This text represents the second 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).

What confusion! The current wave of democratization does not begin with 9-11; on the contrary 9-11 is the beginning of the end process culminating in the Iraq war. The Hanafi text is a symptom of what has happened: a discrediting of and increasing confusion about democracy. We have Bush, the neo-conservatives and the human rights hawks to thank for all this. After reading Hanafi’s lines I feel like Sisyphus. Is there really a point in trying to get this rock back up the mountain? A few obvious points will have to suffice. Yes, Democracy is a European idea. So what? It is a great idea. Some European ideas are great; others much less so. Before the world was Europeanized, perhaps there was no real justification for saying, as the Greeks more or less did, that the only genuine politics required the participation and self-determination of equal citizens, the rest being barbarism and despotism. Now however, there is much more justification for saying just this.

Does this mean that the West, India, Japan, Turkey etc. are democratic? By no means. One should distinguish between the norm and the reality. The most we can say is that the norms of democracy are stronger in these countries than elsewhere, and are in tension with mostly oligarchic and authoritarian realities. This is why these countries have many more democratic and democratizing movements than others; and they do achieve some things even on the institutional level. When the gap between norms and institutions becomes too great, it becomes impossible to use the term democracy for a system. Thus the best Israeli thinkers describe their country as an “ethno-democracy” or Herrenvolkdemocracy (master-race-democracy). Can “democracy” be imposed on others? By no means! The surest way of discrediting democratic norms is by trying to impose them, especially by military force. The history of colonialism has almost always had this result, and only where the anti-colonial movement itself was staunchly democratic as in India did democratic norms survive. Do institutions that incorporate some aspects of democratic norms necessarily produce good or just policy? By no means. Though I would say that their record is still better than those of dictatorships with respect to development, cultural freedom, private autonomy, minority including group rights, and yes even with respect to peace and war at least when their competitors are themselves “democratic.” Dictatorships are aggressive with respect to all competitors. It would be better if countries would observe international law regarding all states (and emphatically unlike Israel: all territories of other peoples!), but peace within Europe at least is a lot better than war between Iran and Iraq or Iraq and Kuwait.

Are countries that are supposedly “democratic” protected from the majority opting for dictatorship? No, though emphatically this did not happen before or during Mussolini’s or Hitler’s rise to power, that were rather facilitated by conservative power-holders (non-democratic elements of the institutional structure). The Napoleonic plebiscites too were at the point of the bayonet, however popular the two Bonapartes were. Yet it could happen, but this is not an argument against democracy. Why should the danger of dictatorship make us accept dictatorship rather than democracy? Benevolent dictatorship of which the Hanafi text sometimes sings can easily turn into its opposite, more easily than democracy into dictatorship. Think of the road from the old Bolsheviks to Stalin; it is fairly typical. So I am sorry that Bush and his fellow travellers have confused you so. It remains most likely true that democracy is the only answer to the deep crisis of the Arab world, and now you are on the verge of rejecting it. And what will you have then? A nationalism that is already falling apart, or religious fundamentalisms destroying one another as in Iraq, or perhaps nationalists and the religious killing each other as in the Palestinian territories. The best, most effective answer to Israel turning its back on Palestinian elections (and democracy) would have been more democracy. The current bloody answer is the stupidest possible one, except for the even stupider justification: it too is simply Israel’s fault. Israel should be blamed for a lot of things, but not for Arab confusion about democracy.

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).