Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Iraq, Democracy, and Reality
Since 9/11, Bush has shown a predilection from grand statements about politics.* But I usually have no idea what he means. Take today's example:
Just eight words, but to anyone who's studied any history at all, it is hard to support. And what exactly does Bush mean by these words; in particular "free people", "enslavement", and "choose"?
From Bush's other statement, "freedom" appears to mean just two things: having elections (regardless of who contests them or how), and having as little state intervention in the economy as possible. Perhaps on these criteria, Iraq will count as "free" on January 30. But I doubt many political thinkers would call an occupied country with a boiling guerilla war, martial law, and a handpicked puppet government free.
What is "enslavement"? I suppose the opposite of freedom. But if freedom is having elections, even if they are rigged or restricted to favored candidates, I suppose enslavement becomes a logical impossibility. Because whatever "choice" the people make, so long as sham elections** continue to be held, they are still "free".
Any other stabs at this sentence? Perhaps Bush meant that in a free and fair election, people will never choose a party that promises to end democracy. As an empirical proposition, that holds little water. It also begs the obvious question: how can people ensure that their chosen party won't promise democracy, then bring on the oppression? Memo to neo-cons: Democracy is more than elections.
So what would be a truer statement? Try "Affluent societies never choose enslavement", which is the prevailing conventional wisdom in political science. But the same study finds poorer societies often "choose" to stop being democracies.
As my colleague Erik Wibbels points out, Iraq looks like a very poor candidate for democracy using the accumulated knowledge of social science. He estimates the probability of success at 2%, which may even be an overestimate.
But when did the neocons ever care about reality?
* Before 9/11, all Bush had to say about political theory was that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher. Which is very funny, because the main political statement associated with Jesus is "Render under Ceasar": i.e., pay your taxes.
** For our purposes, sham elections include those where no overt fraud takes place, but where the incumbent uses the power of the state to ensure an advantage for himself; e.g., by restricting campaigning of other parties, restricting the media, using the police to intimidate opponents, etc.
President Bush, appearing before cheering U.S. forces Tuesday, declared that terrorists won't be able to control Iraq's destiny because ``free people will never choose their own enslavement.''
Just eight words, but to anyone who's studied any history at all, it is hard to support. And what exactly does Bush mean by these words; in particular "free people", "enslavement", and "choose"?
From Bush's other statement, "freedom" appears to mean just two things: having elections (regardless of who contests them or how), and having as little state intervention in the economy as possible. Perhaps on these criteria, Iraq will count as "free" on January 30. But I doubt many political thinkers would call an occupied country with a boiling guerilla war, martial law, and a handpicked puppet government free.
What is "enslavement"? I suppose the opposite of freedom. But if freedom is having elections, even if they are rigged or restricted to favored candidates, I suppose enslavement becomes a logical impossibility. Because whatever "choice" the people make, so long as sham elections** continue to be held, they are still "free".
Any other stabs at this sentence? Perhaps Bush meant that in a free and fair election, people will never choose a party that promises to end democracy. As an empirical proposition, that holds little water. It also begs the obvious question: how can people ensure that their chosen party won't promise democracy, then bring on the oppression? Memo to neo-cons: Democracy is more than elections.
So what would be a truer statement? Try "Affluent societies never choose enslavement", which is the prevailing conventional wisdom in political science. But the same study finds poorer societies often "choose" to stop being democracies.
As my colleague Erik Wibbels points out, Iraq looks like a very poor candidate for democracy using the accumulated knowledge of social science. He estimates the probability of success at 2%, which may even be an overestimate.
But when did the neocons ever care about reality?
* Before 9/11, all Bush had to say about political theory was that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher. Which is very funny, because the main political statement associated with Jesus is "Render under Ceasar": i.e., pay your taxes.
** For our purposes, sham elections include those where no overt fraud takes place, but where the incumbent uses the power of the state to ensure an advantage for himself; e.g., by restricting campaigning of other parties, restricting the media, using the police to intimidate opponents, etc.
