Table of contents

Preface

Dedication

Part One: THEORY

Chapter 1. THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY
1.1 Essence of Democracy I: Rule by the Consent of the Ruled
1.2 Essence of Democracy II: Nonviolent Conflict Resolution
1.3 Essence of Democracy III: Basic Human Needs, Basic Human Rights
1.4 The Three Essences Combined: Peace and Development
1.5 Dialogue-Consensus vs Debate-Voting: A False Dichotomy
1.6 Democracy vs Autocracy: Another False Dichotomy

Chapter 2. THE REALITY OF DEMOCRACY
2.1 Culture: Democracy as Culturocide
2.2 Structure: Democracy as Genocide
2.3 Micro Democracy: On the Way
2.4 Local Democracy: Could Be Better
2.5 Global Democracy: Coming

Chapter 3. THE "DEMOCRATIC PEACE" HYPOTHESIS: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRAUD
3.1 A Finding in Search of a Theory
3.2 Ten Epistemological Queries; Ten Fallacies
Nominal vs Real Definitions: The Fallacy of the Wrong Definition
Domestic "Democratic Peace": The Fallacy of the Wrong Level
Global "Democratic Peace": The Fallacy of the Missing Level
Residues-Third Factors: The Fallacy of Spurious Correlation
Pars pro toto: The Fallacy of Foreign vs Domestic Policy
Single vs Together: The Fallacy of Countries vs Alliances
Culture Blindness: The Fallacy of Inattention to Deep Culture
Structure Blindness: The Fallacy of Inattention to Deep Structure
Process Blindness: The Fallacy of Inattention to Past and Future
Alternative Theories: The Fallacy of Missing Alternatives
3.3 Why Is "Democratic Peace" Accepted: The Consonance Fallacy
3.4 Ten Fallacies; Ten Political Tasks
3.5 Global Democracy as Peace Structure: An Image
3.6 Democratizing the United Nations: An Image

Chapter 4. THE "DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT" HYPOTHESIS: A BETTER CASE
4.1 Development as Individual Development
4.2 Development as Social Development

Chapter 5. MULTINATIONAL DEMOCRACY: FEDERALISM * PEACE * DEVELOPMENT
5.1 On Federalism in General: An Overview of the Cases
5.2 National Diversity: Democracy and Human Rights are Insufficient
5.3 Dimensions of Federalism
5.4 A Typology of Federations
5.5 Federations and Peace: What Types are Peace-Building?
5.6 Federations and Development: What Types Promote Development?

Chapter 6. HOW DO AUTOCRACIES END?
6.1 On the Theory of Autocracies, Their Decline, and Fall
6.2 The End of Autocracy: Five Scenarios
6.3 The End of Autocracy: An Empirical Pilot Study
6.4 And How Might Democracies End?

Chapter 7. DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: THE CASE OF CHINA
7.1 Prologue: Written November 1988
7.2 Epilogue: Written October 2007


Part Two: PRACTICE

Chapter 8. DEMOCRACY AS EVENT, EXPERIENCE, MYTH, METAPHOR AND PRACTICE
8.1 South-South Dialogue
8.2 The Rectification of Names
8.3 Eight Millennium Development Goals, Eight Obstacles
8.4 The Great Little Fish
8.5 Ulaanbaatar Declaration on Good Governance
8.6 The Pacific Asian Model
8.7 Adding to Dahl
8.8 Internal Dimensions of Democracies
8.9 Democracy Promotion
8.10 Who Defines Democracy, Whom Does Development Benefit?
8.11 Six Challenges

Chapter 9. INDONESIA
9.1 Political Background
9.2 Civil Rights
9.3 Elections
9.4 Governance and Law
9.5 Media
9.6 The Rule of Law
9.7 Representation
9.8 Exiting from the Past

Chapter 10. SINGAPORE
10.1 Why Singapore
10.2 Political Background
10.3 Limiting Voice
10.4 The Internal Security Act (ISA)
10.5 Media Control
10.6 Defamation Suits
10.7 Structural Obstacles to Free and Fair Elections
10.8 Neither Free nor Fair
10.9 Numbered Ballots
10.10 The Group Representation Constituencies (GRC) System
10.11 Redrawing of Constituency Boundaries and By-Elections
10.12 Members of Parliament
10.13 Timing of Elections
10.14 Elected Presidency
10.15 Concluding Remarks

Chapter 11. MONGOLIA
11.1 The Political Developments
11.2 Gender
11.3 Freedom of Expression
11.4 Voting
11.5 Media
11.6 Future Prospects

Chapter 12. AFGHANISTAN
12.1 Background
12.2 Legitimacy of the Newly Elected Government
12.3 The Drug Trade - Eyes Wide Shut
12.4 Northern Alliance
12.5 Enabling the Taliban
12.6 Human Rights
12.7 Security Infrastructure
12.8 Errors of Commission
12.9 Democracy Viewed from the Inside

Chapter 13. CAMBODIA
13.1 Background
13.2 Early Independence
13.3 Caught between Forces
13.4 Enter the Khmer Rouge
13.5 The UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)
13.6 Untimely Decentralization
13.7 The Pathologies of Liberalization
13.8 The Roads Ahead

Chapter 14. MALAYSIA
14.1 The Background
14.2 1997 A Crisis Year
14.3 The 8 March 2008 Election

Chapter 15. PAKISTAN
15.1 The Problem
15.2 The General Arrives
15.3 9/11: The Choice
15.4 The Religious Parties Gain
15.5 Moderates Squeezed

Chapter 16. TIMOR LESTE
16.1 A Solidarity Mission
16.2 Independence, Invasion, Genocide
16.3 Independence Regained
16.4 The 2007 Elections, Violence
16.5 Solidarity and Democracy Mission to Timor Leste: Preliminary Statement

Chapter 17. THE UNITED STATES
17.1 The Twin Crisis
17.2 American Exceptionalism Power, Violence and Democracy
17.3 The Rejection of Europe
17.4 When in Doubt, Demonize
17.5 The Permanent Election and the Cult of Personality
17.6 The Rise of Executive Hegemony
17.7 The Executive Office of the President (EOP)
17.8 The New "Democratic Coalition"
17.9 Some Final Thoughts

Part One. Theory

Chapter 1. THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY

1.1 Essence of Democracy I: Rule by the Consent of the Ruled

This book links democracy, peace and development, and that begs the first question: What is the essence of these three ideas? What is that without which those precious concepts do not apply, loaded as they are with hopes of a life in dignity for all?

One essential aspect of democracy is obviously rule by rules making rulers accountable to the consent of the ruled.

The "ruled" would be the demos, the whole people in the political sense of citizens of a state; possibly different from the ethnos, people in the national sense of carriers of national culture. The level of legitimacy of the rule depends on level of consent. In a democracy the ruled bestow legitimacy on the ruled in return for their accountability.

A direct way to express consent is for the ruled to do so in a plebiscite. An indirect way is for representatives in an assembly to do so in a vote. And a very indirect way is to open a window every four years, for 8-12 hours, for people to choose representatives to that assembly in an election, free and fair, FAFE, leaving the decision-making between elections to them. All three make rulers arithmetically accountable to the ruled.

Rulers without the consent of the ruled are no longer legitimate rulers and should be replaced by new rulers for a new cycle of accountability. A genius social invention, that one.

Democracy is a feedback loop between rulers and ruled, with signals of consent or dissent, meaning acceptance or rejection. A democracy is as good as its feedback loops. Hence, there are degrees, levels, of democracy. Autocracy is only one way, with no loop, no built-in feedback, from the ruled to the rulers.

As mentioned, legitimacy is exchanged for accountability. Legitimacy is based on moral consent of the ruled, not fear of the force of the stick, or dependency on the lure of the carrot.

But the essence of democracy transcends signals of consent in feedback loops. The genius stroke was to extend this general point about consent and legitimacy downwards. Of course systems function better if people want to do what they have to do, but that easily translates into a reality where rulers do what they want to do and the ruled what they have to do. Democracy stands for the revolutionary idea that what the ruled want sets limits to what the rulers do, not the other way round--in principle.

In other words, accountability is not only upwards, the citizens being accountable to the guardians of law and order, or sidewards, with people establishing networks of all kinds based on mutual rights and obligations where they basically do what they want to do. The point about democracy is to add accountability downwards, with the rulers accountable to the ruled; even if only one day in four years. A meager diet, but better than no accountability at all: also known as autocracy.

A dramatic implication of democracy is that all the ruled affected by the rulers' decisions are in principle entitled to participate, directly or indirectly, in decision-making. In a globalizing world decisions increasingly affect people in other countries. They should be included in the feedback loops. But the global system of human beings is no democracy. A decision to invade and occupy abroad may be democratic within, and at the same time maxi-autocratic without, with no feedback loops that include the victims. The same may apply to economic decisions, for instance by speculators, affecting millions. Not viable.

Of course, there may be feedbacks from other states in the state-system. But with veto power--and votes being advisory, not compelling--that system is generally not democratic either.

Democratic deficits are found not only at the supra-state, but also at the sub-state levels. But democracy is advancing, also into the basic systems known as family, school and work in complex processes that are quite recent and quite revolutionary.

Take an abusive family, with the husband-father a pater familias, with physical force beating wife and children, with bargains with the wife (sex for care) and between the husband's and wife's families (dowry against security). The wife may also beat downwards, so may the elder siblings. To introduce husband and parental rule by consent, with husbands and parents being accountable downwards, to wife and children, is as revolutionary as at the general social level. The idea of romantic love, in principle a relation of reciprocity, may have paved the way, like the idea of children as lovable (pettable?).

Take a school, or a university, with administration-teachers-professors-students. The administration gets compliance from the teachers by paying them, and the teachers until recently got compliance from the pupils by beating them. Accountability was upwards: pupils worked for grading, and teachers reported grades to the administration.

However, increasingly the professors are made accountable to the students, and the level of consent is expressed through the (sometimes publicly available) instrument of evaluation. But administrations, like feudal lords, resist accountability to professors and students. The accountability cycle is blocked.

Not viable in the longer run. Democracy knows no holy cows.

A classical company also has a three tier structure, board-management-workers. Accountability is upwards only: workers to the management, management to the board. Democratization would add consent by management, and by workers, expressed through evaluation of the board by the management and of the management and the board, by the workers. Voting might be an instrument.

And customers would be given more of a say than with money only, through buying or not, and some idea boxes in some shops. Customers might actually have ideas. They might even suggest new products, not only wait for whatever the management proposes and the board is willing to accept if the returns are both high and quick enough for "risk capital".

The best might actually be a meeting of all four, board, management, workers and customers, maybe also with suppliers, the community and spokes-persons for environmental concerns; for a multilateral dialogue after bilateral explorations. The same applies to families and schools. There is actually a loophole in democratic theory and practice: excessive bilateralism.

Take the standard democratic state with the executive (government) accountable to the legislature (parliament), and the legislature accountable to the people. They meet bilaterally, ministers with representatives in the national assembly, representatives with voters in the campaign. But never the three shall meet, bringing up issues in triads that may lead to new insights and solutions.

As also in the micro-space of families, in schools with at least parents, teachers and administration meeting (PTA), and at work places that bring together workers, managers and the CEO. The break-through to mulitaleralism will be a major step forward.