Teaching Comparative

Precursors of Democracy

I was reading Guardian (UK) columnist Brian Whitaker's critique of the speech George Bush made at the UN earlier this week ( Mr Bush's mirage) and came across a wonderful hypothesis that could be the basis for teaching comparative.

In the last third of the essay, Whitaker wrote about the chimera of pursuing democracy in Iraq. He asserted, "Anyone who seriously wanted to establish a model democracy in the Middle East would look first at Egypt. Nobody in their right mind would ever have considered Iraq as a possible model. Egypt is not only the most populous Arab country but it has the building blocks: a long-established parliamentary and electoral system (rigged, of course, but that could be changed), political parties that are not based on tribe, ethnicity or (for the most part) religion, numerous civil society institutions (albeit, many of them currently monopolised by the government) and, above all, genuine home-grown movements pressing for democracy. There are certainly many obstacles, such as the institutionalised corruption, but - more than any other Arab country - Egypt has the basic materials to work with.

"Instead of providing real support and encouragement for Egyptian activists and cracking the whip over Mubarak, the Bush administration chose to pursue its democratic fantasies elsewhere, in all the least promising places..."

So, I'd ask my students to

• identify the factors that Whitaker thinks are precursors of democracy
  
• offer an explanation for why and how each of those factors contribute to democratic government
  
• identify factors that Whitaker overlooked and explain why and how those factors facilitate democratic government
  
• rank the factors in order of importance for creating or maintaining democratic government
  
• evaluate the status of each of those factors in each country being studied (done by small groups that report back to class)
  
• make predictions, based on those evaluations, of the future of democracy in each country being studied
  
• rank the countries being studied for the likelihood of continuance or creation of democratic government

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Oh, and if you need a laugh, Whitaker makes reference to the "Dilbert Mission Statement Generator," which is hilarious to anyone who has worked in a large organization, like a school. The "Generator" offers random assemblies of impressive-sounding adverbs, verbs, adjectives, and nouns to create superficially impressive and superficially realistic mission statements.

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:07 AM