Guess Which Amendment is My Favorite

One thing I regret not studying more in college was democratic theory. I had this mistaken conviction that democratic theory classes would focus on, say, GOTV techniques. Whenever people start to explain GOTV to me, I zone out, furtively try to figure out where they put the Box o'Joe, and impatiently wait for them to finish and give me my walk sheets. Said exercise did not seem like the best use of college tuition.

My senior year, I took a Latin American comparative politics seminar that clued me in on the fact that democratic theory was not, in fact, about which doors to knock on. Nor was it just about elections, period.

Increasingly, I realize that just as I thought democratic theory was the study of electoral engagement, the United States seems to think democracy is elections. I don't think a democracy can exist without elections, but I have no doubt elections can exist without democracy.

Elections are often (and this goes back at least to El Salvador two decades ago; it's not a new phenemenon in Iraq and Afghanistan) hailed as not only a signpost on the road to democracy, but as the pinacle symbol of a democratic society. I think in part this is because elections are so tangible; one can quantify their success by the turnout, the lack of violence, the level of enthusiasm. A couple bloggers and authors also argue the United States tends to focus on elections because we have for so long; we know how to build reliable election systems (really?) whereas developing a participatory society from scratch is something that a) outsiders are less equipped to do and b) we've been a democracy for too long to understand. Personally, I'm a sap for the lovely romance of one man, one vote-- the idea of each and every person having the same amount of voice to make their own private choice (we'll leave campaign contributions and the electoral college out of it). It's hard not to be touched-- nor should we be anything but-- by the stories of formerly disenfranchised people, allowed to vote for the first time ever, lining up outside the polls.

The emphasis on elections as the hallmark of democracy rather than, say, a deeper democratic society is one reason we are quick to uphold results-- people voted, right?-- even in cases, like the recent Kenyan election, where it seems clear there was a lot of fraud. (There's probably space here for a whole separate digression about whether we value stable, predictable outcomes over democracy...)

(I think there are some interesting challenges involved in elections themselves: what do ballots look like in a country with a low literacy rate? If political parties don't exist and there are hundreds of candidates-- as was the case with the 2006 parliamentary elections in Afghanistan-- how can people possibly vote on anything other than tribal affiliation? Historically, in Mexican elections, voters have a finger inked at the polls to prevent voter fraud and repeat voting. However, this also allowed the PRI to check up on voters and punish non-voters. If we assume the decision to not vote is a legitimate one-- and that the choice is private-- then to mark voters contributes to potential coercion.

For the most part, though, challenges associated with elections themselves are technocratic and specific rather than philosophical.)

The challenge I find the most gripping is how to create a climate in which elections are meaningful. A friend of mine who's family is originally from China argued that democracy just wouldn't work in China because people weren't interested in events outside of the family and didn't think about how things should change. My Latin American politics teacher convinced me that democracy is not neutral but is a value-driven system, but I don't think I'll ever be convinced it's a peculiarly western institution.

I think it's impossible to make claims about what people think or do not think in a nation in which free speech and free of press and freedom of access to information don't exist. I believe these freedoms are the basic foundation of democracy and must be in place before one can even talk about elections. (Even without a structural move towards elections, I think freedom of expression would eventually lead to a change in goverment; I know some people argue that this is not the case if the country is well off enough-- people don't riot over votes, but instead, bread shortages. However, if this was the case, there would be no need for repression and censorship in the UAE.) There can't be a developed meaningful difference of opinion-- key to a legitimate election-- without speech. Issue based platforms and corresponding support can't exist without the ability to discuss possibilities different than those currently persued by the government.

Corresponding conditions are wide access to information (radio's great) and a state monopoly on force. A constitutional guarentee of free speech becomes meaningless if paramilitary gangs can punish you for its execution.

I guess one could argue that free expression is a pecuilarly western institution, even if democracy is not, but I think it's important to remember that free speech is relatively new, somewhat rare, and very fragile throughout the west as well.

In the end, I think supporting democracy is a worthy goal for American foreign policy, I just think our current instruments and assessments are ill-suited to achieve it. Generating support for free speech overseas is much subtler than supporting elections. I think at the very least, we need to strengthen domestic civil liberties so as to be able to lead by example, and we must resist the urge to bolster stability at the expense of democratic processes abroad.

(I also like the 13th-15th amendments a lot, especially their mid-century rediscovery.)