats believe, that a democracy is legitimate regardless of the criteria used to select the demos. Even a completely closed racial community, with zero immigration, can be a democracy. (According to democratic theory, it would be more legitimate than a dictatorship which allowed free immigration). Although several western democracies have a 'right to emigrate', no democracy has ever had a right to immigration. In practice the criteria of citizenship in democracies is biological descent: typically, more than 90% of the citizens acquired that status from their parents.Opponents of immigration in democratic states even use democracy as an argument - claiming that the cohesion of the political community will be undermined. In the EU conservative nationalists use the explicit argument, that no European-scale geopolitical entity can be legitimate, because there is no European demos.European integration, on this view, may have involved a certain transfer of state functions to the Union but this has not been accompanied by a redrawing of political boundaries which can occur only if, and can be ascertained only when, a European Volk can be said to exist. Since this, it is claimed, has not occurred, the Union and its institutions can have neither the authority nor the legitimacy of a Demos-cratic State.The State 'über alles": Demos, Telos and the German Maastricht Decision, Joseph H. Weiler, 1995.Weiler's article is a commentary on a decision of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the German Constitutional Court (inspired by nationalist fears about the Maastricht Treaty). Describing what he calls the No-Demos thesis, Weiler summarises the democratic-nationalist position...Critically, Volk/nation are also the basis for the modern democratic State: The nation and its members, the Volk, constitute the polity for the purposes of accepting the discipline of democratic, majoritarian governance. Both descriptively and prescriptively (how it is and how it ought to be) a minority will/should accept the legitimacy of a majority decision because both majority and minority are part of the same Volk, belong to the nation. That is an integral part of what rule-by-the-people, democracy, means on this reading. Thus, nationality constitutes the state (hence nation-state) which in turn constitutes its political boundary, an idea which runs from Schmitt to Kirchhof. The significance of the political boundary is not only to the older notion of political independence and territorial integrity, but also to the very democratic nature of the polity. A parliament is, on this view, an institution of democracy not only because it provides a mechanism for representation and majority voting, but because it represents the Volk, the nation, the demos from which derive the authority and legitimacy of its decisions.The State 'über alles": Demos, Telos and the German Maastricht Decision, for footnote see original.This democratic-nationalist position is accepted by most modern democrats, and all existing democratic states. Democracy therefore reinforces nationalism as a state formation ideology. That is wrong in itself, and it encourages nationalist violence in state formation. New nation states are comparatively rare (about one per year on average), and some were formed without bloodshed - such as Slovakia. But blood was certainly shed to found some others, or to save an existing state. That happened partly because nationalists (on both sides) believed their nation-state was essential to democracy.Testable propositions: fortress democracyThe combination of the nation state and global inequality has created a historically unique pattern of 'islands' of wealth co-existing with oceans of poverty. The island metaphor is not entirely accurate, since most rich countries border on other rich countries. They are not in fact surrounded by extreme poverty - it is generally further away from their borders. Mexico, for instance, is no longer a poor country: the poorest immigrants at the Rio Grande come from its southern neighbours. Similarly, most illegal immigrants who cross the Strait of Gibraltar come from sub-Saharan Africa, not from Morocco itself. However the island metaphor is accurate at global level: those who are born in a rich society will live in a rich society, those who are born amid extreme poverty will die there also. The outward transfer of wealth is minimal: development aid is less than 0,5% of GDP in rich countries, and the percentage is falling. The inward transfer of population is minimal. Never before has it been cheaper to travel from one continent to another, never before has the gap in incomes been greater, but migration into the rich western democracies is deliberately kept at a low level. This is what is historically unique, and it does seem to be specific to democracies, in the form suggested by these propositionshigh-income democracies admit less immigrants than the few high-income non-democracies (such as the United Arab Emirates)the countries which have historically spent the highest proportion of GDP on immigration control are democraciesmost countries which have installed electronic surveillance at their borders, in order to limit immigration, are democraciesin democracies, economic growth produces no corresponding rise in development aidthe highest absolute gaps in GNP per capita, for pairs of states, are between democracies and non-democraciesthe 'privilege' of immigration into a rich democracy is granted disproportionately to those who already come from a rich country. For any specific high-income democracy, the poorest countries have the lowest immigration rates into that democracy, taking account of the relative populations of the two countries.high-income non-democracies are more likely than high-income democracies to accept immigrants from poor or very poor countriesthe more democratic a country is, the lower the percentage of refugees among its populationThe equivalence of demos and nation also undermines the legitimacy of democratic decisions. Imagine a referendum on the prohibition of pork (pig meat), which Muslims consider unclean. If the referendum is held in France or Germany the result will be: no prohibition. If held in Saudi Arabia, there will certainly be prohibition. If the referendum is only for women, world-wide, then there will probably be no prohibition. But if the referendum is only for veiled women, then pork will be forbidden. You can get any result in this referendum, by choosing the unit of decision.That is a general characteristic of democracy - although to get some decisions, you would have to be very selective. Supporters of democracy claim that a democratic decision is legitimate, because it is the result of a free and fair decision-making process. But what if the opposite decision can be obtained, in an equally free and fair democracy, with different voters? Why is one free-and-fair decision to be respected, and the other not? In practice the legitimation of the decision is historical. The unit of decision is the nation state, based on a historic group: only their decisions are recognised as legitimate.The same issue arises in social-contract theories: the group formation itself is morally arbitrary. Can two people come up to me on the street, tell me the three of us form a nation, and then decide by majority vote, that I must enter military service under their command? If they try that trick with several million people, they might succeed. In the last 100 years, many people have suddenly found themselves in newly established nation states - which then demand their patriotic loyalty. In such cases, the principle of democracy is used to retroactively legitimise the formation of the national unit. National liberation movements usually claim to be democratic, at least since the late 19th century. So, having forced people into a political unit, they attempt to legitimise it - by holding an election within that unit. Democrats usually accept this form of legitimisation, provided the elections are fair. However, the democrats are wrong: an election can not retroactively legitimise the involuntary formation of the electorate.Equally, the typical nation-demos is arbitrary in terms of exclusion. The opposite of democracy is usually said to be autocracy, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism. However, it can also be given as xenocracy - a rare term for rule by foreigners. In practice all democracies limit immigration, to preserve existing community. If democracy was intended to give maximum power of decision to individual persons, then all democracies would allow voting from outside. During the formation of many existing nation states, democracy was indeed equated with 'non-xenocracy', even if that word was not used. The claim to democracy was treated as equivalent to the sovereignty claim, and both claims as implying the removal of foreign populations. Sometimes only a few colonial administrators were expelled, sometimes millions of people. People are not only forced into nation states, they are also forced out of them. An election can not legitimise ethnic cleansing of the electorate before the election.Historical expulsions are not the main cause of exclusion from voting. Most 'excluded potential voters' were not expelled from the democracy: they never lived there anyway. If the idea of a fixed territorial-political unit was abandoned, all these billions of potential voters could arrive to vote. The reality in democratic states is exactly the opposite: non-resident aliens are never allowed to vote. The fact that a nation is democratic, is said to legitimise its immigration laws. But this is a circular reasoning: if the potential immigrants were allowed to vote, they would usually outvote the resident population (and grant themselves citizenship). Again, an election can not in itself legitimise exclusion from that election, no matter how fair it is. An ethnically pure nation with totally closed borders might still be a perfect democracy, but that does not justify such states: instead it suggests something is wrong with democracy.more problems with the demos: minorities and the future populationAll democratic theorists have to acknowledge the issue of the disadvantaged minority. Much democratic theory is concerned with showing this disadvantage is not unjust. At its simplest, there is a pure anarchist objection to democracy. Such an anarchist would say: "No-one should decide on my life - not kings, not oligarchs, but not fellow-citizens either". However most anarchists today are not anti-democrats. Instead they believe in small-scale community, often in a democratic form. They no longer object to the democratic principle, just to the scale. Anarchism today is more a form of localised communitarianism, often politically acceptable to democratic nation states.In contrast, the political individual counts for less and less, as | |
