Teaching Comparative

It's all in the name

If Bryan Caplan (see previous post) thinks we need more rational voters, The Economist editors think that maybe we need better public relations for democracy.

This opinion piece would be a good discussion starter or writing prompt. What would your students say about these ideas?

De-mock-racy

The Economist's diarist wonders if freedom needs a new name.

"AT a conference session in Tallinn, chaired by your diarist, the big donors who support good causes in eastern Europe were puzzling over the question of whether it was better to train lawyers and journalists, to hand out grants to charities and campaigns, or to promote 'democracy' explicitly.

"Given that President Vladimir Putin calls himself a pure democrat (comparing himself in all seriousness to Mahatma Gandhi), it is clear that the word risks losing its meaning. Some might think that happened some years back. The Soviet-occupied zone of eastern Germany declared itself to be the 'German Democratic Republic'. The monsters in Pyongyang call their slave-state the 'Democratic People’s Republic of Korea'.

"Democracy also has specific (and largely negative) connotations in Russia. The myth assiduously stoked by the Kremlin is that the anarchy of the Yeltsin era proved that Western-style “democracy” (meaning a multi-party parliamentary system) did not work in Russia. Indeed, Russians sometimes use the punning term 'dermokratiya' (shitocracy) to express their distaste for the looting and weakness that those years have come to epitomise. Worse, the costly failure in Iraq has discredited, in many eyes at least, the whole idea of 'democracy promotion'. Pushing that hard in Russia risks backfiring.

"So maybe it would be better to use other terms: the rule of law, political freedoms, environmental awareness, public spiritedness (or in the jargon term, “civil society”). It is, after all, not what happens at elections that counts, but what goes on in-between them. Elections can only be rigged successfully when public and private institutions are too weak to object. “Democracy” alone does not prevent mob rule, winner-takes-all sectarian rivalries, and the rewarding of campaign contributions from the political pork barrel..."

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Labels: democratization

posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:10 AM