Bad Democracies, Good Dictatorships

Jarrod of EEWW and I frequently clash over the virtue and value of democracy. He thinks it’s the bees’ knees. I think it’s drastically overrated. After much debate in the comments section of his blog, I’m now laying out my own argument here.

Clarrifying policy between good, established democracies and bad, corrupt dictatorships is easy. Regime change in France would be silly; regime change in Turkmenistan would be most welcome. But what we increasingly see is a messy choice between good and bad democracies. In an age where democracy is fetishized by politicians and NGOs alike and where the EU, the US, and the UN require third world countries to hold elections before the recieve aid, the emerging challenge for policymakers is to recognize when democracies are dysfunctional and when dictatorships are enlightened.

Consider the following examples:

Bad Democracies
Colombia: The oldest democracy in Latin America has precious little to show for it, where Marxist and Right-Wing Guerillas battle it out in the countryside and the government controls little outside the capital.
Haiti: In 200 years of history, Haiti’s only peaceful transfers of power occurred under occupation by the US Marine Corp. We spent billions returning the elected Aristide to power in 1994, only to have to supervise his ouster in 2003. How embarrassing.
Algeria: Elections held in 1991 brought the Islamic Salvation Front to power, followed by a military coup (the military and the secular elite feared an extremist-led government). The following fighting escalated into an insurgency which claimed more than 100,000 lives, mostly attributed to indiscriminate massacres of villagers by extremists.
(Other countries that could go on this list: Venezuela, South Africa, Nigeria, Niger, Cambodia, and many, many more.)

Good Dictatorships
Kazakhstan: With a hopeless factional opposition, President Nazarbayev has positively guided the national oil wealth to developing the nation, making Kazakhstan the richest, most liberal country in the region.
Pakistan: The GDP per capita has doubled under President Musharraf’s rule, and any democracy would only bring an ungovernable Islamist administration into power, quite possibly leading to nuclear war with India.
Tunisia: Tunisia has the most freedoms of any Arab country, yet there are no elections and no democracy. Ditto on Morocco and Dubai. However, all these countries have an expanding

Additionally, there are bad dictatorships where pushing a democratic alternative would be wholly irresponsible because there is no viable replacement. Without going into details, that list includes: Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Laos, Nepal…

The “democracy fetishizers” counter this argument by pointing out US-backed dictators that ended in disaster. See, for example, our support of the former strongman of Zaire, the Shah of Iran, Chiang Kai-Shek in China and Taiwan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, etc etc. Yes, it’s a long list. These critics take this very astute observation and proceed along a perfectly illogical line of reasoning to the conclusion that we must support only democracies and democratic reform, and any dictatorship we back is bound to be counterproductive.

I disagree. The conclusion I draw is that policymaking in this area is very, very difficult. Robert D. Kaplan said it best: Democracy works best when it emerges last. A country needs a solid middle class, a sound economy, a fair tax code, a judiciary, and working civic institutions first. Only then can we rationally expect democracy to serve society as a positive force. Democracy is not a magic talisman of national success, and applying it as a bandaid is a waste of resources that could be spent better elsewhere.

That’s one reason why I’m not excited about the “people’s coup” in Kyrgystan. A leaderless opposition force backed by drug dealers has pushed out a reasonably enlightened dictator. Is this a new, democratic age for Kyrgystan? Don’t count on it. With no economy, no middle class, vicious tribal factionalism (although granted not as bad as Tajikistan), rampant drug trafficing, and now rioting and looting in the street, I think there are greater tyrannies to come.