Going Deeper
The state of democracy
Democracy promotion" writes Francis Fukuyama, "should be placed in the broader context of promoting economic development, reducing poverty, and furthering good governance. The four objectives are interlinked in multiple ways: good governance is widely accepted as requisite for economic growth, widespread poverty undermines democratic legitimacy, growth reduces poverty, democratic accountability is often required to combat corruption and poor governance, and growth creates a favourable climate for democratic consolidation." (Should Democracy be promoted or Demoted The Stanley Foundation)
These are well known facts. The question that remains to be answered is about those countries which do not have the requisite factors generally regarded as essential for sustainable democracy. Some have argued that as "democracy is culturally rooted and not a universal good" and that as respect for sovereignty perhaps prevents, despite the responsibility to protect and the responsibility to prevent now having been accepted as essential elements of composite democracy, "authoritarian transition" as we have seen in South Korea, Taiwan and Chile, could be an intermediate step in the process of democratic transition.
It would, however, be fallacious to fall back on the Pakistani example that Stephen Cohen calls "moderate oligarchy," meaning a system comprising of the elites of the armed forces, bureaucracy, the industrialists, and the landed aristocracy as a modus vivendi for popular aspiration to be listened to. Elites like the Praetorian guards possess the nature of filtering only those "popular aspirations" for consideration that accord with their aims of accumulating more power and wealth.
The oligarchs often forget Immanuel Wallerstein's revealing observation (The Modern World System) that "in general, in a deep conflict, the eyes of the downtrodden are more acute about the reality of the present. For it is in their interest to perceive correctly in order to expose the hypocrisies of the rulers. They have less interest in ideological deflection."
The US model, admired for decades in the past, has now become suspect in the eyes of the many due to dichotomy between American preaching of the merits of liberal democracy and its Iraq adventure, distinct from invasion of Afghanistan that was globally supported, reflecting the Bush administration's disdain for the UN Charter and its subjugation of international law to its domestic interest as expounded in 2002National Security Strategy.
The reason for American disdain, ably propagated by the likes of Dick Cheney, Robert Kagan, and Richard Perle, is the firm conviction of the Bush administration (and perhaps the next Republican administration should it be elected, with Barrack Obama, or Mitt Romney or Rudy Guliani as president) that in the foreseeable future there cannot be a peer competitor to US hegemony.
Kagan's defense of preemptive force and its legitimacy are dependant on President Bush's exhortation to "adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries" made in his 2002 National Security Strategy. Kagan further argues that "rather than conceiving of sovereignty as a government's inherent right to do as it pleases, we must recognize that it entails real responsibilities, both with respect to those who live within the state and also with regard to internal developments that can affect those who live outside it. This changing conception of sovereignty as a right to conceiving it as a responsibility has become more widely accepted in recent years." (America and the use of force: sources of LegitimacyStanley Foundation).
It is generally believed that Third World countries are more sensitive about possible encroachment on their sovereignty than the developed countries, though the responsibility to protect and prevent is more applicable in their cases than in others. Rwanda, Srebrenica and Darfur are enough examples providing legitimacy to intrusive action by the international community.
In most of these cases the absence of democracy had caused tension and conflict because of the absence of airing of grievances of the aggrieved to the policy makers.
In the cases where authoritarian rule is cloaked in the guise of one party rule, as seen in China, many people would be content to receive economic goods unaccompanied by "social coordination," i.e. the liberty given to the people to constitute groups or assemblies in order to influence decisions affecting their lives. China applauders often forget that the country "faces immense problems, including pollution, diseases, poverty, inequality, corruption, abuse of power, an aging population and shrinking labour force (Keeping Tabs on China- Michael Schiffer of Brookings Institutions and Gary Schmidt of American Enterprise Institute)."
Though the World Bank predicts that China's GDP in terms of purchasing power parity will be $25 trillion, surpassing the US's, China remains far from being a peer competitor and, on a straight dollar for dollar basis, China's economy is just the size of California's and per capita GDP stands at $1300 as compared to nearly $40000 for the US. Analysts are concerned that 26 of China's east coast cities account for 82% of China's import-export and trade led growth, excluding 900 million to one billion people from reaping the benefits of China's phenomenal growth.
This has the possibility of putting at risk "performing legitimacy" (the ability of the Party to provide economic goods) replacing ideology as the legitimating factor in the governance of China.
Pro-growth lobby in Bangladesh may wish to follow the Chinese model, with the hope that emphasis on fast growth rate and uninterrupted peaceful environment (banning of hartals and vandalism of private and public properties) would be beneficial to them.
Such a system would have the short lived advantages of increased GDP but would be laden with further inequality in the distribution of national wealth, thereby fracturing social cohesion. The argument for "authoritarian transition" to democracy is the low level of comprehension by the electorate of the issues confronting them and, hence, the results of an election being determined either by the "charisma" of the leaders of the political parties and the influence of money.
In view of the prevailing conditions in Bangladesh, particularly in the backdrop of the public's loss of confidence in politicians, it would be advisable to take the elections as only a first step on the road to a democratic setup while a body/bodies would continue to monitor the activities of the institutions that would sustain democracy in the long run.
Kazi Anwarul Masud is former secretary and ambassador.
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