Elections and democracy
When diplomacy, journalism, and public opinion equate elections with democratic regimes, some critical thinking is needed. Michael Slackman's analysis in the New York Times offers a bit of that critical thinking. Are there questions here that your students would raise? Or is Slackman's argument so persuasive that we should just accept it? Is Iran just another example to support Slackman's main thesis?Consider the recent elections in Nigeria and the upcoming elections in Russia as well. Are they signs of democratic political cultures or democratic regimes?
Ballot Boxes? Yes. Actual Democracy? Tough Question.
"This is election season in the Middle East. Syria just held presidential and parliamentary elections. Algeria held parliamentary elections. Egyptians will be asked to vote next week on a new upper house of Parliament. There will soon be elections in Jordan, Morocco and Oman, followed by elections in Qatar. So is democracy suddenly taking root in the strongman’s last regional stronghold?
"The consensus among democracy advocates, diplomats and citizens interviewed around the Middle East is that the reverse is true. Elections, it appears, have increasingly become a tool used by authoritarian leaders to claim legitimacy...
"Countries like Egypt and Syria, which hold elections, also allow a ruling class to hold a monopoly on power, limit freedom of speech and assembly and deny their citizens due process...
"It is a conclusion that may well have roots in Washington, where officials have frequently pointed to elections as a barometer of progress, but it may contribute to tarnishing the concept of democracy, diplomats and democracy advocates in the region agreed...
"Iraq, where a freely elected government has been paralyzed by sectarian disputes, stands as a particularly damaging example... [A] Western diplomat based in Algiers, speaking on condition of anonymity, [said] 'I think the Iraqi experiment, and the purple finger, didn’t help anything. People now say this democracy is not the answer to anything.'..."'We should insist on wider concepts of democracy, on democratic values,' said Abdel Nasser Djabi, a professor of sociology at the University of Algiers who said elections were increasingly viewed as a technique for misleading people. 'There is a real danger this may lead to the rejection of concepts of democracy.'"
Labels: concepts, democratization
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:59 AM
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