By Tony Gibart
Democracy: What is it, and is it a good idea? The question for this issue reminds me of the oft-quoted quip Gandhi made when asked by a reporter what he thought of Western civilization. He said he thought it was a good idea. With this remark, he was not just saying that the ideals of Western civilization were never fully realized in Western countries, although he certainly was making that point.
To me, what makes the exchange noteworthy is that when Gandhi diffused the reporter’s question by saying Western civilization was a good idea he demonstrated something else: that the phrase “Western civilization” was not simply representative of an idea. Consider the context. The reporter is a colonizer asking the colonized (Gandhi) to comment on the colonizers’ image of themselves as civilized. When the question was posed, I am sure Gandhi couldn’t help but think about what the colonialists’ self-image meant in real terms. In fact, he must have seen the reporter’s question was one of many rhetorical deployments that attempted to mark the civilized from the uncivilized, the superior from the inferior. Gandhi probably perceived the word civilization as the cornerstone of the rhetoric used to justify colonialism—the domination over his people and the pillaging of his land.
Therefore, whether the reporter realized it or not, his question was loaded, even aggressive. With his comment, Gandhi exposed the hypocrisy. He showed how the assignment of who is civilized and who is to be made civilized is on one level arbitrary, and on another level, a function of brute power. By using the idea of civilization to justify domination, the British emptied that word of any real content. Gandhi made obvious the utter inconsistency between how the British use the word civilization and the idea it potentially represents.
With Gandhi’s insight in mind, for me, the question about how to define democracy and the question of whether democracy is a good idea are secondary to an analysis of how the term democracy is used. I use the word secondary not to mean necessarily less important, but to suggest that the real-world consequences of the word democracy, rather than its definition and democracy’s normative value, have greater immediacy. Moreover, if the answers to the other questions are to be sought with reference to empirical data, then the question of how the word democracy is used deserves a position of logical priority.
However, to get at this question I would like to take a path through a claim that some make about the value of democracy. People often extol the value of democracies using the democratic peace theory, which holds that two democracies have never gone to war with one another, or very rarely go to war with one another. As with the claim that colonialism spreads civilization, individuals use the democratic peace theory to justify wars by democratic states against those that are viewed as undemocratic.
The most significant deployment of this claim for my generation was the defense of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. As it became clear that American forces would not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Bush administration was forced to shift its explanation for the war. In November 2003, while addressing the British media, President George W. Bush said: “The United States and Great Britain share a mission in the world beyond the balance of power or the simple pursuit of interest. We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings. We cannot rely exclusively on military power to assure our long-term security. Lasting peace is gained as justice and democracy advance...If the greater Middle East joins the democratic revolution that has reached much of the world, the lives of millions in that region will be bettered, and a trend of conflict and fear will be ended at its source.” This is without a doubt a clear articulation of the democratic peace theory. While the sequence of events and ever-changing excuses for the war in Iraq cast serious doubt that this was ever a main reason the United States invaded that country, the rationale could not be easily dismissed if the democratic peace theory were potentially true.
In examining this proposition, another recent conflict is instructive. Before the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2008, Israel lunched a massive bombardment against the Palestinians in Gaza. Although not necessarily framed as such in the American media, the offensive in Gaza certainly can be considered a war. 1,444 Palestinians and 13 Israelis lost their lives. Israeli forces pounded civilian and civilian infrastructure for a three weeks.
What does this conflict mean for the democratic peace theory? Israel has a democratic form of government. In fact, in the American and foreign media, Israel is often described as the Middle East’s only stable democracy. Imagery of that nation as a shining beacon in the darkness of Arabic despotism is somewhat commonplace. On the other hand, Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is classified by the United States and other countries as a terrorist organization, and its position in Gaza is typically not presented as that of a democratically-elected leadership (I avoid the term government as an acknowledgment that the conditions under which the Gazans live stifle the full potential for governance). However, while it does not go unmentioned that the Palestinians elected Hamas in an American-supported election, the war between Hamas and Israel was not presented as a war between democracies, when by all appearances it was.
Although the killing in Gaza suggests the democratic peace theory is wrong because two democracies went to war, on another level it suggests that perhaps the theory is simply self-justifying. As the word is used in American public discourse, democracy denotes that a regime is legitimate. The democratic credentials of America’s ally in the region, Israel, are unquestioned, even though Arab citizens of that nation are not afforded equal rights, especially the right to hold and own property. Moreover, Palestinian inhabitants who are not Israeli citizens live under military occupation in lands that Israel claims as part of its territory. Needless to say, these facts are inconsistent with the idea of Israel as a shining democracy.
Although the dissonance between the picture of Israeli democracy in American discourse and the reality is particularly strong, it is just one example. In the classic, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky take the 1984 elections in Nicaragua and El Slavador as case studies that demonstrate the malleability of democracy as a label. The authors document quantitatively how the American media highlighted the democratic characteristics of the election that ratified the El Salvadorian regime, which was preferred by the U.S. establishment, even as the country was marred by violent, often systematic, political repression. Despite this, the elections were characterized as a victory for fledgling El Salvadorian democracy. In contrast, in American political discourse, the election of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua was portrayed as deeply flawed and phony, even though opponents of the regime benefited from greater political freedom in Nicaragua than existed in El Salvador.
The democratic peace theory is never wrong because only legitimate regimes are portrayed as strongly democratic and rarely are two combating countries seen as legitimate from one point of view. Saying two democracies never go to war is like saying that a civilized nation never colonized another civilized nation. The colonized is never counted among the civilized. I don’t mean to suggest that the word democracy is as problematic as the word civilized. For instance, it might be perfectly reasonable to call a government undemocratic. Whereas, calling a nation uncivilized would likely be an expression of ignorance or bigotry.
However, the word democracy doesn’t have a good track record as a signifier of true legitimacy. Without the 19th Amendment to the Constitution or the 1965 Voting Rights Act it is impossible to classify the United States as a democracy. But according to the standard narrative, this country has been democratic since its founding. The problem is, as Chomsky and Herman show, if a regime bothers to hold an election, one can always point to the formal trappings of the democratic process to legitimate a government. But, democratic formalities reveal very little about where power lies.
The outlook for the word does not seem promising either. The United States will mostly likely always be proudly considered a democracy by its people even though many feel unrepresented and powerless. Yes, we do like our elections—to the point that the drama of a presidential race and inauguration swallows the coverage of virtually all other news (the U.S.-subsidized invasion of Gaza being a good example). Yet, after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Citizens United, elections are likely to become more and more dominated by corporate and special-interest money and less a mechanism by which politicians are accountable to average citizens.
If democracy is not a very useful descriptor, in closing, I suggest a focus instead on equality. In an essay on constitutional interpretation, Catherine MacKinnon wrote “...in a democracy a constitution also has to legitimate itself with the people, and for women, it has a lot to answer for.”
Core to the concept of democracy is the idea that a government gains its legitimacy from the people. However, the history of our country shows that certain people—the poor, blacks, women—are thought not to be important to the legitimating function of democracy. MacKinnon’s simple but brilliant point is that an evaluation of democracy starts from the perspective of these people. “...[T]o the degree the Constitution is not equal, it is not legitimate...” A search for equality may be more complicated than a fixation on forms of democratic government, but by the same token, it may be less susceptible to misappropriation.
Tony Gibart lives in Madison, Wis. with his dog Blue.
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