Article: State crimes against democracy in the war on terror

Lance deHaven-Smith, "State crimes against democracy in the war on terror: applying the Nuremberg principles to the Bush-Cheney Administration" ("Contemporary Politics", 16 [4], December 2010: pp. 403-20):

www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a929282687

Abstract: "This article asks whether, in waging war in the Middle East, the Bush-Cheney Administration developed and executed a conspiracy comparable to the one for which Nazi leaders were tried, convicted, and executed at Nuremberg after World War II. To meet the Nuremberg standards, such a conspiracy must include efforts to subvert the constitutional order. Today, scholars refer to these actions as 'state crimes against democracy' (SCADs). After explicating the Nuremberg standards, the article applies them to the Bush-Cheney Administration's 'war on terror'. The conclusion reached is that evidence of a SCAD-driven conspiracy is extensive and certainly adequate by the Nuremberg standards to warrant investigations and trials."

Excerpts: "To the extent the Bush-Cheney actions mirror the crimes of the Nazis, the administration's moral guilt becomes rather clear even if Bush, Cheney, and other responsible persons are for some reason beyond the reach of the national and international legal systems as they are now constituted. In the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the defendants were charged with, among other crimes, conspiring to [...] transform democratic Germany into a police state by contriving and exploiting threats to the nation's stability and security [...]. Hitler and his associates were charged with staging acts of domestic terrorism, issuing false warnings of impending coups, conducting false-flag attacks on the nation's frontiers, and in other ways mobilizing mass support for authoritarian government and aggressive war. [...]

"The IMT [International Military Tribunal] did not use the term 'state crimes' or 'crimes against democracy', but its jurisdiction and judgments prefigured the SCAD construct [....] [S]tatutory and constitutional reforms should be adopted to strengthen democratic governing institutions so that future presidents cannot repeat past abuses. If, as the evidence indicates, the Bush-Cheney Administration succeeded in hijacking American democracy, the political system was and remains quite vulnerable to SCADs by top officials. [...] The high crimes of the Bush-Cheney Administration show that representative democracy is quite vulnerable to antidemocratic conspiracies in high office."

Lance deHaven-Smith is a Professor in the Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University.

Article: What Checks and Balances in a Democratic Dictatorship?

One M. Rafic Soormally, apparently based in London, is credited as the guest author of a blog post titled "What Checks and Balances in a Democratic Dictatorship?", published on 14 October 2010 on the website of the bilingual (French and English) Mauritian daily newspaper "Le Matinal".

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.lematinal.com/blogs/7847-Blog-What-Checks-and-Balances-in-a-Democratic-Dictatorship.html

Excerpts: "Debates are presently raging on what to do with the presidential system imposed on Mauritians. The [...] system of political control is not an invention of democracy, and people are being grossly misled. [...] Majority rule must necessarily command over 50% of the votes but this is hardly the case in any so-called democracy. In practice, a minority almost always rules through a process of 'buying' votes through electoral promises and unspeakable forms of corruption perpetrated by a capitalist system wherein less that 10% of the population owns over 90% of the wealth. Moreover, people are forced to vote for candidates selected by political parties and not by them. Democracy is a most manipulative, infectious and lying political system controlled by powerful lobbies and is a [sic] most war-mongering system the world has ever known through the perpetration of terror, invasions, occupations, land theft, decimation of whole populations and the use of weapons of mass destruction such as Nuclear Bombs (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah), Agent Orange and Napalm (Vietnam), Phosphorous Bombs (Palestine), Cluster and Uranium Bombs and Biological Weapons (Iraq, Afghanistan), and more. [...]

"Adolph Hitler, George Bush, Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu, Nicolas Sarkozy have all been 'democratically' elected but they all act/ed like dictators. [...] In theory, the US Constitution guarantees the Separation of Powers between the three branches of government [...]. In practice, there is overwhelming evidence that all three branches do act in concert as they are dictated by the same powerful lobbies, for example, in decisions to embark on false flag operations, to pass dictatorial laws and make wars, not to mention that the US is still a very racist country built upon the genocide of the Native Americans. The US is still torturing people they kidnapped and transported to Guantanamo Cuba, Diego Garcia Mauritius and elsewhere, and all checks and balances are non-existent. The President effectively has dictatorial powers [...]. The notion of checks and balances has become just another myth in most modern democracies. The strategy is to find ways to dominate the people, and the world. [...] The Mauritian President is a symbol of dictatorship as, like the British Queen, he is above the law too."

Article: Why western-style democracy is not suitable for Africa

George Ayittey is the author of a commentary article titled "Why western-style democracy is not suitable for Africa", published on 20 August 2010 on the CNN news website.

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/20/ayittey.democracy.africa/index.html

Excerpts: "Western-style multi-party democracy is possible but not suitable for Africa. [...] The alternative is to take decisions by consensus. [...] In the early 1990s, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the winds of change swept across Africa, toppling long-standing autocrats. In our haste to democratize – and also as a condition for Western aid – we copied and adopted the Western form of democracy and neglected to build upon our own democratic tradition. The Western model allowed an elected leader to use power and the state machinery to advance the economic interests of his ethnic group and exclude all others [...]. Virtually all of Africa's civil wars were started by politically marginalized or excluded groups. At Africa's traditional village level, a chief is chosen by the Queen Mother of the royal family to rule for life. His appointment must be ratified by the Council of Elders, which consists of heads of extended families in the village. In governance, the chief must consult with the Council on all important matters. [...] If the chief and the Council cannot reach unanimous decision on an important issue, a village meeting is called and the issue put before the people, who will debate it until they reach a consensus. [...]

"If the chief is 'bad' he can be recalled by the Queen Mother, removed by the Council of Elders, or abandoned by the people, who will vote with their feet to settle somewhere else. [...] Africans could have built upon this system. In the West, the basic economic and social unit is the individual; in Africa, it is the extended family or the collective. The American says, 'I am because I am.' The African says, 'I am because we are.' The 'we' denotes the community. So let each group choose their leaders and place them in a National Assembly. Next, let each province or state choose their leaders and place them in a National Council. Choose the president from this National Council and avoid the huge expenditures on election campaigning that comes with Western-style democracy. Those resources can be better put to development in poor African countries. Next, let the president and National Council take their decisions by consensus. If there is a deadlock, refer the issue to the National Assembly. This type of democracy is in consonance with our own African heritage."

Ghanaian-born George Ayittey is a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University, Washington, DC, a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute, and an Associate Scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). In 2008, the magazines "Prospect" (UK) and "Foreign Policy" (US) listed him as one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals".

Article: On Democracy and Kings

John C. Médaille is the author of an article titled "On Democracy and Kings", which appeared on 15 September 2010 as the first of a series of articles in the fortnightly traditionalist Roman Catholic US newspaper "The Remnant" (43 [15]: no page numbers given).

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2010-0915-medaille-monarchy.htm

Excerpts: "[I]t is clear to me, especially in this late date of our democracy, that it enthrones the will of determined and well-financed minorities, that it dissolves the customs and traditions of the people, and that it has no concern for the future. And a king may indeed be a tyrant, but such is the exception rather than the rule. [...] A king, no less than a president, must consider the forces and interests in his kingdom. But a king is free to judge the justice of the arguments; a president is free only to count the votes. And while the president might attempt to engage in persuasion, in the end he himself can only be persuaded by power, that is, by whoever controls the votes, which is very likely to be the one who controls the money. A king may also be persuaded by power and money, but he is always free to be persuaded by justice. And even when a king is a tyrant, he is an identifiable tyrant; much worse is when a people live in a tyranny they may not name, a system where the forms of democracy serve as cover for the reality of tyranny. And that, I believe, is our situation today. [...]

"Modern democracy has come to mean, in preference to all other possible forms, electoral democracy [...]. Since this democracy is something we are willing to both kill and die for, it assumes the status of a religion, albeit a secular one. Like all religions, electoral democracy has its central sacrament, its central liturgy, and its central dogma; its sacrament is the secret ballot, its liturgy is the election campaign, and its dogma is that the election will represent the will of the people. But is this dogma true in any sense? [...] One might respond that it is the will of the people who cared enough to vote. However, that ignores the fact that there are people (like myself) who care enough not to vote; people who find no party acceptable, or worse, find that both parties are really the same party with cosmetic differences for the entertainment and manipulation of the public. [...] Further, we can ask if a bare majority is actually a sufficient margin for any really important decision, one that commits everyone to endorse serious and abiding actions. For example, should 51% be allowed to drag the rest into war? [...]

"[D]emocracies tend to erode traditions by pandering to current desires. [...] In abandoning the past, democracy also abandons the future. We pile the children with debts they cannot pay, wars they cannot win, obligations they cannot meet [...]. In truth, elections are markets with very high entry costs. [...] Indeed, in the 2008 elections, campaign costs were a staggering $5.3 billion, and that was just for the national races. There are very limited sources for that kind of money, and the political process must, perforce, be dominated by those sources. [...] And why is so much money needed? Because the political arts in a democracy are not the arts of deliberation and persuasion, which are relatively inexpensive, but are the arts of manipulation and propaganda, which are extremely costly. The appeal is almost never to the intelligence, but to raw passion and emotion. The path to power in a democracy, the surest way to ensure the loyalty of one's followers, is to exaggerate small differences into great 'issues.' [...]

"A thing is known by its proper limits, and a thing without limits becomes its own opposite. Thus democracy, sacralized and absolutized, becomes its own opposite, a thinly disguised oligarchy of power which uses all the arts of propaganda to convince the public that their votes matter. There is precedent for this. The Western Roman Empire maintained the Republican form and offices. Consul, quaestor, aedile, and tribune remained and there were hotly contested and highly expensive campaigns for these offices. The army still marched under the banner not of the emperor, but of the SPQR, 'The Senate and People of Rome.' But of course it was all a sham; real power lay with the emperor and with the army and the merchant/landowning classes whose interests he largely represented, while buying off the plebs with the world's largest welfare state. But at least the Romans could see their emperor, could know his name, could love him or hate him. We are not permitted to see our real rulers, and never permitted to name them. The democratic sham covers the oligarchic reality."

The second installment of the series, an article titled "A Real Catholic Monarchy", appeared in "The Remnant" on 30 September 2010 (43 [16]: no page numbers given).

Excerpt: "A modern bureaucrat, in the normal course of his day, exercises more power than a medieval king; the bureaucrat can, with a stroke of a pen, take away your business or your children, thereby making tyranny a sort of daily routine; the bureaucrat's writ does indeed run as law, as long as the proper forms are filled out ..."

The full text of this article is only accessible to subscribers of the paper (available in print or as e-edition).

I was not able to ascertain whether there will be further installments in future issues of "The Remnant".

John C. Médaille is Adjunct Instructor of Theology at the University of Dallas.

Article: Neo-Liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy

Wendy Brown, "Neo-Liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy" ("Theory & Event", 7 [1], 2003: no page numbers given):

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/summary/v007/7.1brown.html

Excerpt: "For the American Left, the wake of 9/11, the War on Terrorism, practices of 'homeland security,' and the recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq together produce a complex set of questions about what to think, what to stand for, and what to organize. These questions are contoured both by our diagnosis of the current orders of power and rule and by our vision of alternatives to these orders. This essay aims to contribute to our necessarily collaborative intellectual effort – no single analysis can be comprehensive – at diagnosing the present and formulating alternatives by reflecting on the political rationality taking shape in the U.S. over the past quarter century. It is commonplace to speak of the present regime in the United States as a neo-conservative one, and to cast as a consolidated 'neo-con' project present efforts to intensify U.S. military capacity, increase U.S. global hegemony, dismantle the welfare state, retrench civil liberties, eliminate the right to abortion and affirmative action, re-Christianize the state, de-regulate corporations, gut environmental protections, reverse progressive taxation, reduce education spending while increasing prison budgets, and feather the nests of the rich while criminalizing the poor."

I had no access to the full text of the article.

Wendy Brown is Heller Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Article: Democracy Still Matters

Roger Cohen, a London-based "International Herald Tribune" columnist, in an op-ed piece the "New York Times" today published on its website, eloquently paints a picture of the global "anti-democratic tide" that seems at once gradual and unavoidable. The title of the article, "Democracy Still Matters", subsequently cannot but ring untrue.

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/opinion/21iht-edcohen.html

Excerpts: "One mystery of the first decade of the 21st century is the decline of democracy. It's not that nations with democratic systems have dwindled in number but that democracy has lost its luster. It's an idea without a glow. [...] Those who saw something of the blood expended through the 20th century to secure liberal societies must inevitably find democracy's diminished appeal puzzling. But there are reasons. The lingering wars waged partly in democracy's name in Iraq and Afghanistan hurt its reputation [...]. Given the bloody mayhem, it was easy to portray 'democracy' as a fig leaf for the West's bellicose designs and casual hypocrisies. While the democratic West fought, a nondemocratic China grew. It emerged onto the world stage prizing stability, avoiding military adventure and delivering 10 percent annual growth of which Western democracies could only dream. China's 'surge' was domestic. It was unencumbered by the paralyzing debate of democratic process.

"When the West's financial system imploded in 2008, the Chinese response was vigorous. A 'Beijing consensus' gained traction. The borderline between democracy and authoritarianism grew more opaque. The dichotomy between freedom and tyranny suddenly seemed oh-so 20th century. The new authoritarianism of China or Russia was harder to define and therefore harder to confront. 'Regimes like the one in Russia are stabilized by the fact that they have no ideology,' said Ivan Krastev, a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. 'There is really no ideological means to attack them.' They also derive resilience from the fact that their borders are open. 'The middle class is not interested in changing the system because if they don't like it they can fly to London,' Krastev noted. Having grown up in Communist Bulgaria, he believes democracy was oversold in the 1990's. All good things, at the Cold War's end, were shoveled into the democratic basket: prosperity, growth, peace. When democracy stopped delivering in these areas, it suffered. [...]

"Meanwhile technology kicked in with what the author Jonathan Franzen has called its 'trillion little bits of distracting noise.' People, synched with themselves, retreated into private networks and away from the public space – the commons – where democratic politics had been played out. Democracies seemed blocked, as in Belgium, or corrupted, as in Israel, or parodies, as in Italy, or paralyzed, as in the Netherlands. [...] Obama soon found himself caught in the gridlock of the very partisan shrieking he had vowed to overcome. [...] So what? So what if money trumped democracy and stability trumped open societies for hundreds of millions of people? So what if the rule of law or individual freedom was compromised, the press muzzled, and media-controlling presidents thought they could use 'democracy' to rule for life with occasional four-year breaks. So what if people no longer thought their vote would change anything because politics was for sale? Perhaps liberal democracy, along with its Western cradle, had passed its zenith."

As of now, the article seems not to have appeared in print in the "New York Times", though it may be included in a print edition of the "Times"-owned "International Herald Tribune".

CONF: American Political Science Association annual meeting 2010

106th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Washington, DC, USA, 2-5 September 2010

http://apsanet.org/content_65547.cfm?navID=193

The programme of this year's APSA meeting features a panel on "Democratic Ethics in a Post-Democratic World", organized by APSA's "Normative Political Theory" section (2 September, 4.15 pm). The participants are Stephen Macedo (Princeton), Melissa A. Orlie (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Nancy L. Rosenblum (Harvard), and Ian Shapiro (Yale).

Also of interest, but unfortunately scheduled at the same time: The panel "Women, Authoritarianism, and Conflict", organized by APSA's "Comparative Politics" section and "Comparative Politics of Developing Countries" division, includes a paper by Dara Kay Cohen (University of Minnesota) and Amelia Hoover Green (Yale), "Are Non-Democracies Better for Women in Wartime? Regime Type, Sexual Violence, and Conflict" (2 September, 4.15 pm).

Further information and the full programme are to be found on APSA's website.

Afghan poll likely to be undemocratic, says EU ambassador

The "Irish Examiner" published today an article by Juno McEnroe titled "Ambassador: Afghan poll likely to be undemocratic":

www.irishexaminer.com/business/ambassador-afghan-poll-likely-to-be-undemocratic-120218.html

Excerpts: "The EU ambassador to Afghanistan has admitted the upcoming parliamentary elections are likely to be undemocratic as a circle of bloody violence continues to cripple the country. Having pumped $75 million (€61m) of EU taxpayers' money [...] into elections in the war-torn nation, [...] EU ambassador Vygaudas Usackas said [...:] 'We wish to have them [the elections] fair and transparent, but it won't be democratic. It won't. I want to be honest with the taxpayers. We won't have the elections we wish to have. Afghanistan has never had a traditional democracy, it has been 30 years in war and they are surrounded by many undemocratic countries in the region. The West, the EU and Americans, we have been exaggerating the expectations in terms of the circumstances we face.'

"About 80% of Afghans are illiterate, according to the EU. Concerns about the September elections include fraudulent or double voting as well as coerced voting, coming on the back of widespread accusations that last year's presidential elections were partially rigged. The ambassador added: '[...] We don't have a voter register. Maybe there's 25, 35 or 40 million voters.' A robust system for voting checks and complaints was needed, he said. EU funding for both elections has included paying for printing, salaries, transportation, training of voting officers as well as security for female candidates."

Article: As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere

The "Guardian" newspaper on 8 April 2010 published an op-ed piece by Simon Jenkins titled "As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere". The subtitle or lead reads: "While the US and Britain slide towards oligarchy, the forced elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought no good".

The article can be read free of charge here:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/08/democracy-iraq-afghanistan-britain-us

Excerpts: "The west's proudest export to the Islamic world this past decade has been democracy. That is, not real democracy, which is too complicated, but elections. They have been exported at the point of a gun and a missile to Iraq and Afghanistan, to 'nation-build' these states and hence 'defeat terror'. When apologists are challenged to show some good resulting from the shambles, they invariably reply: 'It has given Iraqis and Afghans freedom to vote.' [...] Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died and millions been driven from their homes [...]. The import of democracy has so far just inflamed local tension and fuelled fundamentalism. Like precious porcelain, elections were exported without instructions on their care. In the absence of adequate security, they are little more than tribal plebiscites. [...]

"As the joke in Kabul goes, as long as the west pretends to uphold his regime, Karzai must 'pretend to be Swedish'. He is America's exhibit A for world democracy. [...] Democracy in both America and Britain is [...] said to be sliding towards oligarchy, with increasing overtones of autocracy. Money and its power over technology are making elections unfair. The military-industrial complex is as powerful as ever, [...] democracy is not in good shape. How strange to choose this moment to export it, least of all to countries that have never experienced it in their history. The west not only exports the stuff, it does so with massive, thuggish violence, the antithesis of how self-government should mature in any polity. The tortured justification in Iraq and Afghanistan is that elections will somehow sanctify a 'war against terrorism' waged on someone else's soil. The resulting death and destruction have been appalling. Never can an end, however noble, have so failed to justify the means of achieving it. [...]

"A system of government that they [Britons] have spent two centuries evolving and still not perfected is being rammed down the throats of poor and insecure people, who are then hectored for not handling it properly. Why should they? The invasions of their countries was not their choice. They did not ask to be a model for Britain's moral exhibitionism. They did not plead for their villages to be target practice for western special forces. [...] [T]he only certainty for Karzai is that, one day, Nato will get fed up and leave him to his fate, as it is now leaving Maliki in Baghdad. If he wants to live, he must make his peace with Afghans, not Americans, and that means on Afghan terms. Free and fair elections and a stop to corruption will have no part to play in that survival game. Democracy has been greatly oversold."

Sir Simon David Jenkins, a journalist and book author, is the former editor of "The Times" and the "Evening Standard".

Muslim anti-democracy activist approved for assassination

On 6 April 2010, the "New York Times" reported that US President Barack Obama's administration (including the National Security Council) authorized the assassination of American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (sometimes spelled al-Aulaqi), an outspoken critic of democracy. Born of Yemeni parents, al-Awlaki, a former imam, was lately a Lecturer at Iman University (alternatively transcribed as al-Iman, el-Eman, or al-Eman University) in Yemen, an institution that appears to have been attended by many students later involved in terrorist activities. Al-Awlaki has been linked to al-Qaeda himself, although the evidence is shaky. He is said to be in hiding in Yemen now.

Before the 2008 presidential elections in the United States, al-Awlaki released a scathing statement against democracy, titled "Voting for the American President". The article was originally published on his blog, which seems to have been taken down since.

The cached version of the article can be read free of charge here:

http://cryptome.org/anwar-alawlaki/08-1031.htm

Excerpts: "Democracy in [sic] an un-Islamic system and we as Muslims should have nothing to do with it. Whether one looks at the root and history of democracy or at the reality of democracy today one can realize that it is a system that is not only different than the Islamic system but is opposed to it. Can't you see that the West in its war against Islam is offering the democratic system as an alternative to Sharia? So if the West, which is the founder of democracy, sees democracy as an opposing system to Islam why are some Muslims still insisting on participating in it and adopting it as their political religion?

"Democracy is a Western system that was founded and developed in the West and today the West, not the Muslims, have full authority and right to tell the world what democracy is and how it should be practiced and implemented. We have our own system of government and likewise it is the Muslims who are going to define it and will not allow non[-]Muslims to meddle with our religion and teach us what is right from wrong.

"Muslims should seek to avoid any forms of participation in Western democracy. The promoters of participation in American elections argue that we are choosing the least of the two evils. This principle is correct but what they are missing is that in the process of choosing the lesser of the two evils they are committing an even greater evil. The breaking down of the psychological barrier that should exist between Muslims and non-Muslims, the erosion of the aqeedah of wala and bara (loyalty to Allah and disavowal of the enemies of Allah,) [sic] and the risk of loosing one's religion are evils that outweigh any benefit that may come out of such participation.

"Also the types of candidates that American politics has been spitting out is [sic] absolutely disgusting. I wonder how any Muslim with a grain of iman in his heart could walk up to a ballot box and cast his vote in endorsement of creatures such as Mcain [sic] or Obama?! How can a Muslim sleep with a clear conscience after he has chosen the likes of G.W. Bush? No matter how irrelevant your vote is, on the Day of Judgment you will be called to answer for it. You, under no coercion or duress, consciously chose to vote for the leader of a nation that is leading the war against Islam."

It is thought that vocal homebred anti-democracy activist Anwar al-Awlaki is the first US citizen ever singled out for "targeted killing" by the CIA, the Joint Special Operations Command, and possibly other US security agencies.

Book: The Rule of Law without the State

The late Michael van Notten's book "The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa" was published posthumously, edited by Spencer Heath MacCallum (Red Sea Press, 2005):

www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=9

Publisher's description: "Written by a trained and sympathetic observer, this book shows how Somali customary law differs fundamentally from most statutory law. Lawbreakers, instead of being punished, are simply required to compensate their victim. Because every Somali is insured by near kin against his or her liabilities under the law, a victim seldom fails to receive compensation. Somali law, being based on custom, has no need of legislation or legislators. It is therefore happily free of political influences. The author notes some specific areas that stand in need of change, but finds such change already implicit in further economic development. Somali politics is based on consensus. The author explains how it works and shows why any attempt to establish democracy, which would divide the population into two classes – those who rule and those who are ruled – must inevitably produce chaos. Viewed in global perspective, Somali law stands with the Latin and Medieval laws and the English common law against the statutory law that became prominent in Europe with the modern nation-state. This book explains many seeming anomalies about present-day Somalia and describes its prospects as well as the dangers facing it."

Dutch-born libertarian Michael van Notten (1933-2002), a Law graduate of Leiden University, spent the last twelve years of his life promoting economic development in Awdal, Somalia.

The book's editor, Spencer Heath MacCallum, is also the author of a number of articles on Somalia, among them "The Rule of Law without the State", published by the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute in its "Mises Daily" on 12 September 2007.

The article can be read free of charge here:

http://mises.org/daily/2701

Excerpts: "Were there such a category, Somalia would hold a place in Guinness World Records as the country with the longest absence of a functioning central government. When the Somalis dismantled their government in 1991 and returned to their precolonial political status, the expectation was that chaos would result – and that, of course, would be the politically correct thing to expect. Imagine if it were otherwise. Imagine any part of the globe not being dominated by a central government and the people there surviving, even prospering. If such were to happen and the idea spread to other parts of Africa or other parts of the world, the mystique of the necessity of the state might be irreparably damaged, and many politicians and bureaucrats might find themselves walking about looking for work. [...]

"[A] study published last year by Benjamin Powell of the Independent Institute, concludes: 'We find that Somalia's living standards have improved generally ... not just in absolute terms, but also relative to other African countries since the collapse of the Somali central government.' Somalia's pastoral economy is now stronger than that of either neighboring Kenya or Ethiopia. It is the largest exporter of livestock of any East African country. Telecommunications have burgeoned in Somalia; a call from a mobile phone is cheaper in Somalia than anywhere else in Africa. [...] All of this is terribly politically incorrect for the reason I suggested. Consequently, the United Nations has by now spent well over two billion dollars attempting to re-establish a central government in Somalia. But here is the irony: it is the presence of the United Nations that has caused virtually all of the turbulence we have seen in Somalia. [...]

"Like most of precolonial Africa, Somalia is traditionally a stateless society. When the colonial powers withdrew, in order to better serve their purposes, they hastily trained local people and set up European-style governments in their place. These were supposed to be democratic. But they soon devolved into brutal dictatorships. Democracy is unworkable in Africa for several reasons. The first thing that voting does is to divide a population into two groups – a group that rules and a group that is ruled. This is completely at variance with Somali tradition. Second, if democracy is to work, it depends in theory, at least, upon a populace that will vote on issues. But in a kinship society such as Somalia, voting takes place not on the merit of issues but along group lines; one votes according to one's clan affiliation. Since the ethic of kinship requires loyalty to one's fellow clansmen, the winners use the power of government to benefit their own members, which means exploitation of the members of other clans.

"Consequently when there exists a governmental apparatus with its awesome powers of taxation and police and judicial monopoly, the interests of the clans conflict. Some clan will control that apparatus. To avoid being exploited by other clans, each must attempt to be that controlling clan. The turmoil in Somalia consists in the clans maneuvering to position themselves to control the government whenever it might come into being, and this has been exacerbated by the governments of the world, especially the United States, keeping alive the expectation that a government will soon be established and supplying arms to whoever seems at present most likely to be able to 'bring democracy' to Somalia. [...]

"A [...] point about the Xeer [customary law] is that there is no monopoly of police or judicial services. Anyone is free to serve in those capacities as long as he is not at the same time a religious or political dignitary, since that would compromise the sharp separation of law, politics, and religion. Also, anyone performing in such a role is subject to the same laws as anyone else – and more so: if he violates the law, he must pay heavier damages or fines than would apply to anyone else. Public figures are expected to show exemplary conduct. [...] Michael van Notten's book describing this system of law deserves to be better known and widely read. It is the first study of any customary law to treat it not as a curiosity of the past, but as potentially instructive for a future free society."

Spencer Heath MacCallum, a social anthropologist and business consultant, is a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute.

Article: William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism

H.A. Scott Trask, "William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism" ("Journal of Libertarian Studies", 18 [4], fall 2004: pp. 1-27).

The article can be read free of charge here:

http://mises.org/journals/jls/18_4/18_4_1.pdf

Excerpts: "Pioneering sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was a prolific and astute historian of the early American republic. His work is informed by both his classical liberalism and his understanding of economics. [...] Sumner's political insights can be found throughout his histories and biographies, but [...] [c]onsidering them together, it is possible to reconstruct Sumner's political thought. This reconstruction reveals that Sumner was a first-rate diagnostician of the vices and flaws endemic to modern democracy, and that he saw with remarkable prevision how it would develop into the twentieth century. [...] Democracy is more than a term for a certain type of government; it is [...] an ideology, a quasi-religious faith, a 'superstition,' and it is false. Its two foundational dogmas – human equality and social atomization – have no support in human nature or experience. [...]

"The advance of civilization has been marked at every stage by an increase in inequality, social differentiation, and complexity. The principle of one-man one-vote, by giving no political recognition to differences in intelligence and wealth among persons, to the natural divisions within society, or to the existence of classes, is unjust, and can only lead to laws that are unjust and unwise. He also questioned the democratic dogma that the same form of government was suitable for all kinds of different societies and collectivities, without regard to their level of education, industrial development, and internal diversity. [...] Because Sumner rejected the moralistic, equalitarian, and atomistic dogmas upon which democracy rested, he was not in favor of extending the suffrage to ex-slaves or to women. He denied that either group could claim a moral right to vote, as he denied that anyone had such a right. [...]

"There is no reason to believe that democracy would prove friendlier to liberty than would monarchy, aristocracy, or other forms of elitist rule. [...] If political power be vested in the masses, '[t]hey will commit abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done.' Ruling elites have misused their power for selfish ends because it was in their nature to do so. The people share the same nature. Greed, selfishness, and other 'vices are confined to no nation, class, or age.' [...] The theory behind extending the suffrage to all adult males was that this would ensure that legislation was framed to benefit the interests of all, rather than of the few. Sumner demonstrated in his historical studies that it did not work out that way. [...] 'The fate of modern democracy is to fall into subjection to plutocracy.' The term plutocracy [...] meant a type of government in which effective control rested with men of wealth who sought to use political means to increase their wealth. Sumner believed that there is no form of government better suited to their control than democracy. [...] The plutocrats have [...] no qualms about flattering, lying to, or bribing the masses. [...]

"At election time, the voters are given a choice between two candidates who may stand for essentially the same thing, or nothing. [...] [G]iven that the nature of democracy is to throw off all limitations upon government power, elections become 'struggles for power – war between the two parties' for control of the state. [...] One election is hardly over before the intrigue and planning for the next one begins. [...] Party platforms are full of 'empty phrases and Janus-faced propositions,' and often 'two contradictory propositions are combined in the same sentence, or a non-proposition is so stated that each man may read there just what will suit his own notions.' [...] The object of political campaigning is not to educate the public at all, but to energize one's supporters and win over by means of deception the non-committed middle. [...] No idea more annoyed Sumner than the superstition that democratic elections are a magic elixir from which flow liberty, justice, and wise governance. [...]

"Sumner feared that American 'democracy' would grow even worse by becoming paternal while not ceasing to be plutocratic. Plutocracy would prove to be the parent of paternalism [...] such as limitations on the length of the working day, unemployment insurance, government health care, and other means of providing for economic and social 'security.' The plutocrats may conclude that extending such benefits is the price they must pay for retaining power and their own lucrative privileges, while the masses will regard paternalism as their right to a share in the spoils of the state. Sumner condemned the incipient welfare state as incompatible with freedom and inimical to liberty. Those citizens who favor it are hypocrites who clamor for security with the same insistence and sense of entitlement as they demand freedom and equality. [...] There was also a danger that 'democratic' government would enact moral reforms or try to alter the structure of society. [...] 'The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches,' as it offers endless potential for rewarding certain behaviors and punishing others. [...]

"The Bush doctrine – American world dominion is justified by her divine mission to spread freedom and democracy – is not new. The Spanish-American War and its imperial aftermath were justified on the same grounds. Sumner noted how a senator had claimed that the United States would occupy the Philippines only long enough to teach them self-government. [...] If America attempts 'to be schoolmistress to others, it will shrivel up into the same vanity and self-conceit,' and be the object of the same loathing and hatred as the other imperial powers. Moral imperialism is as 'false and wrong' as any other kind of imperialism, for it violates freedom and self-government. The nation that says, 'We know what is good for you better than you know yourself and we are going to make you do it' cares nothing for liberty or national self-determination, since liberty 'means leaving people to live out their own lives in their own way.' It is also a recipe for endless intervention and perpetual war, as the subsequent history of the United States demonstrated. [...]

"Sumner's final judgment on nineteenth-century American democracy was that it had failed to secure liberty or good government, and it would do worse in the next century. Who was to blame? He blamed the people. 'The root of all our troubles at present and in the future is in the fact that the people fails of what was assumed about it and attributed to it.' The people complain about the politicians, about the special interests, and about the power of corporations to corrupt the political process. But who elected the politicians? Who makes up the special interests? Who elected corruptible legislatures and presidents? 'He who rules is responsible, be it Tsar, Pope, Emperor, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or Demos.' The 'people is altogether at fault. It has not done its first duty in the premises, and therefore the whole system has gone astray.' [...] What is [our] destiny? A paternalistic, plutocratic, imperial state, in which freedom and individuality will slowly suffocate and civilization coarsen and die. A century of war and collectivism has vindicated Sumner's pessimism, and it appears that the twentieth century has bequeathed even worse to the twenty-first."

H. Arthur Scott Trask, PhD, an independent historian, is an Adjunct Scholar at the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Book: The End of Democracy

Abid Ullah Jan, "The End of Democracy" (Pragmatic Publishing, 2003):

www.islamicbookstore.com/b10006.html

From the publisher's description: "Following the end of the Cold War in which liberal democracy triumphed over Communism, Francis Fukuyama claimed it was 'the end of history.' In this devastating critique of democracy, Abid Ullah Jan [...] claims that far from being the end of history, [...] it is in fact 'the end of democracy.' Democracy has failed and it has been used and abused, particularly following 9/11. Democracy has been undermined by a minority ruling elite to curtail civil liberties and mislead the public at home, whilst waging wars of domination abroad. The author argues that [...] it will be Islam that will ultimately challenge and triumph over liberal democracy as we know it. Abid Ullah Jan [...] has written many important works disclosing the forgery of the fake champions of democracy, human rights and justice, the invalidity of their claims and their dark alliances with the most repressive dictators in the world."

From the description on Amazon: "The problem is that many of us do not see any alternative to democracy and that lack of vision makes many stick to the search for the illusive true democracy. There is hardly anyone in the world who would argue that democracy is perfect. No sooner they find and understand the alternative, the perfect alternative, their association with the convoluted democracy we are subjected to by a few elite [sic] might become a stigma for them. The End of Democracy presents that alternative to the stagnation of democracy that is getting foul and turning into [an] unprecedented kind of tyranny with each passing day."

Reviews: "A thought-provoking work that points towards solution for the problems caused by the failure of secular democracy" (Ayub Azhar Hamid, National Director, Canadian Islamic Congress)

"[T]ruly points out that just like the corporate media the corporate democracy is bitterly suppressing the will of the people. [...] [W]e can see a revolution around the corner." ("Baluchistan Post")

Jan dedicated this book to those "who are suffering under one or another kind of twisted democracy".

Pakistani-born Abid Ullah Jan, a graduate of the University of London, is a journalist and book author and community development specialist living in Ottawa, Canada.

CONF: Non-Democratic Regimes

Conference on "Non-Democratic Regimes" of the Georg Walter Leitner Program in International and Comparative Political Economy at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA, 11-12 June 2010

www.yale.edu/leitner/NonDemocratic_Regimes.html

Description: "This conference brings together researchers studying the politics of non-democratic regimes, including democratization, repression, growth, and civil and international conflict. More specifically, how do economic conditions affect popular support for a dictator and the transition to democracy? When do citizens protest against a dictatorship and when does a dictatorship respond with repression? When does a dictatorship allow for limited forms of political representation? What explains the post-tenure fate of dictators and how does it affect their propensity to democratize? Is the International Court of Justice a spoiler or promoter of democracy? What explains the variety of non-democratic institutions and how do such institutions affect economic growth? How does the targeting of groups or a populist rhetoric allow the leaders of weak democracies to avoid accountability? Which non-democratic institutions are more likely to generate international wars? Why do the leaders of non-democracies get involved in such long civil wars in the post-World War II period? Presenters use a variety of methodology to tackle such a wide array of questions, including formal and quantitative methods."

Presenters include Charles Boix (Princeton), Joseph Wright (Pennsylvania State University), Beatriz Magaloni (Stanford), Jason Brownlee (University of Texas at Austin), Peter Lorentzen (Berkeley), Alexandre Debs (Yale), Monika Nalepa (University of Notre Dame), Milan Svolik (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Philip Keefer (World Bank), Alastair Smith (New York University), Konstantin Sonin (New Economic School, Moscow), Jessica Weeks (Cornell), and Andrea Vindigni (Princeton).

No registration information is provided on the website. To see whether it is possible to participate, please contact the conference organizer, Alexandre Debs (Yale): alexandre.debs@yale.edu

Book: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How it is Still Imperiled

Azar Gat, "Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How it is Still Imperiled", published by Rowman & Littlefield in cooperation with the Hoover Institution (December 2009):

www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=1442201142

Publisher's description: "In the blink of an eye, liberal democracy's moment of triumph was darkened by new threats, challenges, and doubts. Rejecting the view that liberal democracy's twentieth-century victory was inevitable, distinguished student of war Azar Gat argues that it largely rested on contingent factors and was more doubtful than has been assumed. The world's liberal democracies, with the United States at the forefront, face new and baffling security threats, with the return of capitalist nondemocratic great powers – China and Russia – and the continued threat of unconventional terror. The democratic peace, or near absence of war among themselves, is a unique feature of liberal democracies' foreign policy behavior. Arguing that this is merely one manifestation of much more sweeping and less recognized pacifist tendencies typical of liberal democracies, Gat offers a panoramic view of their distinctive way in conflict and war. His book provides a politically and strategically vital understanding of the peculiar strengths and vulnerabilities that liberal democracy brings to the formidable challenges ahead."

Reviews: "[Gat] suggests that general moral and legal parameters can be refined, through policy and strategy, using 'a better awareness of the underlying patterns of the democracies' behavior in conflict.' In particular, he finds fault with 'normative-legal aspects' of liberal national defense that favor pacifism and appeasement: such tendencies render them vulnerable to a determined enemy without such scruples. Opposition to detention without trial, torture, and wiretapping, Gat says, has 'a bitterly ideological and righteous character,' rigid where it should be adaptable to changing realities and enemy tactics; on the battlefield, 'self-imposed restrictions on violence against civilian population' can 'render often-successful military operations futile.'" ("Publishers Weekly")

"In this brilliant and highly original work, Gat shows not only why democracies triumphed over their authoritarian, fascist, and communist adversaries in the past century, but simultaneously calls attention to the democracies' unique vulnerabilities." (Robert J. Lieber, Georgetown University)

Azar Gat is Ezer Weizman Professor of National Security at Tel Aviv University.