Real Democracies

[Bereta_Eder]

Point about death sentence and primitive democracy well taken.
It is only my opinion.

I am not bashing USA (that was certain social aspects that will take Europe decades or centuries to develop i.e. the irrelevance of ethnicity) I picked it because it is a country that is very well known. I couldn't even start telling about crimes commited by modern democracies in Europe, today's preconceptions in the Balkan countries that are still torturing their people etc. And to add to your argument Serapis, according to one theory the Nazi culture (anti-semitism, the Arian race etc)was actually a distorted version of the existing dominant and at the time legitimate horrific european culture.

The point that I'm trying to get across is that modern democracies are perfectly capable of crimes against humanity (and intra war) as were the ancient greek ones.

Now, Ancient Athens was far from perfect but it was a true democracy. The literal meaning of democracy is that people are the authority. (demos=people, cratia=authority, control). At the time, people were only the «free male men» something that is absolutely ridiculous today.

But they took all decisions. There was constant exchange of ideas and arguments and majority voting was used for every big question. They did not transfer authority to a group of people. It was very inefficient but truly democratic. And perfectly capable of engaging in war to protect its interests.

[JamesJKirk]

quote: Originally posted by me_irate on 04-24-2001 11:26 PM As i recall the british call themselves the worlds oldest democracy. Since the us was in 1776 the british were democratic b4 that. Im not sure of the date. But it was when the power of parliament exceeded the power of the King.

Well if the British call themselves that, they're mistaken, up through the early 20th century the US would have to be the "most democratic" nation in the world. Even after Britains big electoral reform act in 1832, still only about 5% or so of the adult population could vote, steady reform continued through the 19th century, and universal male sufferage was achieved in the early 20th century, decades after Imperial Germany even (which Bismarck made fairly progressive to remove the steam from the Social Democrats). Not until 1927, I believe, were women given equal voting status with men. If I substansial proportion of a country's population can't vote or be considered equal with the rest, than I wouldn't call it a democracy. That means the US wouldn't be one until either 1919, or the mid1960's, depending if you count the segregation as a block to representative democracy. Interestingly as well, throughout the 19th century in the US, the term democracy frightened the elite, since they took it's meaning to be the traditional Aristotle's sense that democracy was essential a "tyranny of the majority" and rights of property owners and minorities would be stomped on. And this was true whenever a populist came into power (typically the Democratic party). It wasn't until WWI when the US began to refer to itself as a democracy, and that was only to give a sense of a mission to Americans in WWI.

Paiktis- I know Turkey isn't a democracy, if you reread what I wrote, I implied that IF turkey was a democracy, there would still be tensions with Greece, and possibility of war, correct? And I'll give you that Athens was a true democracy in teh sense that the citizens voted themselves on things, but still, it isn't in the modern sense a democracy, since there wasn't a broad spectrum of people who could vote. Also, in many modern democracies people can submit and vote on referendum's, so that's somewhat democratic in the true meaning of the word (although one could pretty much buy the people's support of disapproval of an initiative or referendum, so it becomes a tool of lobbies and interest groups, like here in good old California!)

cyclotron- Cuba advocated nuking the US yes, but that's because invasion of Cuba by the US seemed imminent, I mean we tried it just over a year prior to the missile crisis. I mean it's not like the US never advocated nuking anyone, MacArthur wanted to nuke China during the Korean war, and aside from stupid incidents, there's really no huge US-China quarrel, just the same some advocated nuking Vietnam, but we just decided to napalm the hell out of it, and now many Us business are working there. It's been 40 yrs since the missile crisis, and if you read Castro's early writings, you can tell he's a guy with democratic insticts, who feels shafted by the US's support for dictators rather than democracies, and probably also feels, somewhat understandably, that the US would support other parties and destabilize his party. That's just my take on it, I just thought I'd show the other side, it's not necessarily my opinion

[Roman]

What really annoys me about the democratic peace theorists is that they claim universal validity for their theory regardless of other circumstances. They claim democracies have never gone to war against each other. As my study showed that is complete rubbish. If they merely said that democracy makes war less likely - fine I would probably subscribe to the theory but they choose to make extraordinary claim of never, without having the evidence to support it.

BTW: In my study, the criteria for democracy included free elections, democratic and respected constitution, as well as scoring at least 6 points on Polity II democracy scale. Basically, they were democracies under any reasonable definition.

PS.
An example of a recent war between democracies was that of Ecuador vs Peru in 1995. This was a classic war over territory. The democratically elected governments in both countries even had full support of their respective populations for the war. So much for the democratic peace theory.

[lord of the mark]

quote: Originally posted by JamesJKirk on 04-24-2001 11:44 AM Even so, this just proves that there aren't enough democracies in the world, and the ones that are there haven't been around long enough to prove anything about democratic peace. LOTM - I wont disagree with that. I do take issue with the claims that the theory of democratic peace has been disproven. Isn't it conceivable that Russia could be a little expansionist against a democracy if the people were whipped up? Or that in the Falklands War never happened, and populist, democratically elected Argentine president could take a grab at them? Wouldn't India and Pakistan still be hated enemies regardless of how democratic they are? The same goes for Greece and Turkey. Not to mention the democracies that the US has simply overthrown: Iran 1953, Guatamala 1954, Chile 1973. Hundreds of years ago the same things were said about monarchies, since they were guided by an well born and educated elite, and there was intermarriage and all things, and who would agree with this nowadays? LOTM - Quote where this was said about monarchies. The present theory about democratic peace revolves around the notion that the regular people are peace loving, and it's only elites and elitist governments cause wars. LOTM - Not so much peace loving as suffering the costs of war more than elites. This couldn't be anywhere closer to misfounded logic. Typically elites are still in charge of the government in a democracy, there's just a choice of which elites are in power. Sometimes to gain support, the government will start a war to unite the people. It's entirely possible two democracies could do this against one another. LOTM - anything is possible, i think that the logic behind the democratic peace notion is still strong. Oh, and I notice that the mention that Hitler was brought to power democratically challenged, but Slobodan Milosevic wasn't. Maybe that's because Serbia/Yugoslavia was and is a democracy. LOTM - its because i didnt want to go into the details of Serb politics in the years before and after the breakup. My understanding is that the Socialist party of Yugo, while applealing to nationalism among the people, also used non-democratic tactics to a very consdierable to maintain itself in power. The Yugoslav media even reported antigovernment things during the war, The US press wouldn't even go as far as that. Also note that since Kostunica's been in power, the government is pretty much the same, no constitutional changes were necessary, and governing has just been done less heavy handed. LOTM - well thats my point, you cant tell a demo by reading the constitution. USSR had a very nice constitution too, IIUC. Its how things are actually run. A final tidbit: Both of the proclaimed international relations majors have come out against democratic peace, shouldn't that say something? LOTM No - credentials dont buy anything when the arguments are weak. The one IR major used a quantitatuive study that looks like the independent variable (whats a demo?) is incorrectly specified. It does say something. It says be very wary of the use of quantitative methods in the social sciences. LOTM - It also says that poli sci majors (and IR majors) share a bias in favor of "realistic" theories of international relations, and against neo-Wilsonian views. In fact as such majors I'm sure we'd probably agree that all IR theories are flawed, which is why there's still debate on the subjects and plenty of war, too [This message has been edited by JamesJKirk (edited April 24, 2001).]

[lord of the mark]

quote: Originally posted by Ilkuul on 04-24-2001 06:52 PM It was then and is now a constitutional monarchy, and that constitution, though not a single piece of paper like the US one, is fundamentally democratic: the monarch undertakes to respect the elected representatives of the people in parliament, which means that he/she chooses the leader of the majority party as prime minister, and accepts all laws passed by them; in return parliament respects the institution of the monarchy by providing funding for it. In actual fact parliament could abolish the monarchy at any time: which underlines the fact that Britain is a true democracy. In earlier centuries the influence of the monarchy was a lot stronger than it is today, and this is what might lead people to think that the country was not truly democratic. But then, what is "truly democratic"? The idea has been evolving throughout recent history - as witness the fact that only 100 years ago women were unable to vote!

Prior to 1830 reform law most commons seats were "owned" by wealthy patrons usually aristocrats - system was perfected by Walpole.

Combination of unequal apportionment("Rotten boroughs"), open ballots, highly restircted electorates contributed to this. Pre-1830 britain is more or less completley controled by the the aristocracy.

1830 laws shifted seats from the boroughs to the counties, abolished some (but not all) rotten boroughs, and (IIRC) established secret ballot.
Restrictive property qualitfications remained in place. Britain from 1830 to 1868 was "bourgeois state" - power had been taken away from the aristos, but working class was still disenfranchised, leading to Chartist movement (the REAL democrats)

1868 reform law established near manhood suffrage, and made UK a democracy.


date of demo in US is matter of some controversy - property restrictions not abolished till 1830's (Age of Jacksonian democracy) - when white manhood suffrage became the rule (full manhood suffrage is not till post civil war, when negro suffrage passes) - some historians claim that property restirictions in US didnt matter much, most people had enough property to meet requirements, and so most states were demo from 1776 on.

LOTM

sorry it took a yank to explain brit political history

[lord of the mark]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 04-25-2001 01:24 PM PS. An example of a recent war between democracies was that of Ecuador vs Peru in 1995. This was a classic war over territory. The democratically elected governments in both countries even had full support of their respective populations for the war. So much for the democratic peace theory.

Excellent example - Peru under Fujimori - originally elected democratically but generally held to have run a semi-authoritarian regime.
Not saying it was bad thing - eliminated sendero luminoso, improved economy, probably best govt Peru could have gotten under the circumstances - but not by any means an example of a fully functioning democracy, with democratic norms, political culture, fair elections, competivie party system, etc. I expect the same is true for your other Latin american "democracies" Does this mean that there is too little experience of democracy to run a test - probably. But i think the "never" claim still holds.

[lord of the mark]

quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 on 04-25-2001 12:10 AM [quote]Originally posted by JamesJKirk on 04-24-2001 11:44 AM Wouldn't India and Pakistan still be hated enemies regardless of how democratic they are? The same goes for Greece and Turkey. Not to mention the democracies that the US has simply overthrown: Iran 1953, Guatamala 1954, Chile 1973. [quote] Sorry, but Turkey is not democratic. The turkish army has direct control of all aspects of both internal and external matters and has in the past and will be able in the future to impose its will on the political governemnt at any time. LOTM - Direct control - thats not true - they will threaten a coup when red lines are crossed, as to the nature to the secular state - but not on other day to day matters - Turkish elections, party politics, and, IIUC changes in govt policiy in response to elections are quite vibrant. Does the ongoing role of the military in politics make turkey a notch less demo than other states, including Greece - maybe, but your charecterization is the kind of thing that makes the turks (rightly) resentful. That's actually the problem. You simply cannot have a valid dialogue with the turkish elected government because their true authority is very little and everything that is agreed can be thrown to the garbage the other day by the turkish military. Thsi has actually happened more times than I can count. LOTM There have been several coups - any in which a negotiated settlement with GReece was scuttled? i dont think so. I see no evidence that they have shown less respect for prior govts treaty commitments than when one democratically elected govt succeeds another. (is greece no longer gonna negotiate with the US because Bush changed Clintons position on Kyoto?) European Union, to say nothing of the «strategic ally» the USA, supports that status quo in Turkey and tolerates the military rule because the fundamental islamists of Turkey are always ready to take over the power. LOTM - we supoport, among other things, the continued economic and social developement of Turkey, improved cultural and human rights for the Kurdish minority. We are concernd about the fundamentalists - arent you? In short, it's a drag. I'd prefer Sweden as my neighboor. Oh well...! I just hope Turkey will not disintegrate and force Greece to increase military spending (that benefits U S A war companies :P)

[JamesJKirk]

LOTM:

I enjoy that both of us Yanks explained the British political history, but I'll just nit-pick and tell you that prior to the 14th amendment (equal protection clause) who had sufferage was up to the states, not the federal govt. Many northern, western and even deep south states abolished property restrictions for voting and had universal white male sufferage or sufferage for male taxpayers, but in the near south, some states clung to property qualifications. Nit-pick over. We seem to be making the same points to other people, just we disagree about the democratic peace theory. I would have to agree with Roman about it maybe tend to be more peaceful toward one another, but you can't blatantly say that democracies won't fight one another because there just hasn't been enough time to see, and you don't know what could happen. So that's that, maybe it would be an all right limitation or whatever in Civ3, or maybe democracies should be just predisposed to be more in favor of one another, but I think that should be true of all government types

[Vitmore The Great]

quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui on 04-24-2001 02:18 AM Yes, Democracies don't go to war against each other.

India and Pakistan (the periods when Pakistan wasn't ruled by military dictatorship at least).


Vitmore

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"We should not go out and conquer the people, but give them no other choice in their minds but to be conquered." - Me

[Bereta_Eder]

quote:

Originally posted by paiktis22 on 04-25-2001 12:10 AM

LOTM - Direct control - thats not true - they will threaten a coup when red lines are crossed, as to the nature to the secular state - but not on other day to day matters - Turkish elections, party politics, and, IIUC changes in govt policiy in response to elections are quite vibrant. Does the ongoing role of the military in politics make turkey a notch less demo than other states, including Greece - maybe, but your charecterization is the kind of thing that makes the turks (rightly) resentful.

Maybe you don't realize that the difference between a military controled state and a democratic one in which the military has a say but only in matters that affect the security of the country.

A small example. In USA does everybody have the right to express his/her opinion freely and without fear of persecution? I think yes. Is the USA military against it? This is irrelevant.
In Turkey opinions other than those officialy expressed by the governemnt are deemed dangerous and are persecuted as high treason. Don't tell me that thiis is not the military behind that. I won;t accept that the governemnt of Turkey is so despotic.

LOTM There have been several coups - any in which a negotiated settlement with GReece was scuttled? i dont think so.

Proposal for a complete demilitarization of Cyprus. Not accepted by turkish military.

Agreement by both sides to remove all mines from the northen border of Greece and Turkey so as to minimize civilian casualties. Scuttled by turkish military 2 months later.

Agreement to explore for oil in the Aegean only within each country's teritorial waters. Not respected by turkish military. (this actually would have led to war because there was a showdown when greek ships intercepted turkish exploration ships accompanied with military ships in the Aegean).

Proposal to cut down on military spending. Not accepted my turkish military (now Turkey is obliged to do so because of financial crisis).
Both parlements were in favor of this.

The list goes on.

I see no evidence that they have shown less respect for prior govts treaty commitments than when one democratically elected govt succeeds another. (is greece no longer gonna negotiate with the US because Bush changed Clintons position on Kyoto?)

Actually the whole world should stop negotiating with USA because of it including the USA cittizens themselves.


LOTM - we supoport, among other things, the continued economic and social developement of Turkey, improved cultural and human rights for the Kurdish minority. We are concernd about the fundamentalists - arent you?

10 political prisoners die from hunger strikes in turkish prisons each month. Kurdish civilian population has been massacred for the last 20 years. The genocide of the Armenian people is now recognised officially by countries like France. Not by the USA I think.

You say that you support human rights in Turkey. That is a lie. You don't.
Actually you will do nothing to upset it and risk loosing your bases in Anatolia that are critical for your operations in the Middle East. These are your interests. You protect them. Simple.
The fundamentalists are there and they can be worst than today's military. Everybody is concerned. The thing is what you do about it.


In short, it's a drag. I'd prefer Sweden as my neighboor. Oh well...! I just hope Turkey will not disintegrate and force Greece to increase military spending (that benefits U S A war companies :P)

[me_irate]

I believe that the democracy in the game represents not only the us, but also britain during the war of 1812. If you really nitpick, there are no true democracies in the world, just allot of countries hovering in between the two somewhere. In fact the us is far more republic than democratic, simply because a real democracy(until the invention of the internet) was unfeasable. Now with the internet, a government could have a truly democratic gov, in theory anyway. So i believe that in civ 3 the republic should be better than the republic. Democracy preceded republic anyways.

[Your.Master]

Aren't you forgetting something?

Many historians agree: the first TRUE democracy in the 'West' (term used loosely) was the Icelandic Althing. All freemen could vote. Granted, there were no women, but women could lock men out of the house and not feed the men if they didn't follow their will so the point is moot . Granted, slaves weren't allowed to vote. Well cry me a river, slaves wouldn't vote unless they were freed anyways. And then they were free. So that point is also moot. I mean, the slaves would vote "free the slaves!" and they really wouldn't much care about anything else because they'd move away anyways (Icelandic slaves usually weren't hereditary slaves).

Therefore, forget this Athens stuff (Greeks invented Democracy but didn't use it...their philosophers thought that the opportunities for corruption made it the WORST government). Forget the Britain stuff, forget the U.S. stuff.

That said, you have to remember: The Iroquois Confederacy did have a TRUE democracy (I guess Athens wasn't unique in it's weirdo DEMOCRACY idea, was it?). Nobody seems to care, though, because they were never politically powerful to the European-heritaged masses (self included).

United States isn't much of a democracy. I'm not bashing America, but a 2 party structure where voting for a third candidate is knocked is really not much, especially considering that as previously said, the only differences are abortion and speed of environmental decay. Also, whether you are a liberal or conservative (However that equates to the Democrat-Republican strata) voting somebody as stupid as Bush president can't be good. I mean, honestly: You can find things to bash all presidents, but he takes the cake. He has great quotes and he is going to start a war with China, you just watch . Okay, that's my rant, I just have to laugh at G.W.. I hope nobody goes online to defend him, because I refuse to defend my case. It's just too much work for no chance of convincing anybody.

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Your.Master

High Lord of Good

You are unique, just like everybody else.

[MrFun]

Your Master -- you realize now, with your provocation, that this means war between our nations?

I like to think that the United States is a republic in actual government pratice, but democratic in principles.

But, I also know that in our history, democratic principles applied to upper and middle classes of Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, male, native-born Americans for most of our history.

[Imran Siddiqui]

quote: India and Pakistan (the periods when Pakistan wasn't ruled by military dictatorship at least).

In all the wars between India and Pakistan, Pakistan was under a military dictatorship. Oh, btw, I'm Pakistani.. Hi .

I agree, in game terms it is hard to model. I suggested months ago to have significant effects if a Democracy declared war upon another Democracy.

Under the definitions provided of war and democracy, no two democracies have fought... as researched by the Democratic Peace Project. Is the closest thing to a law in IR.

[Bereta_Eder]

Who started this monstrous thread anyway??

Aha, it was Ryan and the question was (more of a statement really) that real democracies do not go to war.

Ok.

Isn't it funny how civ prompts discussion about virtually everything?!
You can't do that playing pac man

[Roman]

Democratic Peace theory can only work if they define democracy in such a way that two democracies cannot fight each other. In that case, though, the theory is totally useless.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark on 04-25-2001 01:53 PM sorry it took a yank to explain brit political history

Well thanks for the lesson, but I think you missed the point I made at the end of my previous post, which others have mentioned as well: and that is, that the notion of "democracy" has been evolving for many centuries now. Even prior to 1830, Britain was a lot more 'democratic' than many of the other nations in Europe by the standards of the time, being the first European nation even to have such a thing as a parliament. You have to judge relative democracy by the prevailing norms in each historical period, as others have pointed out in this thread. And as JamesJKirk said, if you count segregation as an indicator of less-than-total democracy, the US wasn't fully 'democratic' till the mid-60's!

But there's little value in wrangling about "who's the most democratic"! The point that I agree with in this thread is that democracies (governments "of the people by the people", however you define that!) tend to be more peaceful toward one another than other forms of government; and this needs to be reflected in Civ.


[This message has been edited by Ilkuul (edited April 26, 2001).]

[Cyclotron]

quote: Originally posted by Ilkuul on 04-26-2001 05:22 PM But there's little value in wrangling about "who's the most democratic"! The point that I agree with in this thread is that democracies (governments "of the people by the people", however you define that!) tend to be more peaceful toward one another than other forms of government; and this needs to be reflected in Civ. [This message has been edited by Ilkuul (edited April 26, 2001).]

I don't agree, Ilkul. The ever-peaceful senate, high military fees, and instability of the Civ2 democracy make it a government that cannot take war lightly. I believe the only reason democracies do not go to war together very often is because the democratic countries are now the great powers in this world, and there would be severe (and with nuclear weapons, possibly world-ending) consequences. If democracy had developed in, say, 500 AD, there would be wars between democracies then.

You have a skewed vision of the "peaceful democracy" because most democracies were formed in the modern era where war is incredibly difficult, costly, and scorned by the world community. The peaceful democracy has more to do with the times now then with the idea of democracy itself.

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[Imran Siddiqui]

quote: However if you put constraints on it, the limits being defined by the established realist theory then it holds up. You can use realism to explain why democracies haven't warred against each other in recent history. Mostly to do with economic interests. (Note we are talking about Great Powers here, since I'm sure minor conflicts between minor powers have already taken place.)

Actually that justification is strange. The economic interest rational is the Realist theory? No no no... Realism only considers power. Economics is a part of Liberal Theory and always has been. But on the dyadic level, economic interests have shown no deterrant.

Why is the Democratic Peace so potent? Because Democracies are transparent. You can see the reaction of the people to an idea and other nations can play upon this. There are opposition parties that might back the other view to take the dissatisfied people. And the people usually don't really want war in the first place. Also democracies are more deliberative in domestic politics leading to them being similar in the international realm. More talk, less action, basically.

[Lord MJ]

On it's own the democratic peace theory doesn't hold up.

However if you put constraints on it, the limits being defined by the established realist theory then it holds up. You can use realism to explain why democracies haven't warred against each other in recent history. Mostly to do with economic interests. (Note we are talking about Great Powers here, since I'm sure minor conflicts between minor powers have already taken place.)


With the bounded theory, a democracy will fight with another democracy for the same reason a war occurs between any other two actors. Competing interests, shifts in the balance of power, conflicts between status quo powers and imperialist powers, etc.

[Lord MJ]

quote: Actually that justification is strange. The economic interest rational is the Realist theory? No no no... Realism only considers power. Economics is a part of Liberal Theory and always has been. But on the dyadic level, economic interests have shown no deterrant.

Yes economic interests is rational in realist theory, well not part of it explicitly, but I am referring to economics as a component of power. Since the trade is benefiting the particular actor, the actor takes the possible effects of disruption of that economic tie into account when formulating it's policy.


For a pure realist point of view however, there hasn't really been a situation where two democratic Great Powers have had a conflict of interests that was so serious that it could lead to war. Also take in to account that all actors when formulating policy tend to conduct diplomacy so that things don't end in war, unless said actor WANTS to go to war.

Also there has never been a situation when a democratic dominant status quo power has been challenged by an imperialist democratic actor seeking to change the status quo in such a way that the status quo power would use force to stop it.


BTW are you an expert or a student in IR? If so I would love to discuss with you a little IR discussion I was having earlier about the current situation with China.

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[This message has been edited by Lord MJ (edited April 27, 2001).]