On 1 January 2009, "Time" published on its website an article titled "Asia's Dithering Democracies", authored by the magazine's Southeast Asia Bureau Chief, Hannah Beech, who is of Japanese and American parentage.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1869271,00.html
Excerpts: "After the shackles of colonialism were overthrown, largely after World War II, the 21st century was supposed to herald the ascent of democracy in Asia. While parts of the region – from Burma and North Korea to Laos, Vietnam and China – are still governed by diktat, the past couple of decades have created a region that to all outward appearances is largely democratic. [...] Yet throughout 2008, many Asians appeared to progressively lose their faith in democratic politics. [...] In many ways, the challenges of Asian democracy are a reflection of its youth. Democracy in the West evolved over centuries – and, even then, its proponents understood its limitations [....] Asia, for the most part, has raced through the democratization process in just a couple of decades. [...] Growing pains may be forgiven in emerging democracies. But if the current political instabilities are allowed to metastasize, Asian nations could tire of the notion of democracy altogether because it's considered too messy, ineffectual or corrupt.
"In South Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines, a study by the governance-tracking Asian Barometer Project found that more citizens believed that the nations' recent democratic transitions had brought no improvement to their lives than those who saw positive changes. With time softening the memories of autocratic rule, nostalgia for overthrown dictators is spreading. Some are even calling for a resurgence of so-called 'Asian values,' a mix of paternalistic discipline and market economics that fell into disregard after the 1997 financial meltdown [...]. In [...] many parts of Asia, members of the educated élite bristle at the notion that Western-style democracy is a one-size-fits-all political system. [...]
"Although the Asian Barometer Project found that the majority of Asians say they support most democratic ideals, their commitment to limits on a leader's power is far lower than that of people polled in Europe or even sub-Saharan Africa. [...] This ruler-knows-best attitude can make Asians act more like subjects than citizens. Militaries – the other power pole in much of Asia – can meddle in politics without much public distress from the masses. [...] When Asians finally do react against their governments, it is often in extremis, anger spilling onto the streets in revolutionary-style rallies. [...] For frustrated farmers or construction workers or street vendors, it may be easier to imagine political change through a groundswell of antigovernment rallies rather than through checking one of many underwhelming candidates on a ballot. [...] The backlash against electoral politics by the very people who were recently its proponents may be the most troubling sign of Asian democracy under siege."
It is not mentioned whether the article appeared in print too.
Showing posts with label elite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elite. Show all posts
26 September 2010
14 May 2010
Book: The Liberal Model and Africa: Elites Against Democracy
Kenneth Good, "The Liberal Model and Africa: Elites Against Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001):
www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=261248
Publisher's description: "This book critically examines the realities of liberal democracy; its elitism and non-accountability; and its inequalities and injustices. Participatory systems and movements, whether in Athens, seventeenth and nineteenth century England, or South Africa 1970-1990, are more effective in satisfying the democratic aspirations of the people and in curtailing ambitious elites, than what is passed off now as 'democracy'. By interrogating contemporary democratic regimes, in the United States, and in Botswana and South Africa, the severe limitations and constraints inherent in liberal democracy are highlighted. The need for a clear evaluation of what constituted democracy emerges as a powerful message of Kenneth Good's argument."
Endorsements: "[A] searching, powerful and innovative critique of liberal democracy, notably as it has arrived in Southern Africa." (Roger Southall, Rhodes University)
"This is indeed a useful and timely contribution to the democracy debate in Africa." (Francis B. Nyamnjoh, University of Botswana)
Review: "[Kenneth Good] illustrates in this important book, no country [...] has embraced participatory democracy with its egalitarian face, preferring instead the elitism of the liberal model." ("The Sunday Independent")
Australian-born Kenneth Good was Professor of Political Studies at the University of Botswana. He was declared an "undesirable person" and deported from Botswana in 2005.
www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=261248
Publisher's description: "This book critically examines the realities of liberal democracy; its elitism and non-accountability; and its inequalities and injustices. Participatory systems and movements, whether in Athens, seventeenth and nineteenth century England, or South Africa 1970-1990, are more effective in satisfying the democratic aspirations of the people and in curtailing ambitious elites, than what is passed off now as 'democracy'. By interrogating contemporary democratic regimes, in the United States, and in Botswana and South Africa, the severe limitations and constraints inherent in liberal democracy are highlighted. The need for a clear evaluation of what constituted democracy emerges as a powerful message of Kenneth Good's argument."
Endorsements: "[A] searching, powerful and innovative critique of liberal democracy, notably as it has arrived in Southern Africa." (Roger Southall, Rhodes University)
"This is indeed a useful and timely contribution to the democracy debate in Africa." (Francis B. Nyamnjoh, University of Botswana)
Review: "[Kenneth Good] illustrates in this important book, no country [...] has embraced participatory democracy with its egalitarian face, preferring instead the elitism of the liberal model." ("The Sunday Independent")
Australian-born Kenneth Good was Professor of Political Studies at the University of Botswana. He was declared an "undesirable person" and deported from Botswana in 2005.
30 March 2010
Interview: Putting democracy on hold to fight climate change
More from the environmental front: Yesterday, the "Guardian" newspaper printed an interview with the 90-year-old independent British scientist James Lovelock, named one of the world's top-100 global public intellectuals by "Prospect" magazine in 2005 (article "James Lovelock: 'Fudging data is a sin against science'" by Leo Hickman):
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
During the interview, Lovelock reportedly fired "off verbal thunderbolts at the various 'dumbos' with whom we have bestowed our collective fate: namely, 'the politicians, scientists and lobbyists'. [...] He is not one to toss around crumbs of comfort when he believes they're not justified, and displays a great deal of contempt for what he believes to be the naive idealism and ideologies of much of the current environmental movement – a significant proportion of which still looks up to him with a certain reverence. For example, it was his high-profile switch a few years ago to promoting nuclear energy as the best hope for saving ourselves that helped convince many environmentalists to rethink their instinctive opposition to this technology. Now, he says, he is not convinced that any meaningful response to 'global heating', as he likes to call it, can be achieved from within the modern democracies of the western world.
"'We need a more authoritative world,' he says resolutely. 'We've become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It's all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can't do that. You've got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. They should be very accountable too, of course – but it can't happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.'"
In a full transcript of the interview posted by Hickman on the Guardian's environment blog, Lovelock is quoted as saying: "Elitism is important in science. It is vital. [...] Science was always elitist and has to be elitist. The very idea of diluting it down [to be more egalitarian] is crazy. We're paying the price for it now."
And on the Copenhagen summit: "The UN was a lovely idea, but its primary objective was to make sure the British Empire was got rid of. You just can't get all those people to agree."
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
During the interview, Lovelock reportedly fired "off verbal thunderbolts at the various 'dumbos' with whom we have bestowed our collective fate: namely, 'the politicians, scientists and lobbyists'. [...] He is not one to toss around crumbs of comfort when he believes they're not justified, and displays a great deal of contempt for what he believes to be the naive idealism and ideologies of much of the current environmental movement – a significant proportion of which still looks up to him with a certain reverence. For example, it was his high-profile switch a few years ago to promoting nuclear energy as the best hope for saving ourselves that helped convince many environmentalists to rethink their instinctive opposition to this technology. Now, he says, he is not convinced that any meaningful response to 'global heating', as he likes to call it, can be achieved from within the modern democracies of the western world.
"'We need a more authoritative world,' he says resolutely. 'We've become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It's all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can't do that. You've got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. They should be very accountable too, of course – but it can't happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.'"
In a full transcript of the interview posted by Hickman on the Guardian's environment blog, Lovelock is quoted as saying: "Elitism is important in science. It is vital. [...] Science was always elitist and has to be elitist. The very idea of diluting it down [to be more egalitarian] is crazy. We're paying the price for it now."
And on the Copenhagen summit: "The UN was a lovely idea, but its primary objective was to make sure the British Empire was got rid of. You just can't get all those people to agree."
25 January 2010
Book: Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
Did last week's US Supreme Court decision to lift restrictions on campaign contributions by business corporations (and labour unions and other special interests) really change anything? Those who do not realize just how closely linked democracy and capitalism are – and always have been –, may call it "the end of democracy" (as evidenced by so many blog posts).
The others may be reminded of any number of books and articles on the subject. For example, Sheldon S. Wolin's "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism", published in 2008 by Princeton University Press:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8606.html
Publisher's description: "Democracy is struggling in America – by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms 'inverted totalitarianism'?
"Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive – and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a 'managed democracy' where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror."
Of particular interest may be the chapter titled "Intellectual Elites against Democracy". Excerpt: "[H]istorically, the idea of elite rule conceived democracy as its antithesis and natural enemy. [...] Today, when the appeal of democracy is being touted by ruling elites and exploited as an instrument of American power, elite contempt is prudently camouflaged, or perhaps sublimated, as managed democracy."
Reviews: "[A] rare, chilling analysis of intellectual critics of democracy. If democracy means more than occasional elections and protection of those rights that are compatible with economic and political elites' interests, Wolin's analysis of our democratic predicament is shocking, solid, and fundamentally correct." (C.P. Waligorski, "Choice")
"Building on his fifty years as a political theorist and proponent of radical democracy, Wolin here extends his concern with the extinguishing of the political and its replacement by fraudulent simulations of democratic process." (Jonathan Crary, "Artforum")
"Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within." (Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School)
"[H]e contends that the institutions and practices that Americans regarded as their defense against totalitarianism – and other forms of authoritarian domination – have failed them." (Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania)
"Wolin argues that the unquestioned faith in the virtues of free market capitalism has dramatically narrowed the range of policy options that are on the table when debate turns to resolving the US's ills." (Alex Waddan, "International Affairs")
"[A] comprehensive diagnosis of our failings as a democratic polity [...] including [...] what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors." (Chalmers Johnson, "Truthdig")
While I believe that Wolin's solution, radical democracy, is an illusion, his criticism of current democracy stands.
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including full table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=2hq29ALouCQC&printsec=frontcover
A new edition of this book in paperback is announced for February/March 2010.
Sheldon S. Wolin is Professor of Politcs Emeritus at Princeton.
The others may be reminded of any number of books and articles on the subject. For example, Sheldon S. Wolin's "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism", published in 2008 by Princeton University Press:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8606.html
Publisher's description: "Democracy is struggling in America – by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms 'inverted totalitarianism'?
"Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive – and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a 'managed democracy' where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror."
Of particular interest may be the chapter titled "Intellectual Elites against Democracy". Excerpt: "[H]istorically, the idea of elite rule conceived democracy as its antithesis and natural enemy. [...] Today, when the appeal of democracy is being touted by ruling elites and exploited as an instrument of American power, elite contempt is prudently camouflaged, or perhaps sublimated, as managed democracy."
Reviews: "[A] rare, chilling analysis of intellectual critics of democracy. If democracy means more than occasional elections and protection of those rights that are compatible with economic and political elites' interests, Wolin's analysis of our democratic predicament is shocking, solid, and fundamentally correct." (C.P. Waligorski, "Choice")
"Building on his fifty years as a political theorist and proponent of radical democracy, Wolin here extends his concern with the extinguishing of the political and its replacement by fraudulent simulations of democratic process." (Jonathan Crary, "Artforum")
"Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within." (Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School)
"[H]e contends that the institutions and practices that Americans regarded as their defense against totalitarianism – and other forms of authoritarian domination – have failed them." (Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania)
"Wolin argues that the unquestioned faith in the virtues of free market capitalism has dramatically narrowed the range of policy options that are on the table when debate turns to resolving the US's ills." (Alex Waddan, "International Affairs")
"[A] comprehensive diagnosis of our failings as a democratic polity [...] including [...] what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors." (Chalmers Johnson, "Truthdig")
While I believe that Wolin's solution, radical democracy, is an illusion, his criticism of current democracy stands.
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including full table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=2hq29ALouCQC&printsec=frontcover
A new edition of this book in paperback is announced for February/March 2010.
Sheldon S. Wolin is Professor of Politcs Emeritus at Princeton.
18 January 2010
Book: The Citizenry and the Collapse of Democracy
Currently on sale with a 34% discount (US and Canada only): Nancy Bermeo, "Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Collapse of Democracy" (Princeton University Press, 2003):
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7663.html
Publisher's description: "For generations, influential thinkers – often citing the tragic polarization that took place during Germany's Great Depression – have suspected that people's loyalty to democratic institutions erodes under pressure and that citizens gravitate toward antidemocratic extremes in times of political and economic crisis. But do people really defect from democracy when times get tough? Do ordinary people play a leading role in the collapse of popular government?
"Based on extensive research, this book overturns the common wisdom. It shows that the German experience was exceptional, that people's affinity for particular political positions are surprisingly stable, and that what is often labeled polarization is the result not of vote switching but of such factors as expansion of the franchise, elite defections, and the mobilization of new voters. Democratic collapses are caused less by changes in popular preferences than by the actions of political elites who polarize themselves and mistake the actions of a few for the preferences of the many. These conclusions are drawn from the study of twenty cases, including every democracy that collapsed in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in interwar Europe, every South American democracy that fell to the Right after the Cuban Revolution, and three democracies that avoided breakdown despite serious economic and political challenges.
"Unique in its historical and regional scope, this book offers unsettling but important lessons about civil society and regime change".
Nancy Bermeo is Nuffield Professor of Comparative Politics at Oxford and Professor of Politics at Princeton.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7663.html
Publisher's description: "For generations, influential thinkers – often citing the tragic polarization that took place during Germany's Great Depression – have suspected that people's loyalty to democratic institutions erodes under pressure and that citizens gravitate toward antidemocratic extremes in times of political and economic crisis. But do people really defect from democracy when times get tough? Do ordinary people play a leading role in the collapse of popular government?
"Based on extensive research, this book overturns the common wisdom. It shows that the German experience was exceptional, that people's affinity for particular political positions are surprisingly stable, and that what is often labeled polarization is the result not of vote switching but of such factors as expansion of the franchise, elite defections, and the mobilization of new voters. Democratic collapses are caused less by changes in popular preferences than by the actions of political elites who polarize themselves and mistake the actions of a few for the preferences of the many. These conclusions are drawn from the study of twenty cases, including every democracy that collapsed in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in interwar Europe, every South American democracy that fell to the Right after the Cuban Revolution, and three democracies that avoided breakdown despite serious economic and political challenges.
"Unique in its historical and regional scope, this book offers unsettling but important lessons about civil society and regime change".
Nancy Bermeo is Nuffield Professor of Comparative Politics at Oxford and Professor of Politics at Princeton.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
