The Spread Of Democratic Rule

1 Ryan Wulpi Professor J. Toole MWF 10am The Spread of Democratic Rule

In the anarchy of international relations, democracies set themselves apart from other ideologies. The question of whether democratic rule is good or bad for international politics can be answered by looking at the history of democratization and its effects on the international system and on the individual inside the democracy. Inside a democracy, an individual has a say on the path that their government will take, as opposed to an authoritarian, totalitarian, or socialist regime, etc. On the international level, democracies, essentially geared toward the individual, are innately bent on forming relationships with other countries to better the lives of everyone. Democratic rule is not only good for the future of the world, it is essential to the well-being of all inhabitants of the earth. In the realist view, states act primarily in a self-interested way and try to maximize their power to discourage other states from attacking. However, being democracies, realist regimes, I believe are naturally liberal, because the individuals have a say in the government. A democracy cannot just think about maximizing power unilaterally because it has to answer to the people, as opposed to a dictatorship, which can do essentially whatever it pleases. It seems that democracy itself has been legitimized in the last quarter century with the fall of the Soviet Union, the most prominent opponent of democracy. Also, since World War II, the embodiment of international organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF, have by their own standards, attributed to the spread of democracy by making a staple of their loaning

2 money, a fundamental assurance that the countries to which they are giving, adopt reforms and measures that ensure a path toward democratic programs. This itself is a product of liberalism, that these two organizations have fostered a move towards globalization. More cooperation between democracies facilitates the “democratic peace,” the assumption that democracies do not go to war with each other. Inter-state war is essentially non-existent between democracies. As Michael W. Doyle says, “liberal states do exercise peaceful restraint, and a separate peace exists among them (Doyle, p. 77).” He goes on to say that this “offers the promise of a continuing peace among liberal states, and as the number of liberal states increases, it announces the possibility of global peace this side of the grave or world conquest” and “the apparent absence of war between liberal states for almost 200 years thus may have significance. More significant perhaps is that when states are forced to decide on which side of an impending world war they will fight, liberal states all wind up on the same side despite the complexities of the paths that take them there. These characteristics do not prove that the peace among liberals is statistically significant nor that liberalism is the sole valid explanation for the peace. They do suggest that we consider the possibility that liberals have indeed established a separate peace – but only among themselves (Doyle, p. 77).” Democracy by nature is majority rule combined with the guarantees of individual human rights that serve to protect the rights of minorities, whether those are ethnic, religious, or political, etc. The rights of these minorities cannot be oppressed by the majority and are protected because of the democratic laws and institutions, such as the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc. The protection of human rights is another example of the spread of democratic rule being good for all of humanity. Democracies

3 deeply value human rights, political and individual rights, for all peoples of the world, that all people are entitled to these rights, whatever their place in society. These rights are now in jeopardy because of the spread of global terrorism. The terrorists that seek to attack the democratic way of life can easily do so because of the belief that democracies carry that give access to basic individual rights. ‘Send us your tired, your sick, and your poor’ is a staple of the United States’ creed that all peoples will be afforded basic individual rights in this country. The complexity of balancing this, coupled with the threat of global terrorism, furthers the attempt to erode our individual rights. The terrorist attacks of September 11th, prompted the United States government to make sweeping changes that affected our civil liberties and individual rights. The government detained, without charging, thousands of people, offered them no legal counsel and set up the creation of military courts to secretly try terrorism suspects. The Patriot Act, which was passed not too long after, fundamentally rewrote the surveillance laws and increased the powers of both the FBI and CIA to collect information within the United States of both citizens and non-citizens, further eroding our individual rights. The trade-off that comes with security and liberty is a delicate balance that needs to be out in the open for all people to see. It is not the fact that these changes actually erode our liberties; it is the fact that the constitution was built on a system of checks and balances and it seems, in the example of the Patriot Act, that we have lost some of them. This is precisely want the terrorists want to see, our changing the way that we govern, changing the way that we live, in affect, to avert another terrorist attack. It is most likely inevitable that we will be attacked again, at some point, on American soil. What then, will we continue to chip away at our individual rights so that we can stop another attack? The

4 fundamental difference between democracy and other ideologies is the people have a say. What is going to happen when we no longer have a voice? Would these terrorists be attacking democracy if they had their own self-elected officials governing their homelands? The countries that these terrorists are emanating from are not democracies but dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. The fact that these dictatorships are producing these terrorists cannot come as a surprise to anyone. The United States and other democracies need to spend their collective effort in riding the world of these authoritarian dictatorships that deflect their poor economies by preaching a hate of America. These dictatorships are churning out uneducated youth with a hate of democracy. They do not have the money to fully and adequately educate their youth because of their fanatical fear of losing their own power. This onus falls on the Arab world especially, whose governments turn a blind eye, or in some cases actually foment anti-Western ideals. The free democracies of the world cannot stand by and watch while these dictators continue to let this hatred breed. The spread of democracy to these lands, the teaching and understanding of the benefits of democracy, will only help usher the world into a much safer and more peaceful era.