ZYDZI WPROWADZAJA DEMOKRACJE DO IRAKU

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ZYDZI WPROWADZAJA DEMOKRACJE DO IRAKU

Democracy—Faster, Better, Smarter
The seven best new ideas for introducing representative government to Iraq.
By David Plotz
Posted Friday, April 25, 2003, at 7:47 AM PT

These days, democracy seems to be a booby prize. In his new book, The Future
of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, Fareed Zakaria argues
that the recent proliferation of democracy has been a distinctly mixed
blessing. Democracy has unleashed ethnic and religious hatreds that had been
suppressed, as new elections have vaulted to power radical Islamist leaders
and genocidal nationalists. Popularly chosen presidents have used democratic
elections to justify suppressing courts, legislatures, and other independent
sources of government power. Russia, for example, has traded a Communist
dictatorship for a democratic one. Zakaria argues that democracy does not
supply or even defend most of what we prize in our own government: the rule
of law, individual rights, the protection of property, and basic fairness.


So, the challenge facing the United States is not merely how to
introduce "democracy" to Iraq—democracy, after all, is as easy as holding an
election—but how to bring about a liberal, constitutional democracy—a popular
government that also protects the rule of law and basic rights. It's a noble
ambition and a preposterously difficult one: If there is anything that
democracy experts agree on, it's that you can't easily manufacture the
conditions for liberal democracy. No quick fix replaces the hard work of
building trust in laws, establishing checks and balances, encouraging civil
debate, and so on. Recent attempts to impose democracy in countries such as
Cambodia, Bosnia, and Angola have failed dismally.

Still, the experimentation in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Latin
America, and Africa has produced a bunch of new ideas about how to build a
genuine democracy faster and smarter. These ideas are not exactly futuristic—
there are no radical technologies for perfecting democracy (e-mail can't
exactly replace the rule of law)—but it's only been in the past decade that
nation-builders have come to realize exactly how important they are. Here are
seven of the best lessons for Iraq:

1. Delay it. The United States is raring to hold elections, declare
democracy, and split. All recent experience suggests this is a terrible idea.
In Cambodia and Bosnia, for example, the peacekeepers—eager to leave—staged
fast votes. The result: The most nationalist, ruthless, and extreme
candidates were elected.

Thomas Carothers, director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that rushing elections
reinforces the divisions that already exist in a society. As a nation
rapidly "decompresses," tribal and religious loyalties fill the vacuum.
Citizens attach themselves to what's familiar—often the most belligerent
separatists. If elections were held today in Iraq, radical Shiite clerics and
Kurdish separatists would be elected. A month later, Iraq would be half
Islamic theocracy allied with Iran, half Kurdish state at war with Turkey,
and all misery. (New ideas for minimizing this ethnic and religious conflict
will be the subject of a later piece.)

Carothers and others insist that a fledgling democracy should delay elections
until new associations—business ties, social and professional networks, new
political parties not based on tribal or religious affliation—have time to
develop and compete with identity politics. A people trained for silence and
obedience needs time to figure out how to participate and dissent.

Delaying national elections also allows Iraq to take baby steps. Daniel
Serwer, director of the Balkans Initiative at the U.S. Institute of Peace,
says that Kosovo's democracy has functioned better than Bosnia's in part
because Kosovo held municipal elections first, allowing political parties to
get practice and giving voters the chance to learn politics locally. Local
elections can diminish the influence of ethnic and religious parties since
hometown politics tend to be about bread and roads, not ideology.

2. Establish rule of law and an independent judiciary before elections.
There's a tendency in democracy-building to mistake elections for a stable
democratic government. Every state requires order first. (Later in the
series, we'll discuss the best new ideas for securing that order.) People
can't participate in government if they don't feel safe.

The judiciary—which guarantees that order—must precede the elected
government. Many recent new democracies—notably Russia—have floundered
because their elected officials and business elites went unchecked. In
Russia, the failure to enforce the rule of law allowed a few people to loot
state assets and set up as barons. The absence of a powerful court system
enabled Presidents Yeltsin and Putin to demolish all rival sources of power
and make themselves democratic tyrants.

3. "Horizontal accountability." A corollary to the rule of law. In a
totalitarian state like Saddam's Iraq, no independent power source was
permitted. There was one supreme, unchallengeable authority. Liberal
democracy requires independent sources of power to ensure that voted-in
leaders don't use the excuse of elections to revoke rights and crush rivals.
Scholars call this diffusion of power "horizontal accountability." It's
essentially what Americans know as "checks and balances."

Journal of Democracy Editor Marc Plattner, one of the leaders in this field,
says that in addition to an independent judiciary—always at the top of the
list—two sorts of institutions are proving particularly effective.
Independent electoral commissions set election rules, monitor fraud, and give
new parties a chance to compete fairly. Mexico's commission, says Plattner,
was essential in that nation's recent transition to genuine multiparty
democracy. In Thailand and elsewhere, independent anti-corruption commissions
publicize and punish graft, bribery, and other sleaziness by elected
officials. In nations where leaders have traditionally raided the state
without consequence, such commissions restore faith in government. They also
teach elected officials that their job is public service, not profiteering.

4. Reverse the diaspora. Civil war, dictatorship, and economic catastrophe
drive away the best citizens of any country—especially the free-thinking
souls that a vibrant democracy needs. As several readers—notably Steve Carter—
emphasized to me, diaspora Iraqis are exactly the folks who can accelerate
the rebuilding. They marry native knowledge with the first-world expertise
needed to build a successful new government. They can set up central banks,
build public health networks, start a civil service, teach policing, and
write good laws.

But why would they leave their new wealth and opportunity for the laughable
salaries and wretched working conditions of a postwar Iraqi government?
George Soros' Open Society Institute and other organizations hit on the
clever notion of subsidizing diaspora folks to go back home. The returnees
get enough extra cash to soften their sacrifice. They don't necessarily stay
forever, just long enough to kick-start good government.

5. Use new technology and media to instill the habits of democracy. Democracy
is a learned behavior. The experiences of the former Soviet Union and
Cambodia are evidence that democracy stumbles if citizens don't know how to
act like citizens. In a totalitarian state, people are trained to shut up and
avoid trouble. They don't understand the new behavior that democracy demands.
They even fear it. T