Can Democracy Be Exported?
BY DANIELE ARCHIBUGI
The two main wars that opened the third millennium, those in Afghanistan and Iraq, have been justified by the United States (US) and its allies with a mixture of arguments. The first, and perhaps foremost, has been self-defense: to eradicate the terrorist roots in Afghanistan and destroy the alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In addition to this traditional motivation, another has been added: to force regime change and thereby export democracy. Is democracy a good that can be exported like bananas? Under what conditions is it both feasible and legitimate?
To export democracy is an American dream, one that Americans provided to the European people. Every Italian can recall the glorious days of the summer of 1944 and the spring of 1945 when the major cities of the country were liberated by Allied troops. We use the term “liberated” because this was the feeling of the vast majority of the Italians; with the arrival of the Allies they saw the end of the Nazi and Fascist brutalities, the civil war, and the air raids. At the time, however, the Allies referred to Italy as an “occupied” country since it remained an active ally of Nazi Germany until 8 September 1943.
Though Italy had been an enemy until the day before, not a single shot was fired at the Allies within the peninsula and hostilities ended once they arrived on the ground. It was quickly forgotten that the Allies had heavily bombed Italian cities, which probably caused a greater number of deaths in the civilian population than had the ruthless Nazis retaliations. On the ground, not only did the Allies, especially the Americans, not strike fear in the populace but, on the contrary, they were immediately accepted as friends and brothers who gave cigarettes, sang, and danced. Above all, they spoke about liberty and democracy.
The Americans were well received due to the Italian Resistance, who fought against the Nazis and the Fascists and spread among the population the idea that that the Americans weren’t our enemies, but our allies instead. In Germany and Japan, the resistance was very small and the Allies did not receive the hearty welcome they did here; nevertheless, the citizens never attacked the Allies. In all three countries there was an immediate change in the air; perhaps because of the awareness that the occupational troops would only stay for a short time and that before leaving they would plant the seeds for a political system that would benefit the entire population: democracy. The Allies, more so the Americans than the British, perceived that their long-term interest was in transforming former enemies into democratically elected governments rather than obedient puppet regimes. In fact, the American administration provided substantial aid to trade unions, information networks, judiciary apparatuses, and production systems. Since then, American foreign policy has reiterated its objective to extend democracy, often doing so through military intervention.
Exporting democracy has become part of an American’s genetic code and a declared goal of US foreign policy. Not even supporting dictatorial governments year after year, like in Latin America during the age of Henry Kissinger, or conspiring against elected governments, like in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1955), Brazil (1960s), Chile (1973), and Nicaragua (1980s), has swept the idea from the average American’s mind that his or her country is not only the freest in the world, but it is also the best at bringing democracy to other countries.
With what means and with what efficacy has democracy been successfully exported? Unfortunately, the successes achieved in Germany, Japan, and Italy cannot be generalized. According to data collected by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the US has usually failed in its principle objectives when it has tried to export democracy using military means. In the first half of the twentieth century, these failures have concerned neighboring and easily controlled countries such as Panama (1903-1936), Nicaragua (1909-1933), Haiti (1915-1934), the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), and Cuba (1898-1902, 1906-1909 and 1917-1922). Analogous failures came about in South Korea, South Vietnam, and Cambodia in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, respectively. Not even in Haiti (1994-1996) did the US administration achieve success. After the Second World War (WWII), they could only count Panama (1989) and Grenada (1983), both tiny states, as having been incorporated into both the economic and social structures of the US (see Table 1).1 Thus the current failures in Afghanistan and Iraq build on historical precedent.
Military intervention has not always been explicitly adopted to build democratic institutions. In Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia, for example, democratization was a secondary objective to the containment of communism. Altogether, the American obsession with exporting democracy via its military has brought about more failure than success. Three main lessons can be drawn from these experiences:
1. Internal Contexts Matter: The level of support enjoyed by the existing regime is a crucial factor. Unfortunately, not all authoritarian regimes are equally opposed by their populations. Even Hitler and Mussolini had strong public support. Today there are populist and theocratic regimes, like Iran’s, that have broad popular support and are actually ratified by free and fair elections. Wanting to impose democracy — literally, the power of the people — against the will of those same people is simply nonsense.
It’s not even enough for a regime to have a strong internal opposition; it is also necessary to have a strong indigenous desire to institute a democratic regime with competent elites able to foster democratic culture and to bridge the transition. It’s much easier to reintroduce democracy than to introduce it for the first time; in countries like Italy and Germany, the existence of democratic institutions before the arrival of dictators constituted a model and allowed the survival of clandestine parties and groups, both inside and outside of the countries. These groups assumed the task of integrating old institutions into the new, post-dictatorial regime. In countries that have never experienced democracy, its application seems to be fraught with greater difficulty.
2. Aggression is Counterproductive: The efficacy of the regime change after WWII was a result of the fact that fascist regimes both began and lost the war. Their military defeat internally discredited the old regimes and made the public realize that it was necessary to try or return to another type of political organization. The same conditions existed in Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, but at the time, the coalition forces decided to leave the regime as it was rather than undertake regime change. When war is begun by democracies instead, like the current war in Iraq, the public sees itself as the victim of an attack and is hostile toward the political regime forwarded by the invaders. There are, obviously, exceptions to this such as Grenada and Panama, but these were small countries with very unpopular authoritarian governments.
3. Transitional Administrations Must Integrate: If the occupational force’s transitional administration is not socially integrated at the local level, regime change is perceived to be externally imposed. The transitional administration and its intentions are heavily scrutinized by the civilian population, a scrutiny no less severe than that of colonized peoples for their colonizers. The cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic affinities between the provisional administration and the occupied country become crucial. Due to colonization concerns, local populations are generally hostile when confronting a transitional administration that can become permanent and overbearing. In Afghanistan and Iraq the provisional administrations are officially multilateral, but, in effect, they are dominated by the US, a country with little or no affinity with the local population and one that actually provokes deep hostilities.
Exporting democracy militarily is therefore an operation much more complicated and uncertain than some politicians have made it out to be. However, efficacy is not the only way to evaluate a political project. Those who want to export democracy because they believe in its intrinsic value shouldn’t just consider the scant efficacy, but also the democratic legitimacy. Assuming, hypothetically, that exporting democracy through military intervention is effective, would this justify its imposition? There are good reasons to harbor doubts.
If a population is dissatisfied with its legitimate political regime, it can rebel. When the relationship between the public and its government is broken, up to the point where open conflict develops, it may be possible for external forces to intervene because the conflict has already flared up and foreign forces will not be responsible for breaking the peace. When diverse groups compete for power it becomes permissible for democratic states to provide real support to political parties advocating the introduction of a democratic system. However, in the absence of an explicit rebellion indicating popular interest in regime change, a foreign intervention becomes ethically unsound.
Additionally, and most importantly, a government’s legitimacy cannot be revoked by another state, but only by international institutions.
One can object that an intervention could be all the more necessary when a population is oppressed by a dictator so brutal that he has suppressed every form of opposition. Saddam Hussein, for example, had preemptively wiped out every possible opposition. In this case, the motivation to intervene has a humanitarian basis and is not necessarily related to the introduction of democracy. The objectives of intervention should be much more modest and primarily oriented toward inhibiting mass slaughter rather than toward imposing a specific institutional form.
The moment one opts to use military force to promote democracy, there arises a contradiction between the means and the ends. The violent means of war don’t exclusively affect despots; they inevitably impact the citizens, whom we assume would benefit from a democratic regime. Despite surgical bombardments, smart bombs, and other technological developments, war is still a dirty affair with consequences that impact entire populations indiscriminately. Thus, one finds oneself in an Orwellian situation using war to promote peace and applying violence to secure democracy.
Furthermore, the effects that a military intervention will have on the invading democratic state should be considered. When at war, every state is compelled to sacrifice some of its freedom. Citizens are sent into battle, civil liberties are decreased, and the capabilities of the armed forces (e.g. the army, intelligence agencies, and the control apparatus) are raised at the expense of transparency and control. Democracies at war inevitably develop a chronic disease. The US and Great Britain, involved in an many conflicts of both high and low intensity since the end of WWII, have preserved their domestic democratic systems incredibly well until now. However, not even these two countries could avoid seeing their democratic institutions burned on the altar of national interest. Due to the necessities of war, they have committed and justified acts of torture, the murder of unarmed civilians, and detentions without legal basis. All are things that the public would never consent to under conditions of peace. Exporting democracy therefore means compromising it domestically.
Must we conclude that nothing can be done to export democracy within these reasonable restraints? This is a bit extreme. Democratic states can legitimately be harbingers for the expansion of democracy, as exemplified by the fact that the world’s peoples have explicitly, whenever they’ve had the opportunity, expressed the desire to participate in their own government. The error embedded in the crazed desire to export democracy concerns only the means, not the ends.
Given that the ends are legitimate, what instruments should democratic states utilize?
The first and most obvious instrument concerns economic, social, political, and cultural incentives. The predominance today of the West is so broad that if the expansion of democracy is really the
West’s priority it could employ greater resources. However, we are not moving in this direction. In 2003, the US dedicated more than 4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defense spending while the European Union (EU) dedicated more than 2%. Compared to military spending, only some spare change is destined for developmental aid: 0.1% GDP in the US and 0.3% GDP in the EU. Not even this tiny sum is entirely spent on aid to democratic governments.
However, the carrot is not only comprised of economic aid, which can be extremely useful, but can also become an imposition. Equally important is offering potentially democratic countries the ability to join the club of democratic states under the same conditions as the other democratic states. One needs to avoid letting the expansion of democracy end up being a kind of catechistic lesson taught by those who made up the rules. Democracy is a common course and if one state is legitimately concerned with the events occurring in another state, the former should consequently offer to associate within its own political community the latter; that is to enter into an institutional union with the state it aids. Beyond the metaphor, if the US is so concerned with the fate of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, it should also be ready to accept them as the 51st and 52nd states in the Union.
This particular application is obviously an exaggeration, but the principle is being implemented by the EU. We often forget that the EU is the experiment with the greatest success in promoting and consolidating democracy. Countries of Southern and Eastern Europe have found in EU institutions tangible economic incentives such as access to the largest market in the world, but also the opportunity to share political and institutional decisions. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the EU is the international organization with the most demanding admission criteria. It is often accused of a democratic deficit, but once a country is admitted, it immediately enjoys the same rights the others do, participates in institutions, and defines the political community, including EU foreign policy. The EU doesn’t limit itself to giving lessons in democracy, but it encourages new members to collectively and democratically define the political agenda.
The EU must reprimand itself for not having used EU membership as an incentive when the former Yugoslavia dissolved. Perhaps the massacres could have been avoided by guaranteeing the entire political community access to the EU, thus making the struggle to define borders less important, especially if the EU had assumed the task of guaranteeing human rights. In this case, the EU failed to offer the carrot or use the stick, but Yugoslavia was the only failure among many successes. The American drive to export democracy with war and aerial bombardments has many failures and only sporadic successes.
Outside of the West, the carrot’s effectiveness is reduced as some dictatorial regimes can resist the incentives and continue to oppress their citizens. However, the carrot has an enormous advantage over the stick: it doesn’t cause damage for which democracy would have to take responsibility. There are no collateral victims in the attempt to convince other countries to become democratic by using economic incentives and simple persuasion.
This is not the first time that populations proud of their political organizations thought that they had to export their values. Athens in the era of Pericles, France in the Jacobin period, and Russia under the Bolsheviks all thought it their right and their duty to liberate whole peoples and give them the same joys that their liberators had fought for at home. In this debate, however, there have always been moderates who maintained that the best way to export the delicious fruit of democracy would have been by setting a good example domestically. In the most critical period of the French Revolution an unexpected advocate of this was the Divine Marquis de Sade, who, in a page of exceptional clarity in Philosophy in the Bedroom, warned the French:
Invincible within, and by your administration and your laws a model to every race, there will not be a single government which will not strive to imitate you, not one which will not be honored by your alliance; but if, for the vainglory of establishing your principles outside your country, you neglect to care for your own felicity at home, despotism, which is no more than asleep, will awake, you will be rent by intestine disorder, you will have exhausted your monies and your soldiers, and all that, all that to return to kiss the manacles the tyrants, who will have subjugated you during your absence, will impose upon you; all you desire may be wrought without leaving your home: let other people observe you happy, and they will rush to happiness by the same road you have traced for them.2
Who will volunteer to send these words of wisdom to the White House?
Daniele Archibugi (daniele.archibugi@cnr.it) is research director at the Italian National Research Council (http://www.danielearchibugi.org ); professor of innovation, governance and public policy at Birkbeck, University of London (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/main); and the keynote speaker at Dehegemonization: The US & Transnational Democracy, a 2006 conference co-sponsored by CGS.
- Minxin Pei and Sandra Kasper, Lessons from the Past: The American Record on Nation Building. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000. [↩]
- Donatien Aldonse François de Sade, Philosophy in the Bedroom. New York: Grove Press, 1965. [↩]
