If not a western-style democracy, then what?

Something I hear from time to time is that one country or another is unsuitable for a 'western style democracy'. Often it's said in defence of whatever system they already have (usually a form of dictatorship pretending to be loved by the people). I've never really heard anyone come up with a convincing argument to what a people should have instead. So I thought I'd ask you.

Is there such a thing as a 'non-western-style democracy'? Can you think of a system that really would be better accepted, fairer and work better in a non-western country (pick any you like - China tends to get this comment a lot)?

edited 9th Jun '11 3:47:46 PM by betaalpha

WHOO!! Yeah!

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Tribal Anarcho-Communism.

Not really.

"Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste."

Introducing democracy to those countries is not bad because of democracy itself, but because a quick, frantic change of the system from dictatorship to democracy tends to be extremely harmful to the country, severely damaging the economy (failed, hurried-up privatisations, for example) and institutions. It should be a slow process, with careful but effective reforms.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

@#2:

That pretty much says it all w/r/t why invaders say it has to be western-style democracy (pretty related, at least one US politician has publicly gone on record in words similar to "Countries can declare themselves sovereign, but as long as they don't follow our laws, they aren't"; google it in Ars Technica). Or why the supposed defense of "façade tyrannies" as presented in the OP is thrown as a reason why it has to be to attack the argument. But as stated above, a too harsh change is bound to generate a disaster, and that's as valid for democracy as pretty much any goverment.

I don't see a good reason why a democratic meritocracy (or meritocratic democracy? I'm always confuse) couldn't work in such kind of countries, or in most of Europe too for that matter. Mostly because of a matter of cultureset. But from what little understanding I have of them, meritocratic governments are "slow".

edited 11th Jun '11 10:44:26 PM by SilentReverence

Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?

Introducing a "Western-style Democracy" to countries with a largely illiterate population and/or a history of violent conflicts between a ruling minority and a oppressed majority often results in more harm than good. It is a good ideal that all nations should strive towards, but only when the proper conditions have been established.

Some ideas for a different system:

• constitutional monarchy - the king replaces president; his power is limitted (just like president's) but he always has some; because he can rule until the day he dies, he has a way of implementing long-term goals; if the king fucks up really badly or tries to seize absolute power, the parliament or the people have a way of dethroning him (not an easy one so it doesn't get abused); interesting example: Principality of Liechtenstein
• direct democracy - power of the parliament is reduced in favor of direct voting given to the people; the more important issues have to be voted so that people have bigger influence on the law than choosing which assholes will srew them over for the next few years; interesting example: Switzerland
• confederation or federation of small regions - power of the central goverment is limitted in favor of local legislature; what can be decided by local communities is decided by local communities, thus giving more power to the people (because your vote is more important in your city than it is in the whole country) and making voting with your feet much easier - you move only a few dozens of kilometres and still are technically in the same country; interesting examples: to a certain extent Belgium and Switzerland
• imperative mandate - politicians are obliged to push the program they've promised before the elections or they lose their mandate; basically, if they slack off or lie, they lose the power; examples: none I know of; Ukraine used to have it until 2010 but not in a good way (politicans were only forced to stay in the party they were from)

Now, combine some of these with small goverment and it might get interesting

edited 12th Jun '11 12:28:13 AM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Direct democracy is difficult to pull of successfully, though - look at my home state, one of the big experiments in direct democracy, and you see essentially government-by-formula.

Well yeah, it is difficult to pull of. But possible. I think it just requires a bit more regionalization along with it, like in Switzerland

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Randomcracy. All decisions are made through coin-flipping.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Ah, but someone will have to decide what issues gets to be decided.

Let's say that everyone can propose a law per day, and that all laws are assigned a number.

Then every day you extract a random number to select one of them, and that one gets adopted. New laws always supersede the old ones in case of contradictions.

Hm. This starts to sound like a rather involved way to create a direct democracy: after all, if many people want a law to hold, they can flood the "proposed laws for the day" and make it happen.

edited 12th Jun '11 12:46:57 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Then what?

Something that works.

China, Singapore, Bahrain and Dubai have dictatorships that tend to work, at least better than the average third-world democracy.

Dictatorship itself isn't bad, what causes problems is when the dictator's power is unstable, because it means he has an incentive to grab as much cash as he can before he can run away. In a stable dictatorship, with no struggles for power in the foreseeable future, the dictator doesn't have much of an incentive to be a huge dick (For example, Mao Zedong started being a real dick - the Cultural Revolution - once he was being pushed out of power, as a way to get back).

So if you have a process for selecting dictators that is predictable enough (i.e. no civil war when the old man dies), and tends to select competent dictators, then things should be mostly OK. Absolute monarchy is one way (though over time the quality of the kings does tend to drop), and a bureaucratic technocracy like China is another way.

Democracy can also work, but it takes more than just elections to get it right; having a bureaucracy that knows how things work and takes a lot of the actual decisions helps. Plugging superficial features of democracy in a country whose people and institutions are not used to it is not a recipe for stability though, and the West's export of democracy can be seen as exporting instability and civil war.

Point that somewhere else, or I'll reengage the harmonic tachyon modulator.

I am deeply offended that you call Singapore a dictatorship. True, it is practically a One-Party State. But it also true that we hold free and fair elections.

Well, it may not be a dictatorship, but the current unelected prime minister is the son of a previous unelected prime minister who was in office for around 30 years. That looks suspiciously like a lot of monarchies, though I admit the details are quite different.

Whatever you want to call it, Singapore's government seems to me to be among the most sane and competent in the world, and I suspect that's partly because it's free from the kind of politics you get in the States or in Europe.

Is there a better umbrella term to describe "not-really-democratic countries" like China, Singapore, Dubai etc.? Not that there's a clear place to draw the line, it would be somewhere on the continuum "North Korea, China, Dubai, Singapore, Japan, the US".

edited 12th Jun '11 2:14:33 AM by SlightlyEvilDoctor

Point that somewhere else, or I'll reengage the harmonic tachyon modulator.

Remember, democracy in an unstable nation is feasible. Look at the Wiemar Republic in Germany after WW 1. If we can replicate that Parliamentary Democracy, but without the shortcomings, then we have something decent on our hands. I mean, the Wiemar survived for over 10 years before Hitler got elected, and after WW 2, those politicians trained under the Wiemar were instrumental in creating the FDR Germany (West).

In short, Germany was as unstable as a chair with 2.5 legs, and a bunch of no-names with no experience of power pretty much put the nation back on track. It fought off THREE coup d'etats, battled through 5 years of hyperinflation, and managed to become a cultural centre to rival Paris and New York until 1933, when Hitler took over.

But what about the economic status? Political stabilty? Weimar republic was a total, complete failure. If we put aside the Holocaust, political prosecutions and other horrible things, Hitler's rule was much more productive than the Weimar period. Face it, without Hitler, Germany probably wouldn't be as stable and prosperous today.

edited 12th Jun '11 5:31:56 AM by MilosStefanovic

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

That is ludicrous. You mean by engulfing his country in war and ruin and causing it to be split in two for over four decades somehow contributed to it being "stable and prosperous"?

Not really. While Hitler built roads and shit, his economy was extremely short-sighted. If not reglamentation, stolen stuff, forced labor and territorial expansion that happened at the beginning of the war, Germany would quickly go bankrupt. Of course the war only postponed it because in 1945, they were close to bankrupcy

edited 12th Jun '11 5:34:37 AM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Athenian-style democracy tinkered to suit the modern world!

You mean direct democracy like Switzerland or more extreme direct democracy with democratic courts etc? Or aristocratic democracy?

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

If we put aside the Holocaust, political prosecutions and other horrible things, Hitler's rule was much more productive than the Weimar period

Yes, if you ignore everything that was bad about Hitler then Hitler wasn't really that bad.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

He was talking about the economy and infrastructure. He is wrong anyway.

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Aristocratic democracy (that is, oligarchy) is what we call 'democracy' right now. I'm talking about election-free democracy.