Actually, people do; both economic development and democracy spread outward from a very few points on the globe; the closer you are to one of those places, the more likely you are to live in a developed democracy.
But Chris Coyne makes a very convincing argument that you can't do it at gunpoint. I highly recommend that all my readers listen to Econtalk every week, but this episode is particularly good, and particularly relevant to one of the central policy debates that will decide this election.
What do you mean you can't do it at gun point?
It worked with Germany, Japan, and most of the former USSR.
The question is just what caliber of gun and how many shots you need.
Look at them slow learners in Japan --- it took 2 nukes.
Sometimes, it does take rounding up and eliminating the ones who oppose the new democratic regime, like the Nazi party carryovers, etc.
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Megan,
with this: "the closer you are to one of those places, the more likely you are to live in a developed democracy."--above, from your post.
Would you tell us, is the United States a 'democracy'?
Take a page from Wood's book, come forward, define your terms.
"Frederick Wood, a lawyer with one of the prominent Wall Street firms, contended that the increase in government power was dangerous and illegal. Shlaes writes, “He argued that it might be all right to go the way of Mussolini or Hitler, but a constitutional amendment was necessary for that, not merely an act of Congress.”"
Skimming the synopsis, it doesn't appear to address Korea, which would seem to be the best case scenario for Iraq. Of course democracy can't be exported at gunpoint. The question is whether removing regime x makes it more or less likely that a population can eventually achieve self government, what the cost of removing regime x will be, and what the likely cost of not removing regime x will be.
"War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will."
"Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skilful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the art of War. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are just the worst."
-- Karl von Clausewitz, "On War" (emphasis mine)
You can do it at gunpoint. But that is not sufficient. You must also break the will of those you wish to subdue. For those willing to die to oppose you it's usually best to kill them. For the rest it is enough to show that you can and will kill them if they resist.
The problem comes with the "kinder gentler war" we're experimenting with now. The kind of war where we actually try to do the least amount of harm. But this doesn't work today any more than it did when Clausewitz put his wisdom down on paper over 150 years ago.
The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies
Maximilien Robespierre said that. Yes, that Robespierre.
Will,
The trouble with the Korea analogy is that South Korea has 1 million starving North Korean soldiers on staring across its border and salivating. So all of its factions recognized the need for US miliary presence (aside, I suppose, from the communists, but we tended to arrest them, and there weren't a huge number left in the South once the war was over).
In Iraq, there is no such threat, and therefore our presence generates much more hostility.
You can't force democracy, same as you can't force plants to grow. However, what you can do is tear up the parking lot and watch what happens. But one thing is sure: Nothing will grow under the asphalt and concrete of a parking lot. Which is why there is no democracy in North Korea. And which is why in Iraq, you have to pull some undesirable weeds so that the seeds you planted will grow.
apex
The same is true of poverty. You can't lift people out of poverty by force either. I'm speaking of course of unrestricted international aid. It still doesn't mean authoritarian regimes are better for their people than letting them try on their own. I'd prefer if we could distinguish the deletion of authoritarian regimes from the attempts to force people into democracy at gunpoint or force them out of poverty wealth with international aid. It seems to me that if it's good for American businesses to "make mistakes faster," it should be the same of developing countries who want to become functioning wealthy democracies. Does Chris Coyne argue that democracy and wealth come faster by leaving dictators in place, or only that it comes with less hand-dirtying for the rich countries?
(It looks like Apex was also thinking on the same wavelength).
I think the question of whether or not "Democracy" can be exported is much too broad. Under a certain combination of circumstances Democracy (or something approximating it) will take hold, under others it will not. I'm not going to claim that I know exactly what those circumstances are, but each case has to be looked at individually.
To look at the WWII examples... Would democracy have held in Japan if the Emperor hadn't urged his people to submit after the atomic bombs were dropped? Would it have held in (West) Germany if the people weren't scared so shitless of what the Soviets would do to them? It's not obvious in either case that it would have.
My point is that it's a very complicated endeavor with lots of potential unforeseen problems and outcomes. And it mystifies me why people who would normally be suspicious of large government projects with lots of potential unforeseen problems and outcomes are so sure that the Democracy project in Iraq is such a good idea.
heedless, I wasn't making any argument for how much longer we should stay in Iraq. I was merely observing that if one thought it was important to the U.S. to eventually have a large self governing population in the Persian Gulf, as I believe it was and is, then the question becomes whether ending Baathist rule in Iraq made that more or less likely, what the cost of ending Baathist rule is, and what were the costs likely to be of continued Baathist rule.
I agree with Hovie and apex. You can't directly export democracy with guns, at least not a real and desirable democracy. But you can remove obstacles to democracy with force.
The actual development of democracy will take longer, and will mostly be done (or not done) by the local people. Force can remove the obstacles, assistance from the outside can get the process started, but the locals have to actually develop and run the process.
My point is that it's a very complicated endeavor with lots of potential unforeseen problems and outcomes. And it mystifies me why people who would normally be suspicious of large government projects with lots of potential unforeseen problems and outcomes are so sure that the Democracy project in Iraq is such a good idea.
You are pretty much describing me here. I can give only give you my thought process. I figured The Democracy Project (a great name for a band...) to be a "high-risk/high-reward" situation. Given the pace of technological development and weapons proliferation trends, if the Middle East doesn't adopt Enlightenment values the most likely outcome is far, far worse than Iraq is currently. This doesn't make the democracy project any more likely to succeed, but it was imperative to try.
That said, I thought (hoped?) we would have been more successful than we have been to date, and I've wondered why I was so optimistic. I believe that I (invalidly) extrapolated from the Eastern European post-Cold War experience to the Middle East. Culture matters, and I forgot that.
Guns may not be sufficient, but they are almost always necessary.
The problem with using the World War II examples-- Germany, Italy, Japan-- is that these were infrastructurally developed, industrial advanced countries. (Japan, less so, but it had begun that shift and had many institutional and bureaucratic advantages moving in that direction.) Italy and German were Western states, and Japan had undertaken a pitched drive to Westernize and modernize decades before. These were also resource rich countries that had the kind of head-start in raising capital that imperial backgrounds, history tells us, provide. It's a much different thing to export democracy to a Third World country without the stability and infrastructural development that these countries had. It can be credibly argued that, rather than democracy leading to affluence and stability, the reverse is true: a certain amount of bureaucratic, capitalistic and security-level maturity may be necessary for meaningful democracy to occur.
The second point I want to make is this: a country can't be meaningfully democratic unless it makes it's own decisions. As Rob Lyman has pointed out in this space before, having a self-determining dictator doesn't make a country "self-determining" in any meaningful way. But having a foreign army occupying your territory, even one which views it's mission as benevolent, is also an affront to democracy. I have met very few people, even among conservatives and those who support the argument, who would argue that the Iraqi people are fully in control of Iraq. Most people acknowledge, as a matter of real politik, that America is the final arbiter on decisions made by the Iraqi government. As long as that remains the case, we can't credibly say that we are supporting the project of democracy in Iraq.
"You must also break the will of those you wish to subdue"
In the case of Germany, that was done by the virtual elimination of most males of military age, including keeping many as POWs for decades after the end of the war. Those who are in leadership positions were tried as "war criminals" and summarily dealt with. In addition, many people, including many women and children, were deported to distant outposts of the Soviet empire pretty much for life where they are subject to "terrible things".
Then follow that with an occupation that stripped the country of most of its industrial assets, have the people kept in starvation for years, and basically, giving allied soldiers free access to all the women they can rape and plunder.
After a decade of this kind of deprivation, which caused both occupied Germany lose a substantial amount of its population either through forced relocations (like from Alsace-Lorraine, Eastern Prussia, etc.), deportation of people, or migration of Germans to South America, Canada, etc., and the total demoralization and starvation of the remaining population by the occupation forces, then the will of the people is pretty broke.
In other words, it is a slightly modern form of the 17th and 18th century strategy of deporting the population of a conquered territory, and not that much different from the kind of occupation conducted by Genghis Khan.
Sure we can have a democracy, but it takes more than guns, it takes virtually eliminating the males and breaking the remaining females.
Neat trick, huh?
A question for those that accept the premise that democracy can not be exported: What policy should the US be pursuing in Afghanistan?
"It worked with Germany, Japan, and most of the former USSR"
Ah yes, those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Are you referring to Weinmar Germany? Or are you really so stupid as to think that the US forced postwar Germany into democracy. Or USSR for that matter - even more laughably idiotic. And once again thanks for demonstrating how intellectually dishonest and bankrupt conservatives and conservatism are and is.
"A question for those that accept the premise that democracy can not be exported: What policy should the US be pursuing in Afghanistan?"
Benign dictatorship; see Singapore.
Or, more to the point, perhaps we shouldn't really be determining what sort of government is established in Afghanistan.
And even if it were possible to export democracy at gunpoint, what do you do next, when a majority of the newly democratized society votes in favor of, say, Sharia Law, female genital mutilation, suicide bombers, driving Israel into the sea, and death to the the Great Satan?
As usual, everybody is overlooking the fact that 'democracy' is not necessarily equivalent to 'good government.'
A question for those that accept the premise that democracy can not be exported: What policy should the US be pursuing in Afghanistan?
Context, first. Afghanistan was a failed state, in the narrow meaning of the term, prior to US intervention there. The Taliban government lacked some of the most basic bureaucratic and infrastructural apparatus needed to have an even basically legitimate government. As much as I deplore the Baathist regime in Iraq, under Saddam it was a functioning state, in the sense that it had control over the large majority of the territory and was able to provide elementary government functions in a way that the Taliban was not. What's more, the fighting in Afghanistan has alway been of a fundamentally different character from that of Iraq. The fighting in Afghanistan is against warlords (largely in Waziristan) who have been fighting against each other since, oh, before there was an America; and against the Taliban and those taking up its mantel. That's an important distinction, because the Taliban were an enemy against which we declared war, after a sympathetic force attack us and was given haven within their territory. The business of invading Afghanistan was not to install democracy but to remove an enemy who had launched an attack on our soil.
That doesn't really answer your question, in and of itself, but I think it's vital to remember when considering these questions. Germany, Italy and Japan were also not invaded to install democracy, but in response to aggression against the United States and its allies. The business of democracy building in those countries was a consequence of our action, not a cause.
So what to do with Afghanistan now? I think, to begin with, we have to continue to monetarily support the government of Iraq, as we did in post-World War II Europe; it was the Marshall Plan, more than anything else, that helped to rebuild Europe. In fact, I think it's accurate to say that it was the Europeans who rebuilt Europe, for the most part, and that's the blueprint we must hope happens in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda and the Taliban remain our enemies, and rightly so, and the United States must make clear to Afghanistan that we will continue to pursue them within the country's borders if the Afghan government is incapable of doing so themselves. But, eventually, we have to pull out, and leave Afghanistan to the business of putting itself back together... or not.
What about the factionalization, the warlords, and regional competitors? I don't know. I think here we have to again recognize history-- there has never really been a strong, viable nation-state in Afghanistan; never been a time in recent Afghan history without infighting among warlords; there doesn't appear to be any likelihood that opium production is going to be meaningfully disrupted in the near future; etc. We have to accept the possibility that Afghanistan may not be able to be healed to our desires. But in that we are leaving them only in the same boat that the vast majority of countries in the world are in, which is to say, without the benefit of a superpower attempting to make everything alright. That's sad and tough, but ultimately it's the way of the world. I feel there is a real danger that these American holdings will become child-states, permanently unable to fend for themselves because of their institutional dependence on America. We can't allow our desires for a good outcome for the people of Afghanistan to cloud our minds to the limits of American power.
So, yes, eventually, I think we should pull out, and yes, the short term consequences for the Afghani people might be bad. But maybe not, and in the long term, I think a state that is really self-governing and self-reliant is a much better thing for the people of the world, on balance, than a country that is in perpetual adolescence. If we can foster the project of Afghan democracy through economic and soft power, so much the better. If not, Afghanistan will be in no worse shape than Liberia or Chechnya or East Timor or any other nation that is suffering.
No one has mentioned the restoration of elected government in Latin America (and in those parts of the non-Latin Caribbean from which it had retreated) in the years running from 1978 to 1990. Direct coercion by the local hegemon was one among several causal agents. These governments have proven considerably more durable and immune to extra-legal regime change than those instituted during the 1950s or the 1920s.
And even if it were possible to export democracy at gunpoint, what do you do next, when a majority of the newly democratized society votes in favor of, say, Sharia Law, female genital mutilation, suicide bombers, driving Israel into the sea, and death to the the Great Satan?
Jeane Kirkpatrick is supposed to have said that the national election results in Algeria in 1991 had shaken her faith in the proposition that when people are given the choice they act rationally. An implication of her remark would be that she had not expected these sorts of results because she had not seen them in other venues. The Arab world is its own place and people elsewhere seldom self-consciously opt for revanchist and authoritarian government. (Though non-revanchist and non-authoritarian government may be shot through with corruption and incompetence).
And even if it were possible to export democracy at gunpoint, what do you do next, when a majority of the newly democratized society votes in favor of, say, Sharia Law, female genital mutilation, suicide bombers, driving Israel into the sea, and death to the the Great Satan?
Do you think Arabs always thought these thoughts? No, they had to be brainwashed by their leaders over generations. These leaders originally got to power by force.
Obviously if you want to change people by force, it is possible. It may not be moral, optimal or cost effective however.
"when a majority of the newly democratized society votes in favor of, say, Sharia Law, female genital mutilation, suicide bombers, driving Israel into the sea, and death to the the Great Satan"
You don't let that happen to begin with by killing anyone who might think like that.
Look at how it was done in Germany....
" ... The Arab world is its own place and people elsewhere seldom self-consciously opt for revanchist and authoritarian government ..."
Well, I am admittedly no expert, but I find it hard to believe that there is anything uniquely pathological about 'Arabs.' My guess would be that any time you are dealing with a society that is either tribalistic and/or composed of religious fanatics, democracy is very likely to devolve into mob rule sooner or later (and probably sooner).
I mean, gosh! We in Anglo-Saxon culture have been struggling with these issues of limited government for almost 800 years (counting since the Magna Carta), and we still don't have all the bugs worked out.
+++++++++++++++++
" ... You don't let that happen to begin with by killing anyone who might think like that ..."
Well, yeah, that would work, but we Americans (thankfully) don't have the stomach for it. You just can't successfully run an Empire by going around asking yourself "What would Jesus do?" You have to ask "What would Genghis Khan or Josef Stalin so?" I don't think that even Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney or John Yoo would approve of that approach.
Well, I am admittedly no expert, but I find it hard to believe that there is anything uniquely pathological about 'Arabs.'...My guess would be that any time you are dealing with a society that is either tribalistic and/or composed of religious fanatics, democracy is very likely to devolve into mob rule sooner or later (and probably sooner).
Whether or not you think there is anything uniquely pathological about Arabs, the political societies of the Arab world have been less hospitable to deliberative and electoral politics than those in any other region of the globe. Why this is may not be a matter of conjecture, but political sociology is not one of the exact sciences. Also, parliamentary institutions in the Arab world were failing in the 1950s, at a time when ideological frenzies were generally expressed in a secular idiom. Stanley Kurtz has offered an argument to the effect that the particular form of kinship relations common in the Arab world presents a severe impediment to the formation of a state that is anything other than an instrument of raw coercion and sectarian patronage, but that is a more involved explanation than blaming 'tribalism'. There are societies that suffer severe communal fragmentation that learn to manage (India to name one).
freddiemac - Re: "perhaps we shouldn't really be determining what sort of government is established in Afghanistan."
We should let the Afghan people do that. Of course letting the people decide who will govern is often called "democracy".
Freddie wrote: The problem with using the World War II examples-- Germany, Italy, Japan-- is that these were infrastructurally developed, industrial advanced countries. (Japan, less so, but it had begun that shift and had many institutional and bureaucratic advantages moving in that direction.)
True. But they also had the bulk of that infrastructure and industry destroyed -- Germany far more so than Italy, and interestingly, modern Germany is far superior in infrastructure and industry than Italy. And post-WWII Japan was a different animal entirely in how it developed.
These were also resource rich countries that had the kind of head-start in raising capital that imperial backgrounds, history tells us, provide.
Germany, yes. Italy, somewhat less. Japan was out hunting for resources on the Asian subcontinent and staring hungrily at Siberia.
It's a much different thing to export democracy to a Third World country without the stability and infrastructural development that these countries had.
True in abstract, and true for Afghanistan, but somewhat less true for Iraq, which saw its pre-Ba'athist condition mitigated against by two decades of Ba'athist abuse, including a prolonged ruinous war of attrition.
It can be credibly argued that, rather than democracy leading to affluence and stability, the reverse is true: a certain amount of bureaucratic, capitalistic and security-level maturity may be necessary for meaningful democracy to occur.
Now you're taking a page from any of the books that have been written in favor of the Developmental State model (a.k.a. Asian Tigers). However, I don't see how these apply in the post-WWII rebuilding context.
john w,
The question was posed as can we have democracy at the point of a gun, not whether it should be done, or whether we have the stomach for it.
So I answered in the affirmative and listed the options and possible actions to get a friendly, cooperative, subservient democracy for American interests just about everywhere.
It may be that there will be no survivors after everything was needed to be done to get a democracy is done, but it will be a democracy that fits with American interests because the land will be repopulated with Americans who are democratic.
The wholesale slaughter of conquered people have a long and storied tradition in civilization, and I am putting it forward so people can see that it is by no means beyond the realms of the possible.
It is not necessarily a world we like, but it may be a world of the future.
" ...There are societies that suffer severe communal fragmentation that learn to manage (India to name one). ..."
OK, but I think that just goes to prove my point. The British spent, what? almost 100 years in India exporting democracy at the point of a gun; they were far more ruthless than we are likely to ever be; and they JUST BARELY succeeded in creating a semi-stable, more-or-less democratic country. The odds of that happening again aren't very promising.
D has it right. The US hasn't the guts to really do what is necessary to do the job. Which isn't surprising, since the US was supposed to be saving poor, oppressed people, not exterminating them. The war in Iraq, for example, was partially sold as a liberation. And it was never really an existential threat. The result is that the US is just trying to Great Society-ize a region it doesn't understand.
Look into the history of empires and civilization, and what you will find is that systematic slaughter or enslavement of conquered population is the norm rather than the exception.
Too many people today have no memories of what Europe, the recent highpoint of Western Civilization, was like after World War II.
The little hints of what the United States would be like should infrastructure collapsed partially - like after Katrina in New Orleans - should give us pause as to how little human nature, and the innate capacity for ruthless, violent, vicious behavior, is not that far buried below the surface even in the most "civilized" of peoples.
Don't anyone for a moment think Americans are incapable of such barbarism. Nor should Americans be surprised if the "barbarian" invaders of a fallen American empire behaved in such a manner.
The British spent, what? almost 100 years in India exporting democracy at the point of a gun;
If my memory serves, British rule in India was, prior to 1858, conducted through a hodgepodge of chartered companies and protectorates. I think the first attempt to introduce parliamentary institutions occurred in the early 20th century (in 1907?). "Exporting democracy" certainly was not an object of the East India Company or of the Colonial Office until fairly late in the game.
The British also exploited and exacerbated ethnic divisions as a way of holding on to power. They did it in India, Afghanistan, and many other colonies, and contributed greatly to the ethnic discord that exists (and interferes with peaceful democracy) today.
"Can we export democracy?"
The more important question at this point is whether we can import it.
apex says it best with the parking lot/weed analogy. Framing the issue as whether we "can export democracy at gunpoint" leads to a lot of misguided commentary. The guns are for the people who would stand in the way of democracy, not the democracy as such. People with cancer are often given radiation. The radiation is not supposed to make the healthy cells grow, and observing that radiation won't make healthy cells grow does not constitute a criticism of radiation therapy. Indeed, there is basically no one who would be dumb enough to speak of radiation therapy in that way in the first place.
As for the people who frame the issue as whether we can "choose their type of government for them", this is also a bizarre way of looking at it. As Tim Fowler points out, 'democracy' is actually the best method humans have invented for letting people choose their own governance. Got a better one? If so let's hear it but till then we're stuck with the approach loosely termed 'democracy'.
freddiemac suggests (in the context of Afghanistan) pursuing a "benign dictatorship" in Afghanistan. Sounds swell (especially if we could somehow metaphysically guarantee the "benign" part, which is, of course, silly) but how would "exporting benign dictatorship" to Afghanistan be any different/better/easier than "exporting democracy"? Such a criticism seems to start from the premise that we can't choose peoples' governance for them (democracy), so therefore, let's choose their governance for them ("benign dictatorship"). People often say the same regarding Iraq ("let's chooose a three-state solution.."). Often, of course, the people propounding this view actually believe that the second (non-democracy) governance they advocate is what those people "want". But this begs the question of how anyone can know what those people "want", without - for example - taking a, well, vote.
One ought to be very skeptical of sweeping (and nearly internally-inconsistent) claims that a vast swathe of dozens of millions of people somewhere around the world "want" an authoritarian form of governance that is, by definition and construction, not based on their own consent and not answerable to them. When you hear this sort of claim, ask yourself, is that what they "want", or is that what Westerners tired of having to deal with the situation want? ("Let's pursue a benign dictatorship" being pretty much another way of saying "can't we just install some local guy there to take care of things and get these people into line and off our radar screen")
One ought to be very skeptical of sweeping (and nearly internally-inconsistent) claims that a vast swathe of dozens of millions of people somewhere around the world "want" an authoritarian form of governance that is, by definition and construction, not based on their own consent and not answerable to them.
Uh, you know Hitler and Mussolini were voted into power, right? You know that Putin is wildly popular in Russia, right? The idea that people don't want or elect strongmen is historically indefensible.
A lot of countries like the idea of voting in a single, strong leader rather than a pack of squabbling rascals who can't get anything done. The problem comes about when the single, strong leader (or his heir) runs amok and the mechanisms for chucking him out again have been dismantled.
Thus the notion that the people should retain the means to throw the bums out. This is far more important than how the bums get in in the first place.
Although, in the grand scheme of things, even hereditary absolute monarchy is better than no system at all. You risk the occasional king running amok, but at least you don't get a civil war at every change of government. Even so, having a way to remove a bad leader (short of war or assassination) is still a good feature to include when setting up a political system.
Why is it always about democracy?
I'm no historian, but it appears to me that the Western civilization in the course of its development has first adopted the rule of law (debatable when it has become good enough from the modern point of view, but certainly it was there in Roman times), then the notion of individual rights (Magna Carta timeframe?) and only then the stable democratic state (American Revolution). I am not at all convinced that mid-eastern societies have the rule of law as we know it; they are certainly nowhere close to internalizing individual rights. So why are we trying to plant democracy, of all things, on top of THAT?
By the way, this is exactly what I felt about Russia back in 1991. I think the last 17 years have largely proved me right...
Megan, the 2002 graduate of the USAF Academy some of whose family is from Korea would probably disagree. He transfered to West Point for a semester so that he could see the room that Douglas MacArthur lived in as a student.
The British also exploited and exacerbated ethnic divisions as a way of holding on to power. They did it in India, Afghanistan, and many other colonies, and contributed greatly to the ethnic discord that exists (and interferes with peaceful democracy) today.
Afghanistan was never a dependency of Britain or any other European power.
Uh, you know Hitler and Mussolini were voted into power, right? You know that Putin is wildly popular in Russia, right?
1. No, I don't know that Hitler was "voted into power" because that is untrue.
2. Indeed I am aware that Putin is quite popular in Russia. A big reason I know this (aside from having family in Russia) is because of polls and, in fact, elections (elections that I only believe to be somewhat corrupted :-) which tell me this. However, the relevance of the Putin example to a situation where a Western commentator declares, absent any election whatsoever, that such-and-such foreign people "want" a non-democratic system of governance is minimal.
The idea that people don't want or elect strongmen is historically indefensible.
Of course there exist people who want this or that "strongman" to seize power. (Notably, a would-be strongman and his brothers and cousins and flunkies etc etc, of course.) There exist people who want to rape and plunder. There exist people who hear strange voices in their heads telling them to murder. Your point?
I was addressing claims we always hear that "the people" of such-and-such nation "want" some definitionally non-democratic system of governance. Again, my point is only that such claims ought to be treated with skepticism. You disagree? You think it ought not be treated with skepticism?
As for whether people ever elect a "strongman", well of course they do. In a - you know - election. The fact that people sometimes elect people I might not think they ought to elect is certainly not news to me. But it's one thing to hold an election and observe the people electing a bad-guy. It's quite another to sweepingly declare "the people want this bad-guy ruling them, therefore let's just installl him and not hold an election, after all, you can't force democracy at gunpoint."
Re: It worked with Germany, Japan, and most of the former USSR.
Germany already had democratic institutions and traditions before 1945. We simply removed a major impediment to allowing their continued development. In Japan we also removed an impediment, but allowed the Japanese to create a sort of neo-feudalist society organized around corporations instead of the old daimyo-- with the Emperor still presiding serenely but powerlessly at the top. As for Eastern Europe, do you live in some alternate history? In our world's version of 1989 not a single NATO solider set foot on Warsaw Pact territory and very little blood was shed except in the Balkans, which have lagged behind in the democracy department. 1989 was a homegrown event, its heroes were Havel, Walensa, the Romanian revolutionaries etc. We "imposed" nothing.
Re: Guns may not be sufficient, but they are almost always necessary.
Which explains the terrible bloodshed of the Scandinavian revolutions, the Dutch War for Democracy etc. Oh, uh, wait a minute...
1. No, I don't know that Hitler was "voted into power" because that is untrue.
In the interests of precision, the Nazi Party did win pluralities in parliamentary elections in Germany in 1932 and 1933. The sum of the Nazi and the Communist vote in those elections did amount to a majority and those campaigns were among the modest number of elections where a majority did opt democratically for explicitly undemocratic government. (Other examples would be Algeria in 1991, Czechoslovakia in 1946, and Argentina in 1962).
In Japan we also removed an impediment, but allowed the Japanese to create a sort of neo-feudalist society organized around corporations
While I would agree with you that Germany and Japan are poor analogies (the Dominican Republic might be a better one), it is difficult to see how your use of sociological terminology makes any sense here. Contemporary Japan has neither hereditary subjection nor government as a network of obligations derived from oaths of fealty.
In Japan we also removed an impediment, but allowed the Japanese to create a sort of neo-feudalist society organized around corporations
While I would agree with you that Germany and Japan are poor analogies (the Dominican Republic might be a better one), it is difficult to see how your use of sociological terminology makes any sense here. Contemporary Japan has neither hereditary subjection nor government as a network of obligations derived from oaths of fealty.
Uh, you know Hitler and Mussolini were voted into power, right?
Mussolini was initially appointed by King Victor Emmaneuele III. (I cannot recall whether his was an interim ministry or he had coalition partners). I think the post-Acerbo Law election run by the Mussolini ministry is usually presented in history texts as a rigged contest, but that may be in error.
Art Deco.
In the interests of precision, the Nazi Party did win pluralities in parliamentary elections in Germany in 1932 and 1933.
As I know full well. Meanwhile, it is untrue that Hitler was "voted into power", like I said.
The initial way in which Hitler gained the power we know him for was as Chancellor. He was not elected to this position, he was appointed by Hindenburg after losing his attempt to win the presidency in elections; then there was the Reichstag fire, the Enabling Act, and downhill from there.
This history simply does not support the description "was voted into power" as a casual reader would interpret that. best,