This text represents the third contribution of Andrew Arato in his dialogue with the philosopher Hassan Hanafi, published by the magazine Reset in its September-October 2007 issue (no.103).

I try one more time. There is no point in conceding many existing states their claim that they are democratic. Why don’t you go with the critical Israeli sociologists like Kimmelring (just passed away) or Yftachel who speak of Herrenvolkdemocracy or Ethnocracy? Why do you implicitly accept the claim that it is possible for a state in a divided society to be ethnically Jewish and democratic? Why don’t you go with the post Zionists in Israel instead , like my friend Uri Ram who hope to democratize it by making it a state of all of its citizens? It makes no sense unless you want to denounce liberal democracy through this association. Similarly, why accept the claim that America is the paragon of democracy? Did it go to war in 2003 democratically or through the prerogative of the presidency (as did even more openly the UK, through the use of the royal prerogative). The Congressional vote certainly did not satisfy constitutional requirements, and it was made clear that the president did not need it to start the war. Was the same Bush elected democratically in 2000? Does money or the voters dominate American elections? Here I agree with you, but this is not a point against liberal democracy. You are merely pointing out, as I would, that the U.S. is democratically deficient.

My suggestion was that we treat democracy as a two levelled concept, a normative critical one, and an empirical one. The latter Dahl called polyarchy, and Israel and the U.S. are polyarchies (while Egypt is not), because of the issue of the competitive struggle for power among multiple elite centers. Polyarchies, at least modern ones, do rely on democratic legitimation, and in light of such claims they may be more or less democratic from a normative point of view. Israel is at the non-democratic end because of its ethnic exclusion, poor protection of rights, communitarian impositions on the secular and above all because of its almost permanent emergency rule in large parts of the territory controlled by the state. The U.S. is much more democratic than that, and I am sorry, what you say about Blacks and Mexican-Americans is wrong. American Indians are free to leave the reservations as well. All three have the same formal rights as anyone else, in contradistinction to Israeli Arabs, in spite of the very real social and class inequalities.

Nevertheless, major political decisions in the U.S. that you speak about are not arrived at democratically, and the system leaves much room for executive prerogative, oligarchic corruption, and media manipulation. The two party system is indeed exclusionary (Here Israel’s electoral rules are better, though they have faults of their own!). These are however not marks of democracy as you seem to imply but deficiencies from the point of view of democracy that do not go so far as to vitiate the polyarchic character. That did happen in Weimar Germany and preFascist Italy, but it cannot be said that it was the self destruction of democratic institutions that caused the transition to dictatorships. In Germany it was article 48 (the emergency provision) of the constitution, along with other prerogatives of the state president that lead to Hitler’s victory, not the vote (he had only plurality in a multi party field, and he lost badly in the previous presidential election).

I do not think one can reject multi-party competitive democracy and still have modern democracy. Even Trotsky learned this bitter lesson. For the Euro-Communists it was no longer bitter of course, when they caught up with Bernstein’s democratic socialism. I think your description of Japan’s hegemonic system is a poor one, because, in spite of the fact that there is always the same winner, there is still intense party competition, with a strong and critical public sphere playing the same role as in liberal democracies. Italy too had dominance or hegemony by a party for a long period, if for quite different reasons, without ceasing to be an intensely competitive system on other levels. Polyarchy is not democracy, but a necessary condition for it. You will mislead others if you hold out for the idea of a democracy with completely different institutions than polyarchies. Yes you need civil society, elections, parties, constitutions, independent judiciary, protection of individual rights as they pertain to political participation and above all a free public sphere. What you don’t need to begin with is a democratic poltical culture, because then you may have to wait for ever. I would rather see that relationship between culture and politics as a circular process: elements of a democratic elite culture are needed for democratic institutions, which if they work at all will help develop a broader democratic culture, that can be the bases for the reform of institutions and so on.

Where we fundamentally agree is on the question of imposing democracy by force. It is performatively impossible: the effort vitiates the result, whether or not it is well intentioned, and usually it is not. The double concept of democracy I am trying to introduce helps to explain why this is so. Polyarchy can be imposed, at least temporarily, if there is sufficient force. But without democratic legitimacy it is an empty shell. When there is imposition, at least in our world that is strongly marked by nationalism and post-colonialism, it is necessarily surrounded by illegitimacy. Some support it (the Kurds in Iraq) but because of self-interest. Others accept it (the Shi’a) because they hope to manipulate it. But no one argues that it is just, because the norm of democracy contains self-determination and autonomy, and pedagogic dictatorships (e.g. the mandates of the past) are not compatible with it.

I do not however agree that to argue for democracy today is or must be simply an instrument to destroy the weak states that stand in the way of neo-liberalism or American empire. This was not the case in 80s and 90s when we argued for democracy, and when many states recovered their sovereignty from the two competing blocks. Admittedly the break-up of multi-national states does indicate a fundamental problem. Dictatorships were perhaps more able to contain and repress social, cultural and religious division than democracies. They nevertheless remain unacceptable on too many other grounds to use this as a defense against indigenous democratic efforts that should be supported. What is however true is that to argue for democracy after what has happened most clearly in Iraq we must reconsider the relationship of the modern state and democracy. Democracy is a great value, but it is not the only value. Moreover, it is not possible without a state, as it is obvious in Iraq, whatever its paper constitution says. Thus even soft forms of pressure and exhortation on behalf of human rights must take into account the integrity of state structures and the traditions needed to sustain them. Actually, democratization in this respect could also work in a state strengthening direction by generating new legitimacy for systems with polyarchic institutions.

Andrew Arato, constitutionalist, is the Dorothy Hart Hirson Professor of Political and Social Theory at the New School University of New York. Throughout his career his research has focused on the Frankfurt School, the history of social thought, and theories of Far Eastern societies and social movements. His current research concerns the sociology of law and theories of model societies. He is the author of numerous publications, including Sistani v. Bush: Constitutional Politics in Iraq (2004), The Occupation of Iraq and the Difficult Transition from Dictatorship (2003), Civil Society, Constitution and Legitimacy (2000).