The article, "Is honeymoon with democracy over?", by Kamran Rahmat, an Islamabad-based resident editor of the Pakistani daily newspaper "Express Tribune", appeared on 30 September 2010 on the website of the daily newspaper "Gulf Times", operating out of Doha, Qatar.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=388927&version=1&template_id=46&parent_id=26
Excerpts: "Rumours have abounded about the imminent fall of government [....] 30 months after a transition to democracy from a long bout of military rule, the average Pakistani citizen wonders if that is what street battles in 2007 were waged for. [...] At the first glance, it seems to have gone all horribly wrong – the dream of a functional, sustainable democracy replaced by a sense of foreboding and despondency that seems all too familiar. But is it? Is everything really unravelling and devolving to the inevitable last-hope lure of the khakis doing another turn at 'saving' the country? Is all in the country headed for a point of no return that will usher in the much talked about political change; or is this merely a clever perception that is part willingly and part unwittingly being promoted by the media to a point where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy? An independent, pluralistic media that played a spectacular role in mobilising and achieving the transition to democracy was supposed to reflect and strengthen the citizens' aspirations and perspectives after popular governments were in place. And yet turn on a private current affairs TV channel any time of the day and the staple fare is prophecies of doom and predictions of a change.
"Not on a single private TV channel is an assertion of faith (or even hope) discernible any longer in the very democracy that the media had valiantly pushed for in 2007, along with other civil society actors. The honeymoon with democracy for the media seems to be over. Agreed the governments in both the centre and the provinces have been found woefully inept and wanting in delivering the dividends that democracy was supposed to usher in for all and sundry. [...] But what is more transparent than the disappointing performance of the governments and political parties now is the growing sense of entitlement of the media that it is the final arbiter of this performance [...]. For sure, they have a right to offer analysis and venture opinion on what is going on but this can only be based on news and events, not conjecture and theory [...]. This is exactly the kind of milieu that provides a space for the anti-democratic forces to manipulate the media and through it the perceptions that people end up embracing. [...] Instead of focusing on the citizens and their grassroots and street perspectives and being their voice, [...] today's media in Pakistan has gone from being a watchdog of public interest to being a virtual attack dog for undemocratic forces."
An example of this tendency may be provided by an undated column by one Khalid Saleem, "What price democracy?", published recently on the website of the daily newspaper "Pakistan Observer".
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=44095
Excerpts: "Democracy is the buzzword these days. [...] Ever since the then US President, George W. Bush, announced in his message to the Iraqi people on the eve of the Iraq invasion that, 'We are determined to bring (read: thrust-down-your-collective-throats) democracy to your country', the word 'democracy' has become something of a sine qua non in all statements emanating from the West. [...] Our own herd of liberal intellectuals has been weaned on Western propaganda. [...] In their estimation, any person wishing to be counted among those fit to be counted must needs be an admirer of the Western type of democracy or else. [...] Democracy, thus, is at best an over-rated system of government. Hullabaloo about the 'virtues' of democracy appears to have been blown out of all proportion. The Western propaganda notwithstanding, there is hardly any doubt that a system of government can be only as good, or as bad, as those administering it. Given dedicated, honest and well-meaning leaders, any system worth the name would be workable. On the other hand, if the leadership does not measure up, then no form of government will deliver the goods, whether democratic or otherwise! Come to think of it, what matters in the long run is how well a people are governed and not how the government in question came into being."
I can't figure out whether either of these articles appeared in print too.
Showing posts with label military rule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military rule. Show all posts
07 October 2010
23 September 2010
Article: Toppling democracy
Thongchai Winichakul, "Toppling democracy" ("Journal of Contemporary Asia", 38 [1], February 2008: pp. 11-37).
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.sameskybooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/j-of-contem-asia-2008-thongchai-winichakul-toppling-democracy.pdf
Abstract: "Thailand's 2006 royalist coup is best understood by reference to the historical context of democratisation. The dominant historiography of Thai democratisation is either a simplistic liberal view of anti-military democracy or a royalist one that is ultimately anti-democratic. This article offers a serial history of democratisation that allows us to see the long duration of layered historical processes. As democratisation is fundamentally a break from the centralised absolute monarchy, the monarchy and the monarchists, despite their up and down political fortunes, have probably played the most significant role in shaping Thai democracy since 1932. Despite that, their role and place in history has been overlooked due to the perception that they are 'above politics.' This article argues that, since 1973 in particular, the monarchists have assumed the status of the superior realm in Thai politics that claims the high moral ground above politicians and normal politics. With distaste for electoral politics, and in tacit collaboration with the so-called people's sector, activists and intellectuals, they have undermined electoral democracy in the name of 'clean politics' versus the corruption of politicians. The 2006 coup that toppled democracy was the latest effort of the monarchists to take control of the democratisation process."
Excerpts: "The fight against corruption and money politics seems indisputably a good cause. It should contribute to democracy with no harm whatsoever. In the context of Thai democratisation of the past thirty years, however, the repercussions and consequences of clean politics against elected politicians significantly contributed to the coup in 2006. [...] To understand the effects of the discourse of clean politics on democratisation, I shall elaborate its four constitutive discourses and point out how each of them has ramified to become anti-democratic. They are (i) politicians are extremely corrupt; (ii) politicians come to power by vote-buying; (iii) an election does not equal democracy; and (iv) democracy means a moral, ethical rule. [...] If a 'communist threat' was the usual reason for many military coups during the Cold War, corruption has been the usual reason for coups after the end of the communist threat in Thailand since the early 1980s. [...]
"From the 1980s, people have believed that vote-buying is rampant at every level of election. It is considered a political pandemic. [...] Given the distrust of politicians and parliament's assumed lack of legitimacy due to vote-buying, Thailand's democracy has been seriously undermined. The public as well as many intellectuals question the legitimacy of the election as a trustworthy means to democracy. [...] While these public intellectuals may support civic movements or people's power, the supporters of clean politics adopted the rhetoric to undermine the electoral and parliamentary system. During the political crisis in 2006, the royalists and the anti-Thaksin activists alike often called the Thaksin government an 'electocracy' and his rule 'monetocracy.' After the coup, as critics of the coup insisted on electoral legitimacy in democracy, the coup defenders and apologists, including the royalist activists, military leaders and many leading intellectuals, kept repeating that the staging of an election does not equal democracy. [...]
"The distrust of elections in fact goes a long way back and is deeper than the rhetoric above. It is rooted in the nationalistic conservatism that distrusts democracy for being alien to Thai culture which honours hierarchical relations and venerates the monarchy as the highest authority in the land. [...] These conservatives often remind us that a constitution, thereby democracy as well, is merely a Western object. It is not necessarily good for Thai political culture. [...] In 2005 and 2006, the anti-Thaksin movement called for the return of power to the monarchy, arguing that it fits Thai political culture, unlike electoral democracy, which is an alien political system. [...] Not only could politicians and elections not be trusted, but democracy itself is also suspect. This is the ideological basis for the royalist distaste of elections. It is compatible with the anti-electocracy discourse of liberal intellectuals, thanks to their shared distrust of the existing 'democracy.'"
Thongchai Winichakul is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.sameskybooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/j-of-contem-asia-2008-thongchai-winichakul-toppling-democracy.pdf
Abstract: "Thailand's 2006 royalist coup is best understood by reference to the historical context of democratisation. The dominant historiography of Thai democratisation is either a simplistic liberal view of anti-military democracy or a royalist one that is ultimately anti-democratic. This article offers a serial history of democratisation that allows us to see the long duration of layered historical processes. As democratisation is fundamentally a break from the centralised absolute monarchy, the monarchy and the monarchists, despite their up and down political fortunes, have probably played the most significant role in shaping Thai democracy since 1932. Despite that, their role and place in history has been overlooked due to the perception that they are 'above politics.' This article argues that, since 1973 in particular, the monarchists have assumed the status of the superior realm in Thai politics that claims the high moral ground above politicians and normal politics. With distaste for electoral politics, and in tacit collaboration with the so-called people's sector, activists and intellectuals, they have undermined electoral democracy in the name of 'clean politics' versus the corruption of politicians. The 2006 coup that toppled democracy was the latest effort of the monarchists to take control of the democratisation process."
Excerpts: "The fight against corruption and money politics seems indisputably a good cause. It should contribute to democracy with no harm whatsoever. In the context of Thai democratisation of the past thirty years, however, the repercussions and consequences of clean politics against elected politicians significantly contributed to the coup in 2006. [...] To understand the effects of the discourse of clean politics on democratisation, I shall elaborate its four constitutive discourses and point out how each of them has ramified to become anti-democratic. They are (i) politicians are extremely corrupt; (ii) politicians come to power by vote-buying; (iii) an election does not equal democracy; and (iv) democracy means a moral, ethical rule. [...] If a 'communist threat' was the usual reason for many military coups during the Cold War, corruption has been the usual reason for coups after the end of the communist threat in Thailand since the early 1980s. [...]
"From the 1980s, people have believed that vote-buying is rampant at every level of election. It is considered a political pandemic. [...] Given the distrust of politicians and parliament's assumed lack of legitimacy due to vote-buying, Thailand's democracy has been seriously undermined. The public as well as many intellectuals question the legitimacy of the election as a trustworthy means to democracy. [...] While these public intellectuals may support civic movements or people's power, the supporters of clean politics adopted the rhetoric to undermine the electoral and parliamentary system. During the political crisis in 2006, the royalists and the anti-Thaksin activists alike often called the Thaksin government an 'electocracy' and his rule 'monetocracy.' After the coup, as critics of the coup insisted on electoral legitimacy in democracy, the coup defenders and apologists, including the royalist activists, military leaders and many leading intellectuals, kept repeating that the staging of an election does not equal democracy. [...]
"The distrust of elections in fact goes a long way back and is deeper than the rhetoric above. It is rooted in the nationalistic conservatism that distrusts democracy for being alien to Thai culture which honours hierarchical relations and venerates the monarchy as the highest authority in the land. [...] These conservatives often remind us that a constitution, thereby democracy as well, is merely a Western object. It is not necessarily good for Thai political culture. [...] In 2005 and 2006, the anti-Thaksin movement called for the return of power to the monarchy, arguing that it fits Thai political culture, unlike electoral democracy, which is an alien political system. [...] Not only could politicians and elections not be trusted, but democracy itself is also suspect. This is the ideological basis for the royalist distaste of elections. It is compatible with the anti-electocracy discourse of liberal intellectuals, thanks to their shared distrust of the existing 'democracy.'"
Thongchai Winichakul is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
22 September 2010
Article: Urbanity, Class and Post-democracy in Thailand
Jim Glassman, "'The Provinces Elect Governments, Bangkok Overthrows Them': Urbanity, Class and Post-democracy in Thailand" ("Urban Studies", 47 [6], May 2010: pp. 1301-23):
http://usj.sagepub.com/content/47/6/1301
Abstract: "Urban social movements are often associated with what are considered 'progressive' causes and most activists involved in such movements are inclined to describe themselves in such terms. The Thai coup of September 2006 poses problems for any such easy identification. Although executed by the military, on behalf of royalist interests, the coup was supported by an array of primarily Bangkok-based and middle-class groups, many of them associated with organisations such as NGOs and state enterprise unions. Although some of these groups claimed anti-neo-liberal political orientations, their support for the coup effectively placed them on the side of forces opposed to quasi-Keynesian policies and in favour of specific forms of neo-liberalism – at least for Thai villagers. This paper explores this development by focusing on the Bangkok/upcountry and urban/rural divisions in Thai politics, which, although socially constructed, have taken on political substance, in part because of their grounding in regionally differentiated class structures."
Excerpts: "I argue that the coup of 2006 and its sequelae represent a slide towards 'post-democracy' – a condition where democratic political forms achieved through previous social struggles (for example, a multiparty parliament) are subverted by both differential structural power (for example, the wealth and influence of royalist institutions) and overt attempts to reign in popular influence (for example, attempts to make much of the parliament appointed, rather than elected). This slide is driven in part by the interests of an embattled middle class, stronger in Bangkok than elsewhere in the country, which cannot consistently get all that it wants out of conventional parliamentary politics. [...]
"Confronted by the contradiction between a putative commitment to democracy and the reality of enormous social privileges which they attempt to maintain, many Bangkok groups – including some 'progressive' activists – have increasingly looked to conservative forces, chiefly the monarchy, to protect their interests and impose forms of development and social order. This tendency was already apparent before the 2006 coup, but became especially evident at that point. [...] Thailand seems to have entered a period of 'post-democracy', a situation in which there is still a functioning multiparty parliament but in which governments elected by the majority cannot effectively function or carry out policies because of Bangkok-based and royalist opposition. [...]
"Bangkok-based social movements and pro-coup middle classes have emerged on the side of 'post-democracy', utilising their disproportionate political power and media exposure to overturn these political decisions. In short, Bangkok is not a site of the most progressive democratic sentiment, while the countryside is neither a site of purely corrupt patronage systems nor of the romantic rural idyll. [...] [I]n the context of on-going divergence between the prospects of the Bangkok middle classes and other Thai social groups, Thailand seems for now to have entered a 'post-democratic' period in which Bangkok political activists and opinion leaders will continue their attempts to derail the political challenges emanating from outside the capital."
The article contains an extensive bibliography of relevant literature.
Jim Glassman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia.
http://usj.sagepub.com/content/47/6/1301
Abstract: "Urban social movements are often associated with what are considered 'progressive' causes and most activists involved in such movements are inclined to describe themselves in such terms. The Thai coup of September 2006 poses problems for any such easy identification. Although executed by the military, on behalf of royalist interests, the coup was supported by an array of primarily Bangkok-based and middle-class groups, many of them associated with organisations such as NGOs and state enterprise unions. Although some of these groups claimed anti-neo-liberal political orientations, their support for the coup effectively placed them on the side of forces opposed to quasi-Keynesian policies and in favour of specific forms of neo-liberalism – at least for Thai villagers. This paper explores this development by focusing on the Bangkok/upcountry and urban/rural divisions in Thai politics, which, although socially constructed, have taken on political substance, in part because of their grounding in regionally differentiated class structures."
Excerpts: "I argue that the coup of 2006 and its sequelae represent a slide towards 'post-democracy' – a condition where democratic political forms achieved through previous social struggles (for example, a multiparty parliament) are subverted by both differential structural power (for example, the wealth and influence of royalist institutions) and overt attempts to reign in popular influence (for example, attempts to make much of the parliament appointed, rather than elected). This slide is driven in part by the interests of an embattled middle class, stronger in Bangkok than elsewhere in the country, which cannot consistently get all that it wants out of conventional parliamentary politics. [...]
"Confronted by the contradiction between a putative commitment to democracy and the reality of enormous social privileges which they attempt to maintain, many Bangkok groups – including some 'progressive' activists – have increasingly looked to conservative forces, chiefly the monarchy, to protect their interests and impose forms of development and social order. This tendency was already apparent before the 2006 coup, but became especially evident at that point. [...] Thailand seems to have entered a period of 'post-democracy', a situation in which there is still a functioning multiparty parliament but in which governments elected by the majority cannot effectively function or carry out policies because of Bangkok-based and royalist opposition. [...]
"Bangkok-based social movements and pro-coup middle classes have emerged on the side of 'post-democracy', utilising their disproportionate political power and media exposure to overturn these political decisions. In short, Bangkok is not a site of the most progressive democratic sentiment, while the countryside is neither a site of purely corrupt patronage systems nor of the romantic rural idyll. [...] [I]n the context of on-going divergence between the prospects of the Bangkok middle classes and other Thai social groups, Thailand seems for now to have entered a 'post-democratic' period in which Bangkok political activists and opinion leaders will continue their attempts to derail the political challenges emanating from outside the capital."
The article contains an extensive bibliography of relevant literature.
Jim Glassman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia.
22 June 2010
Article: Turkey, from Ally to Enemy
Michael Rubin's article "Turkey, from Ally to Enemy" will be published in the July/August 2010 issue of the neoconservative American-Jewish monthly magazine "Commentary". The article has already been put up online.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/turkey--from-ally-to-enemy-15464
Excerpts: "Turkey has changed. Gone, and gone permanently, is secular Turkey, a unique Muslim country that straddled East and West and that even maintained a cooperative relationship with Israel. Today Turkey is an Islamic republic whose government saw fit to facilitate the May 31 flotilla raid on Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey is now more aligned to Iran than to the democracies of Europe. [...] The story of Turkey's Islamic revolution is illuminating. It is the story of a charismatic leader with a methodical plan to unravel a system, a politician cynically using democracy to pursue autocracy [...]. For Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it is a dream come true. For the next generation of American presidents, diplomats, and generals, it is a disaster. [...]
"Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey and [...] charged the army with defending the state from those who would use Islam to subvert democracy. [...] Erdogan's strategy was multi-tiered. He endorsed the dream of Turkey's secular elite to enter the European Union but only to rally European diplomats to dilute the role of the Turkish military as guardians of the constitution. [...] His ideological constituents had no interest in Europe, and Erdogan himself is intolerant of European liberalism and secularism. [...] He sought to revolutionize education, dominate the judiciary, take over the police, and control the media. Erdogan worked to achieve not short-term gains on hot-button issues like the headscarf but rather a long-term cultural revolution that, when complete, would render past battles moot. [...]
"The real coup against democracy, however, came on July 14, 2008, when a Turkish prosecutor indicted 86 Turkish figures – retired military officers, prominent journalists, professors, unionists, civil-society activists [...] – on charges of plotting a coup to restore secular government. [...] The indictments had a chilling effect across society. Turks may not like where Erdogan is taking Turkey, but they now understand that even peaceful dissent will have a price. [...] Nor can liberal Turks rely on the Turkish military to save them. Bashed from the religious right and the progressive left, the Turkish military is a shadow of its former self. [...] A decade ago, Turks saw themselves in a camp with the United States, Western Europe, and Israel; today Turkish self-identity places the country firmly in a camp led by Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Hamas. Turkey may be a NATO member, but polls nevertheless show it to be the world's most anti-American country [...].
"Many diplomats and journalists inserted into this situation their own disdain for any military, let alone Turkey's, and embraced a facile dichotomy in which Islamism and democracy represented one pole, while the military, secularism, and fascism represented the other. Hence, they saw the AKP [Erdogan's Justice and Development Party] as democratic reformers, while the military became defenders of an anti-democratic order. Certainly, the healthiest democracies have no room for the military in domestic politics, but by cheering the AKP as it unraveled the military's role in upholding the constitution without simultaneously constructing another check on unconstitutional behavior, the European Union and Western diplomats paved the way for Erdogan's soft dictatorship. [...] As mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan quipped, 'Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.' Perhaps, in hindsight, the West's mistake was to ignore the danger of Erdogan's ascendance into the driver's seat."
Michael Rubin is a Senior Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Civil-Military Relations and a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/turkey--from-ally-to-enemy-15464
Excerpts: "Turkey has changed. Gone, and gone permanently, is secular Turkey, a unique Muslim country that straddled East and West and that even maintained a cooperative relationship with Israel. Today Turkey is an Islamic republic whose government saw fit to facilitate the May 31 flotilla raid on Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey is now more aligned to Iran than to the democracies of Europe. [...] The story of Turkey's Islamic revolution is illuminating. It is the story of a charismatic leader with a methodical plan to unravel a system, a politician cynically using democracy to pursue autocracy [...]. For Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it is a dream come true. For the next generation of American presidents, diplomats, and generals, it is a disaster. [...]
"Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey and [...] charged the army with defending the state from those who would use Islam to subvert democracy. [...] Erdogan's strategy was multi-tiered. He endorsed the dream of Turkey's secular elite to enter the European Union but only to rally European diplomats to dilute the role of the Turkish military as guardians of the constitution. [...] His ideological constituents had no interest in Europe, and Erdogan himself is intolerant of European liberalism and secularism. [...] He sought to revolutionize education, dominate the judiciary, take over the police, and control the media. Erdogan worked to achieve not short-term gains on hot-button issues like the headscarf but rather a long-term cultural revolution that, when complete, would render past battles moot. [...]
"The real coup against democracy, however, came on July 14, 2008, when a Turkish prosecutor indicted 86 Turkish figures – retired military officers, prominent journalists, professors, unionists, civil-society activists [...] – on charges of plotting a coup to restore secular government. [...] The indictments had a chilling effect across society. Turks may not like where Erdogan is taking Turkey, but they now understand that even peaceful dissent will have a price. [...] Nor can liberal Turks rely on the Turkish military to save them. Bashed from the religious right and the progressive left, the Turkish military is a shadow of its former self. [...] A decade ago, Turks saw themselves in a camp with the United States, Western Europe, and Israel; today Turkish self-identity places the country firmly in a camp led by Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Hamas. Turkey may be a NATO member, but polls nevertheless show it to be the world's most anti-American country [...].
"Many diplomats and journalists inserted into this situation their own disdain for any military, let alone Turkey's, and embraced a facile dichotomy in which Islamism and democracy represented one pole, while the military, secularism, and fascism represented the other. Hence, they saw the AKP [Erdogan's Justice and Development Party] as democratic reformers, while the military became defenders of an anti-democratic order. Certainly, the healthiest democracies have no room for the military in domestic politics, but by cheering the AKP as it unraveled the military's role in upholding the constitution without simultaneously constructing another check on unconstitutional behavior, the European Union and Western diplomats paved the way for Erdogan's soft dictatorship. [...] As mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan quipped, 'Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.' Perhaps, in hindsight, the West's mistake was to ignore the danger of Erdogan's ascendance into the driver's seat."
Michael Rubin is a Senior Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Civil-Military Relations and a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
11 May 2010
Article: The Mechanics of Regime Instability in Latin America
Adam Przeworski, "The Mechanics of Regime Instability in Latin America" ("Journal of Politics in Latin America", 1 [1], 2009: pp. 5-36).
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jpla/article/viewFile/20/20
Abstract: "The paper is narrowly addressed to a single puzzle: How did it happen that countries that attempted to install democracy earlier enjoyed it less frequently? Regime dynamics are driven by two mechanisms: (1) Democracies become more durable as per capita income increases, and (2) Past experiences with democracy destabilize both democracies and autocracies. As a result, countries that experiment with democracy at lower income levels experience more regime instability. Moreover, until they reach some income threshold, at any time such countries are less likely to be democratic than countries that first enter democracy when they have higher incomes. Hence, paradoxically, the resistance of European monarchies against democracy resulted in democracies that were more stable than those following post-independence attempts in Latin America."
Excerpts: "Now, the claim that Latin American countries tried democracy earlier and, most importantly, at lower levels of economic development than Europe and North America is not original, even if it often evokes surprise among ethnocentric North American and Europeans. [...] To some extent, this timing is due to the fact that several parts of Latin America participated in the 1809 election to the Cortes of Cádiz, thus launching the idea of representative institutions at the time when many European countries were involved in the Napoleonic wars and elections were still rare. But a more general reason was that Latin American wars of independence were at the same time directed against monarchical rule, while most European countries experienced a gradual devolution of power from monarchs to parliaments. [...]
"Latin Americans had to constitute their institutions anew. And they were traversing a terra incognita. Monarchies, republics with predominantly hereditary collective governing bodies, and one republic with an elected legislature and an indirectly elected president were the choices known when first Haiti in 1804 and then Venezuela in 1811 proclaimed independence. In several new countries the first form of the government was a collective body that exercised both the legislative and the executive function. Triumvirates governed Argentina from 1811 to 1814 and Venezuela in 1811-12. [...] In the end institutions based on the United States pattern prevailed – in time all Latin American political systems would have elected legislatures while placing executive function in the hands of presidents – but this alternative became complicated from the onset by Bolívar's itch to keep the position for life. [...]
"The most creative was Dr. José Gaspár Rodriguez de Francia who, having become one of two consuls who were to alternate every four months in 1813, then a dictator appointed for three years, in 1816 proclaimed himself El Dictador Perpetuo of Paraguay and ruled it until 1840 as El Supremo. While this story may sound anecdotal, Francia's innovation was both radical and durable, deserving to be placed on par with Lenin's invention of the one-party state. It was radical since the only model of dictatorship known at the time was the Roman one, and in this model dictatorship was a power that was delegated, exceptional, and limited in duration. 'Perpetual Dictator' was an oxymoron. Moreover, the last attempt to make dictatorship permanent, almost twenty centuries earlier, did not bode well for Dr. Francia's fate. Yet this invention turned out to be durable: Francia set the precedent for such illustrious gentlemen as Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Kim Il-sung, al-Gaddafi, or Castro. [...]
"Now, how is it possible that Latin American countries attempted to institute democracies at lower income levels but ended up with fewer of them at all levels? [...] [A]t a low income [...] level, the probability of democracy falling is quite high. Suppose this democracy falls. The probability that the subsequent autocracy survives is then lower, so that the probability that this country will try democracy again is higher, but the probability that the second democracy survives is also lower. This sequence can be repeated several times, so that if per capita income were constant, both regimes would become increasingly unstable. But income matters: if the economy grows in the meantime, the probability that a democracy dies declines in spite of the past regime instability. And at one time, income passes a threshold above which democracy is impregnable [...].
"Note that the reasons autocratic spells become shorter and democratic spells longer at higher incomes are different. Autocratic spells are shorter almost exclusively because countries that have higher incomes have accumulated more visits to democracy, and such visits destabilize the subsequent autocracies. Democratic spells are longer, however, only because democracy lasts longer at higher income levels. Although past visits to democracy do destabilize subsequent democratic regimes, this effect is small, while the effect of income is powerful."
Polish-born Adam Przeworski is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Politics and (by courtesy) of Economics at New York University.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jpla/article/viewFile/20/20
Abstract: "The paper is narrowly addressed to a single puzzle: How did it happen that countries that attempted to install democracy earlier enjoyed it less frequently? Regime dynamics are driven by two mechanisms: (1) Democracies become more durable as per capita income increases, and (2) Past experiences with democracy destabilize both democracies and autocracies. As a result, countries that experiment with democracy at lower income levels experience more regime instability. Moreover, until they reach some income threshold, at any time such countries are less likely to be democratic than countries that first enter democracy when they have higher incomes. Hence, paradoxically, the resistance of European monarchies against democracy resulted in democracies that were more stable than those following post-independence attempts in Latin America."
Excerpts: "Now, the claim that Latin American countries tried democracy earlier and, most importantly, at lower levels of economic development than Europe and North America is not original, even if it often evokes surprise among ethnocentric North American and Europeans. [...] To some extent, this timing is due to the fact that several parts of Latin America participated in the 1809 election to the Cortes of Cádiz, thus launching the idea of representative institutions at the time when many European countries were involved in the Napoleonic wars and elections were still rare. But a more general reason was that Latin American wars of independence were at the same time directed against monarchical rule, while most European countries experienced a gradual devolution of power from monarchs to parliaments. [...]
"Latin Americans had to constitute their institutions anew. And they were traversing a terra incognita. Monarchies, republics with predominantly hereditary collective governing bodies, and one republic with an elected legislature and an indirectly elected president were the choices known when first Haiti in 1804 and then Venezuela in 1811 proclaimed independence. In several new countries the first form of the government was a collective body that exercised both the legislative and the executive function. Triumvirates governed Argentina from 1811 to 1814 and Venezuela in 1811-12. [...] In the end institutions based on the United States pattern prevailed – in time all Latin American political systems would have elected legislatures while placing executive function in the hands of presidents – but this alternative became complicated from the onset by Bolívar's itch to keep the position for life. [...]
"The most creative was Dr. José Gaspár Rodriguez de Francia who, having become one of two consuls who were to alternate every four months in 1813, then a dictator appointed for three years, in 1816 proclaimed himself El Dictador Perpetuo of Paraguay and ruled it until 1840 as El Supremo. While this story may sound anecdotal, Francia's innovation was both radical and durable, deserving to be placed on par with Lenin's invention of the one-party state. It was radical since the only model of dictatorship known at the time was the Roman one, and in this model dictatorship was a power that was delegated, exceptional, and limited in duration. 'Perpetual Dictator' was an oxymoron. Moreover, the last attempt to make dictatorship permanent, almost twenty centuries earlier, did not bode well for Dr. Francia's fate. Yet this invention turned out to be durable: Francia set the precedent for such illustrious gentlemen as Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Kim Il-sung, al-Gaddafi, or Castro. [...]
"Now, how is it possible that Latin American countries attempted to institute democracies at lower income levels but ended up with fewer of them at all levels? [...] [A]t a low income [...] level, the probability of democracy falling is quite high. Suppose this democracy falls. The probability that the subsequent autocracy survives is then lower, so that the probability that this country will try democracy again is higher, but the probability that the second democracy survives is also lower. This sequence can be repeated several times, so that if per capita income were constant, both regimes would become increasingly unstable. But income matters: if the economy grows in the meantime, the probability that a democracy dies declines in spite of the past regime instability. And at one time, income passes a threshold above which democracy is impregnable [...].
"Note that the reasons autocratic spells become shorter and democratic spells longer at higher incomes are different. Autocratic spells are shorter almost exclusively because countries that have higher incomes have accumulated more visits to democracy, and such visits destabilize the subsequent autocracies. Democratic spells are longer, however, only because democracy lasts longer at higher income levels. Although past visits to democracy do destabilize subsequent democratic regimes, this effect is small, while the effect of income is powerful."
Polish-born Adam Przeworski is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Politics and (by courtesy) of Economics at New York University.
08 May 2010
Book: Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear
Monique Skidmore, "Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004):
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14094.html
Publisher's description: "To come to Burma, one of the few places where despotism still dominates, is to take both a physical and an emotional journey and, like most Burmese, to become caught up in the daily management of fear. Based on Monique Skidmore's experiences living in the capital city of Rangoon, Karaoke Fascism is the first ethnography of fear in Burma and provides a sobering look at the psychological strategies employed by the Burmese people in order to survive under a military dictatorship that seeks to invade and dominate every aspect of life. Skidmore looks at the psychology and politics of fear under the SLORC and SPDC regimes. Encompassing the period of antijunta student street protests, her work describes a project of authoritarian modernity, where Burmese people are conscripted as army porters and must attend mass rallies, chant slogans, construct roads, and engage in other forms of forced labor. In a harrowing portrayal of life deep within an authoritarian state, recovering heroin addicts, psychiatric patients, girl prostitutes, and poor and vulnerable women in forcibly relocated townships speak about fear, hope, and their ongoing resistance to four decades of oppression.
"'Karaoke fascism' is a term the author uses to describe the layers of conformity that Burmese people present to each other and, more important, to the military regime. This complex veneer rests on resistance, collaboration, and complicity, and describes not only the Burmese form of oppression but also the Burmese response to a life of domination. Providing an inside look at the madness and the militarization of the city, Skidmore argues that the weight of fear, the anxiety of constant vulnerability, and the numbing demands of the State upon individuals force Burmese people to cast themselves as automata; they deliberately present lifeless hollow bodies for the State's use, while their minds reach out into the cosmos for an array of alternate realities. Skidmore raises ethical and methodological questions about conducting research on fear when doing so evokes the very emotion in question, in both researcher and informant."
Review: "Skidmore captures perfectly how even the passing visitor to Burma absorbs the atmosphere of fear and internalises the vulnerability and precariousness of a life under a military dictatorship. It is rare for an academic work to be so captivating." ("Australian Journal of Anthropology")
The book if fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=nVxwUkwIU8MC&printsec=frontcover
Professor Monique Skidmore is now Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra.
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14094.html
Publisher's description: "To come to Burma, one of the few places where despotism still dominates, is to take both a physical and an emotional journey and, like most Burmese, to become caught up in the daily management of fear. Based on Monique Skidmore's experiences living in the capital city of Rangoon, Karaoke Fascism is the first ethnography of fear in Burma and provides a sobering look at the psychological strategies employed by the Burmese people in order to survive under a military dictatorship that seeks to invade and dominate every aspect of life. Skidmore looks at the psychology and politics of fear under the SLORC and SPDC regimes. Encompassing the period of antijunta student street protests, her work describes a project of authoritarian modernity, where Burmese people are conscripted as army porters and must attend mass rallies, chant slogans, construct roads, and engage in other forms of forced labor. In a harrowing portrayal of life deep within an authoritarian state, recovering heroin addicts, psychiatric patients, girl prostitutes, and poor and vulnerable women in forcibly relocated townships speak about fear, hope, and their ongoing resistance to four decades of oppression.
"'Karaoke fascism' is a term the author uses to describe the layers of conformity that Burmese people present to each other and, more important, to the military regime. This complex veneer rests on resistance, collaboration, and complicity, and describes not only the Burmese form of oppression but also the Burmese response to a life of domination. Providing an inside look at the madness and the militarization of the city, Skidmore argues that the weight of fear, the anxiety of constant vulnerability, and the numbing demands of the State upon individuals force Burmese people to cast themselves as automata; they deliberately present lifeless hollow bodies for the State's use, while their minds reach out into the cosmos for an array of alternate realities. Skidmore raises ethical and methodological questions about conducting research on fear when doing so evokes the very emotion in question, in both researcher and informant."
Review: "Skidmore captures perfectly how even the passing visitor to Burma absorbs the atmosphere of fear and internalises the vulnerability and precariousness of a life under a military dictatorship. It is rare for an academic work to be so captivating." ("Australian Journal of Anthropology")
The book if fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=nVxwUkwIU8MC&printsec=frontcover
Professor Monique Skidmore is now Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra.
29 March 2010
Book: Non-Democratic Regimes
A revised and updated second edition of Paul Brooker's "Non-Democratic Regimes" was published by Palgrave Macmillan in January 2009:
www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=289293
Publisher's description: "Despite talk of the 'triumph of democracy', much of the world is still ruled by political or military dictatorships. Paul Brooker provides a comprehensive assessment of the nature of authoritarian regimes, their changing character in the 21st Century world, and the main theoretical explanations of their incidence, character and performance."
Contents: Theoretical Approaches; Monarchical and Personal Rule; Military Rule; One-Party Rule; Consolidation, Legitimacy and Control; Parties and Performance; Democratization and the Demise of Dictatorship; Semi-dictatorships and Semidemocracies; The Future of Non-Democratic Regimes
No editorial reviews of either the first or second edition of this book are to be found.
Paul Brooker is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=289293
Publisher's description: "Despite talk of the 'triumph of democracy', much of the world is still ruled by political or military dictatorships. Paul Brooker provides a comprehensive assessment of the nature of authoritarian regimes, their changing character in the 21st Century world, and the main theoretical explanations of their incidence, character and performance."
Contents: Theoretical Approaches; Monarchical and Personal Rule; Military Rule; One-Party Rule; Consolidation, Legitimacy and Control; Parties and Performance; Democratization and the Demise of Dictatorship; Semi-dictatorships and Semidemocracies; The Future of Non-Democratic Regimes
No editorial reviews of either the first or second edition of this book are to be found.
Paul Brooker is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
23 January 2010
Book: The King Never Smiles
The meaning of democracy and democratic rule in Thailand, a constitutional monarchy frequently subjected to military coups, have been hotly contested for decades. The first unauthorized biography of the King of Thailand tries to shed light on an underappreciated component of it – Paul M. Handley's "The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej" (Yale University Press, 2006):
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300106824
From the publisher's description: "Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world's longest-serving monarch. The King Never Smiles [...] tells the unexpected story [...] how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha, and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political and autocratic. [...] [L]ooking beyond the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely modified feudal dynasty.
"When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, silencing critics while winning the hearts and minds of his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch – his life, his thinking, and his ruling philosophy."
Reviews: "For too long, the issue of the monarchy has been the prone elephant that analysts of Thai history and politics have had to treat carefully around. That era should now pass. ... In sum, this is the classic story of an exceptional man recrafting a monarchy against the grain of an era." (Chris Baker, "Asia Sentinel")
"A new and comprehensive history of the Thai modern monarchy ... [which] presents a direct counterpoint to years of methodical royal image-making." (Jane Perlez, "The Sunday Telegraph")
"This work is essential to understanding Thailand's modern political history and, particularly, the latest coup." (Major Dewayne J. Creamer, "Proceedings"/US Naval Institute)
Excerpt: "[U]nquestioning adoration also arises from the toughly enforced law of lèse-majesté protecting his inviolateness. Embedded within national security statutes, the lèse-majesté law is applied to protect not only the person of the king and his immediate family but the institution of the monarchy itself, both current and historical. Maligning even a previous king can bring charges, conviction for which could bring over ten years' imprisonment. [...]
"[O]ver time he concluded that elected parliaments were self-serving and unrepresentative of the people's true needs. He decided that constitutional law in practice benefited the non-royal elite and didn't protect his subjects. Ultimately, he believed, European-style democracy, constitutionalism, and capitalism only divided the people, undermining the unifying and justice-dispensing role of the dhammaraja [king]. In his alternative vision, the modern Thai state would be guided by the king and the laws of dhamma, and administered by virtuous, loyal, able, and also tough men, neo-princes found in the top ranks of the military and civil service who worked at their jobs under the king's guidance for the good of the whole."
For reasons of lèse-majesté, the book has been banned in Thailand and local authorities blocked access to websites advertising it. It is also not for sale in many other Asian countries.
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=d75WYMdp8-0C&printsec=frontcover
Paul M. Handley is a freelance journalist who lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Thailand for thirteen years.
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300106824
From the publisher's description: "Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world's longest-serving monarch. The King Never Smiles [...] tells the unexpected story [...] how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha, and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political and autocratic. [...] [L]ooking beyond the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely modified feudal dynasty.
"When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, silencing critics while winning the hearts and minds of his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch – his life, his thinking, and his ruling philosophy."
Reviews: "For too long, the issue of the monarchy has been the prone elephant that analysts of Thai history and politics have had to treat carefully around. That era should now pass. ... In sum, this is the classic story of an exceptional man recrafting a monarchy against the grain of an era." (Chris Baker, "Asia Sentinel")
"A new and comprehensive history of the Thai modern monarchy ... [which] presents a direct counterpoint to years of methodical royal image-making." (Jane Perlez, "The Sunday Telegraph")
"This work is essential to understanding Thailand's modern political history and, particularly, the latest coup." (Major Dewayne J. Creamer, "Proceedings"/US Naval Institute)
Excerpt: "[U]nquestioning adoration also arises from the toughly enforced law of lèse-majesté protecting his inviolateness. Embedded within national security statutes, the lèse-majesté law is applied to protect not only the person of the king and his immediate family but the institution of the monarchy itself, both current and historical. Maligning even a previous king can bring charges, conviction for which could bring over ten years' imprisonment. [...]
"[O]ver time he concluded that elected parliaments were self-serving and unrepresentative of the people's true needs. He decided that constitutional law in practice benefited the non-royal elite and didn't protect his subjects. Ultimately, he believed, European-style democracy, constitutionalism, and capitalism only divided the people, undermining the unifying and justice-dispensing role of the dhammaraja [king]. In his alternative vision, the modern Thai state would be guided by the king and the laws of dhamma, and administered by virtuous, loyal, able, and also tough men, neo-princes found in the top ranks of the military and civil service who worked at their jobs under the king's guidance for the good of the whole."
For reasons of lèse-majesté, the book has been banned in Thailand and local authorities blocked access to websites advertising it. It is also not for sale in many other Asian countries.
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=d75WYMdp8-0C&printsec=frontcover
Paul M. Handley is a freelance journalist who lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Thailand for thirteen years.
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