editorial@theindependentbd.com

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Subject:                                     ATTENTION: MR. ENAYET RASUL ASSOCIATE EDITOR

        IS  DEMOCRACY AN ABSTRACTION IN BANGLADESH

    By Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador)                     FOR PUBLICATION ON FRIDAY THE 18TH APRIL 2014

Robert Alan Dahl, the Sterling Professor emeritus of political science at Yale University,   past president of the American Political Science Association and  sometimes described as "the dean of American political scientists" identified among the thicket and impenetrable ideas surrounding democracy five factors he found essential for its survival and flourishment. According to Dahl these are Effective participation, Voting equality, Enlightened Understanding, Control of the Agenda and Inclusion of Adults. Tracing the roots of democracy Dahl writes about the Athenians who founded in the 6th century A.D. a system akin to democracy till they were defeated by the Macedonians and later by Rome. Dahl surmised that it was the Greeks-probably the Athenians-who coined the term democracy, or demokratia, from the Greek words demos, the people, and kratos, to rule. It is interesting, by the way, that while in Athens the word demos usually referred to the entire Athenian people, sometimes it meant only the common people or even just the poor. The word democracy, it appears, was sometimes used by its aristocratic critics as a kind of epithet, to show their disdain for the common people who had wrested away the aristocrats' previous control over the government. Democracy these days apart from Abraham Lincoln's government of the people, by the people and for the people has lost its relevance to a great extent and can be more aptly defined in  Winston Churchill's oft-quoted statement that "many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". But then the incorrigible imperialist that Churchill was treading upon the grave of Karl Marx Churchill observed that the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.  It is unfashionable these days to dig up the grave of socialism despite The Great Divide debate  in The New York Times being participated by the famous intellectuals of the day. People who criticize developing countries like Bangladesh for lagging in the establishment of Western style democracy where votes are counted (barring 2000 Presidential election of George W Bush and Al Gore that was decided by the Supreme Court) should look over their shoulders to read pages of history. In Robert Dahl's words, "There were ups and downs, resistance movements, rebellions, civil wars, revolutions. For several centuries the rise of centralized monarchies reversed some of the earlier advances-even though, ironically, these few, monarchies may have helped to create some conditions that were favorable to democratization in the longer run. Looking back on the rise and decline of democracy, it is clear that we cannot count on historical forces to insure that democracy will always advance-or even survive, as the long intervals in which popular governments vanished from the earth remind us .Democracy, it appears, is a bit chancy . "  Charles Boix,  of Princeton University, added to this strain of thought when he wrote " It was apparent to most classical political thinkers that democracy could not survive without some equality among its citizens. But a quick look at the history of the past two centuries shows that equality loomed large in the choice of political institutions. Big landowners have always opposed democracy, whether in Prussia, Russia, the American South of the nineteenth century, or Central America in the twentieth. By contrast, for democratic institutions to prevail, at least before industrialization, there had to be a radical equality of conditions". Boix and others brought in the necessity of per capita income for the sustenance of democracy. They argued that   since 1950, 80 percent of all non-oil-exporting countries with a per capita income over $8,000 have been democracies. The proportion is roughly reversed among high per capita income countries whose export revenues from oil amounted to 25 per cent or more of total trade revenues. In those economies where industrialization did not take off and natural resources remained or became the sole or main source of wealth, authoritarianism was likely to prevail".  National wealth and economic growth was correlated with sustainable democracy  in less advanced countries. No democracy has collapsed in any country with a per capita income over $7,000. Yet even these seemingly robust results are, upon further reflection, weak and unconvincing. First, the threshold of development at which democracy becomes likely has varied over time. Before 1945, 90 percent of all countries with a per capita income of $4,000 were democracies (versus 40 percent afterwards). Second, there are glaring exceptions to the relationship between development and democratic regimes. Germany and England had similar incomes but experienced very different political fortunes in the 1930s. India is a democracy in spite of its relative weaker economic performance vis-a-vis the developed economies. Most oil countries are rich but impervious to liberal institutions. It is, rather, excessive economic inequality, particularly in agrarian countries and in nations rich in oil and other minerals, that exacerbates the extent of social and political conflict to the point of making democracy impossible. In an unequal society, the majority resents its diminished status. It harbors the expectation of employing elections to drastically overturn its condition. In turn, the wealthy minority fears the outcome that may follow from free elections and the assertion of majority rule. As a result, it resorts to authoritarian institutions to guarantee its social and economic advantage. Eminent political scientist Francis Fukuyama believes  that basically four conditions have to exist to facilitate democratic transition:- (a) the level of development, (b) culture, (c) neighborhood effect, and (d) ideas. Virtually all industrialized economies are functioning democracies while relatively very few poor countries are democracies. There are of course exceptions such as India and Costa Rica which despite their relative underdevelopment have been thriving democracies while Saudi Arabia and Kuwait having high per capita income are struggling with the idea of opening up their governmental machinery to their own citizens despite American pressure on them to do so. While analyzing the stages of development necessary for acquisition of democracy it was found that barring exceptions virtually all industrialized countries are functioning democracies. Indeed once a country attains per capita GDP of US dollars six thousand it transforms itself from an agricultural society to an industrialized one and that country also attains sustainable democracy. Empirically it has been found that not a single country which became democracy ever reverted back to authoritarianism. Fukuyama thinks that it is because of the growth of the middle class owning private property and getting education. Evidently people living in poverty are too busy making both ends meet than to worry about elections and votes. Besides political scientists worry that even if countries have elections and make democratic transition, democracy’s sustainability becomes a challenge “in a society that is close to subsistence, that does not have any kind of resources, have very low level of education, very severe ethnic and other kinds of cleavages”. Professor Adrian Leftwich (On the Primacy of Politics in Development) quotes G.Kitching’s observation that “materially poor societies cannot produce the democratic life which is an essential prerequisite for the creation of socialist democracies”. Only economic growth, insists Leftwich, through industrialization can provide the platform on which democratic values, institutions, and process can be sustained. This argument is supported by Seymour Martin Lipset (Political Man) that democratic political development with a combination of economic, social and cultural factors are unlikely to exist in underdeveloped economies. Would then one to conclude that the developing nations should wait for the introduction of democracy till they achieve per capita GDP growth rate to reach the figure of US $ 6000? This appears to be a ridiculous position to take. As it is in many developing nations plutocracy are ruling in the name of the people the great majority being marginalized and voiceless. But then Bernard Shaw once remarked that democracy is a device that ensures that people  should  be governed no better than what they deserve . Shaw also dubbed democracy as a process in which election by the incompetent many is substituted for appointment of the corrupt few. The famous wit of English literature Oscar Wilde characteristically observed that democracy  means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. True these may be for Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Robert Taylor's Liberia or the feuding Democratic Republic of Congo. But   historically, democracies have replaced authoritarian regimes through two paths. On the one hand, democratic institutions have emerged after a long process of economic development spreads material wealth across society, equalizes economic conditions, and erodes the strength of the old authoritarian elites. On the other hand, absent economic modernization, social and political change has happened only after enormous violence — generally through military intervention of a foreign power. The acute observation of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, in  1754  is citable.  "The rich man . . . conceived at length the profoundest plan that ever entered the mind of man: this was to employ in his favor the forces of those who attacked him, to make allies of his adversaries, to inspire them with different maxims, and to give them other institutions as favorable to himself as the law of nature was unfavorable." Both are true in the case of Bangladesh. The War of Liberation was fought not only for freedom from oppression but also to achieve a fair Bangladesh where people regardless of religion, creed, or any other factor associated with identity politics would get a just share of the prosperity of the nation. The feuding politicians regarded by the international financial institutions and donor countries are believed to be impediment on the way to economic development. Bangladesh's economy suffered a loss of Tk 49,000 crore or 4.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) due to political turmoil according to estimates by Centre for Policy Dialogue(published end January 2014). The way out, therefore,    is  not  the abandonment of democratic process but in  strengthening  institutions that would further democracy.