Is Democracy Losing Its Romance?

By Michael Kinsley

Back in the 1980s, when hawks were hawks and doves were doves, it used to be said that democracies don't fight each other. When doves argued for "peace" in, say, Central America, the hawks answered that the best assurance of peace in any region was the establishment of democracy, even by violent means if necessary. Once established, democratically elected governments will never choose to spend the people's blood and treasure making war against their democratically elected neighbors.

It's a nice thought. Unfortunately, it's been disproved in Yugoslavia, where the fall of communism has brought a vicious three-way war. Serbia and Croatia, both under democratically elected Presidents, intermittently fight each other while jointly dismembering democratic Bosnia. Serbia had a parliamentary election Dec. 19 in which all the parties supported Serbia's aggression -- although it has left the country a basket case. The Yugoslav mess is one reason some former hawks have become born-again doves. They have lost their interest in promoting democracy. They look at the postcommunist world and see that the most common cause of war is nationalist hatred -- which democracy, far from suppressing, actually gives vent to.

Is democracy starting to lose its romance? It seems like an odd question. On the map of the world, democracy is having a great run. It has triumphed over the Soviet empire (well, details to be worked out in some places); it has conquered South America; it has arrived in South Africa. And yet at the same time you can sense a certain world-weary disillusion setting in.

This can be seen, for example, in the way Western observers keep moving the goalposts for that hero of democracy, Boris Yeltsin. Democracy lovers have been remarkably understanding as Yeltsin has shut down newspapers, produced a constitution out of his hip pocket that makes him virtual czar, forbidden candidates in the recent election to criticize his constitution on television, put off for years his own need to run for re-election and so on. This was all justified as an "interim" necessity in order to establish Russia on a democratic course. But if Yeltsin continues to govern in a style one journalist predicts will be "enlightened authoritarianism," it's a safe bet the apologias will continue.

The model here, of course, is China. While Russia -- struggling to reform the economy and the political system at the same time -- sinks ever deeper into poverty, China, which is trying capitalism without democracy, grows richer at an astonishing rate of 13% a year. China's leaders still aspire, at least, to a totalitarian regime. Dissidents are still arrested, and the government recently outlawed all satellite dishes. But it would be hard to argue honestly that China's approach has served the average citizen worse than Russia's.

The case for the Chinese model is that while democracy and capitalism may go together, democracy and the conversion of an economy to capitalism do not. Economic reform is chaotic; it makes things worse before they get better; it creates new inequalities that take getting used to. Capitalism, in short, needs an authoritarian government to push it through. Then, when widespread middle-class prosperity is securely established, democracy will naturally follow.

A less attractive version of this argument leaves out the last step. It holds that concepts like "democracy" and "individual rights" are Western notions, which (unlike, apparently, the Western concept of "capitalism") are out of place in consensual Asian cultures. Singapore and Taiwan have thrived on capitalism without democracy.

The ethnically Asian President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, sometimes likes to imply that he is importing this Asian culture to South America. Early in 1992 he shut down the courts and the congress, abolished civil liberties and began ruling by decree. The result? The Shining Path guerrillas, who were strangling the country, have been almost beaten; the economy is thriving; and Fujimori is highly popular. "Traditional democracies will end up in the garbage heap," he told a Peruvian magazine.

Even in the heartland of "traditional" democracy, the United States of America, there are whiffs of disenchantment. The "populism" surging through American politics these days has a certain antidemocratic flavor. Or, at least, it reflects a resentment of democratic institutions and procedures. "Washington" and politicians have replaced "Wall Street" and rich businessmen as populism's favorite targets. The favorite populist remedies -- congressional term limits, a balanced-budget amendment -- would be new constraints on democracy. And, like earlier versions, today's populism hungers for a strong leader on a white horse. Thus Ross Perot, America's would-be Fujimori.

On the other hand, the conventional response to today's populism also has an antidemocratic tinge, as high-minded commentators bemoan democracy's incompatible demands for high benefits with low taxes, the paralyzing effects of interest groups and so on.

As the current movie The Remains of the Day reminds us, there was a time not long ago, the 1930s, when openly expressed doubts about the wisdom of democracy as a system of government were positively fashionable, even in established democratic societies. These days everybody pays at least lip service to the democratic ideal. Will that change? Just asking.