Ever since the birth of modern democracy, many theorists and analysts have pointed out that while democracy is arguably the best political system in place, it is still far from perfect in achieving its goals, This is mainly because the idea behind democracy was for everyone to be able to have a conscientious say in what happens and this is rarely the case. As Winston Churchill himself once said ”The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter,” The problem at hand is that, while in theory democracy could be the best system for the entire world given that it should provide everyone a meaningful say (be that in the form of a vote or a protest, for instance), the simple fact is that not every culture can sustain a democratic system.
We have seen this countless times: a nation wishing to become independent and democratic holds elections, protests by opposition rise, democracy ultimately fails and authoritarianism creeps in again; as seen in Huntington‘s waves of democracy, Many have tried solving their issues by turning to democracy, only to fail in the process The argument here is not that democracy cannot fit for everyone, but that some cultures have little possibility to adapt to a system in which all voices can be heard, Stating that democracy is a one-size-fits-all system is simply utopic and virtually ignorant, given that said person is just seeing the issue as black»and» white rather than realistically, Currently, according to the latest Democracy Index issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2013, roughly seventy—nine sovereign states but of the 167 surveyed have a democratic systemi.
Out of those seventy-nine, only twenty-five nations were considered to hold a full, fair democratic system with little to no flaws, That is barely 15% of all recognized sovereign states by the United Nations holding a full democracy. International organizations such as the UN and fully democratic states (mostly westernized) often try to deal with the situation by encouraging, and sometimes forcing, democracy in states that do not run it. However, this is a two-way street. The only way to bring democracy to a non-democratic state is by having its citizens believe in said system and have them participate in a fair way to change the status of the issue. Sadly, some authoritarianisms are just too strong and/or their citizens too scared or unprepared to act against the system, often making any attempts to bring change null, Even if change does occur, there is always a chance that the system will reverse back to authoritarianism if the citizens are not prepared to handle the challenges of democracy on a cultural level.
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The typical argument commonly heard by people with little political expertise is that democratic states should “help” non-democracies seek “freedom” by promoting their values. While linking democracy to freedom is something arguably correct in most instances, international interventionism can sometimes only intensify the problem. This has been seen numerous times in intervention attempts by the USA, for instance, with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Attempts at interventionism to try to help “liberate” a nation must only be done if the regional culture of the citizens allows for democracy to be installed and kept in place. To put this into a better perspective, consider two sides of the coin: Panama and Iran.
In 1989, under the dictatorship of Noriega, the Panamanian citizens called for democracy widely, and protests were rampant across the nation to take down Noriega, The USA invaded, took out Noriega, and installed a democracy with the leaders that won the previously annulled election. To this day, Panama is still a democracy. It has a somewhat flawed system, but it is still a democracy and the culture of “everyone should have the same say as everyone else” is prevalent, helping democracy be sustainable Iran, on the other hand, has different difficulties. For many decades Iran has held elections on various levels of government, however, they barely have any sort of democracy While yes, people get to vote for candidates, elections in Iran are far from fair.
Only candidates approved by the Guardian Council and the Great Ayatollah are able to run, meaning that voters are merely approving the Guardians‘ primary choices, feeding an endless loop that ultimately leads to no change and no representation outside of those within the closer circle of the Islamic leadership, Iranian culture centers a lot with the Islamic religion, meaning that a great number of Iranians support the Ayatollah out of religious beliefs. This type of culture will never allow a true democracy to be created, unless a change within the culture rises, which is highly unlikely. If people are used their whole lives to believing that they are mere followers of their leader without ever being allowed to truly have a say in government, how are checks and balances supposed to uphold democracy, given that more than one powerful person must counteract the other one?
How are they going to stabilize a system if they barely know how to create one to begin with? Panamanians were prepared for a change. Iranians barely seek it. The argument here is not that some states may never turn into democracies at some point, nor it is that democracy within those states should be discouraged. The point is that trying to promote democracy in a state that simply is not ready for it may most surely lead to worse problems or even civil war. Some authoritarian regimes argue that western pressures are the leading cause of their hatred towards them. Instead of pressttrizing democracy, why not instead let the citizens of each state ultimately figure out the best time to create a change? If citizens of a country are desperate for democracy and ask for help from the international community, it is understandable to promote a change in said country given that the citizens are the ones proposing a change and they are the ones who will uphold it anyway.
If an authoritarian country‘s citizens are not really concerned about a change in government, for any reason that may be, would a change in regime really help in the end? In some cases, authoritarian leaders are even making their nations grow better than some democratically elected leaders, It the people are happy, there really is no point to promoting (or imposing) democracy in said place, if it is uncalled fort In some cultures, bringing democracy may only make matters worse, even with democracy sticking, Andrew Roberts, a political analyst, put it in simple words regarding the Palestinian leadership and other Arab states: ”Some societies are so mired in obscurantism, feudalism, superstition and ignorance – often as the result ofthe deliberate policies of their governments, in order to stay in power – that universal suffrage would merely mean a census on the size of each tribe.
In the Palestinian Authority, elections are merely popularity contests between differing groups of terrorist organizations In several Arab countries that are presently dictatorships, a full, free and fair democratic election would probably bring pro-al- Qoedo governments into power, and thus the inevitability ofsharia law, then dictatorship and then war. One-person—one-vote happening once is not democracy. ” In the end, the most logic course of action for policymakers is to refrain from meddling in regime affairs of other nations, intervening exclusively should the populace explicitly need the help and are prepared to uphold the challenge. If this is not met, chances are that in the end the whole effort may only be a gigantic waste of time and money. Change eventually will come. As they say, Rome was not built in a day.
