Evaluating democracy promotion
Michael Gerson writes about the trials and travails of democracy promotion in the Middle East in today’s Washington Post. On the seeming retreat of democracy during 2006, Gerson notes:
Some American conservatives found Burkean lessons in the fading freedom agenda, asserting that democracy is a fragile flower that grows only in a rich cultural soil tended by Jeffersons and Hamiltons. Many liberals seemed relieved that President Bush didn’t seem right after all, though this involved global setbacks for political liberalism. It may seem strange that anyone should feel a thrill of vindication when the ideals of their nation appear to falter. But let us judge not, that we be not judged.
The “Burkean lessons” refer to Edmund Burke, regarded as one of the great intellectual forebears of conservatism. Gerson treats Burke’s views on democracy as questions about feasibility, rather than moral ones. Yet for Burke, the critical question was more likely whether cultivation of democracy in a poor soil is simply wrong.
Burke saw attempts to radically change society and government, particularly through violence, as misguided. Societies should evolve organically and by drawing on their own rich tradition. You can’t transplant Hamiltons and Jeffersons to Iraq. They have to be there already, as well established landmarks in the cultural firmament.
It seems the key questions for democracy promotion in modern societies are:
(1) Do we have an obligation to promote democracy abroad?
(2) If yes, is it appropriate to use force?
(3) Is it possible to promote democracy successfully in all countries?
The truth is that liberals and conservatives probably agree to a large extent about these three questions.
–Sam
Related posts:
- Islam between democracy and liberalism
- Democracy, what is it good for?
- Is a public philosophy possible?
- Rote learning and democracy
- Conservatism as organic change
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