Sun: You’ve talked a lot about the failure of democracy, and you differentiate that very sharply from the failure of states. I’m interested in how you define this failure of democracy and its significance.
AK: The failure of democracy? Well, I think what we’re seeing in a number of countries is situations where the political process has moved forward and you have parliaments in place which are based on electoral processes that are more or less, often less, sound than one would want. You find governments which are not relating to parliament in a structured and creative way. You find parliaments where the quality of human resources is not what it might be. You find constitutions which are extremely difficult to interpret in practice, and where heads of state or heads of government consider it necessary to change these constitutions. And the nature of change itself is a problem.
So I think we’re going to go through a long period of search for new democratic formats in the developing world. I often give the example of Uganda with three monarchies. You say to yourself, how does a country remain a republic with three monarchies which it wants to recognize?
You have other countries where the level of authority of the provinces versus the centre becomes a major issue, and where the provinces have sought powers which the centre probably should have and doesn’t have. So you get the centrifugal forces in these countries in a sense making central national thinking extremely difficult to implement.
You get the difficulty in changing legislation. Many of these countries have inherited colonial legislation in one area or the other – particularly in, for example, education, economic institutions etc. They find it difficult to change that legislation.
Very often the background to that legislation is an attempt to control rather than to empower. So instead of the legislation coming into the public domain with the goal of enabling change, it’s actually very often drafted on the premise of control and centralization.
So I think that we are going to be seeing a large number of situation – you can think of Afghanistan, you can think of Kenya, you can think of Uganda, Eastern Europe, you see these situations all over the world. And I think it will require a lot of patience and wisdom and care to develop systems that are going to work, which do represent a consultative process which we all consider equitable and solid and good, that allow the processes of change in government to occur in an organized way, but that at the same time don’t create a situation where there is tremendous volatility all the time in the environment.
Because one of the problems is volatility in the environment in which institutions are trying to develop. That’s why yesterday, for example, I referred to the role of civil society, because civil society goes through government change. It’s not affected by these political processes.
I’m not challenging in any way the notion that these political processes are necessary. I’m simply saying I think it is important that the world look at these processes for what they are. They are difficult. They are complex. There is no historical record that you can refer to in many of these countries.
You have national forces which sometimes will play for or against regional arrangements. And these regional arrangements are becoming very, very important, because in our world there are very few micro-states that survive well. OK, you can refer to Singapore, you can refer to Hong Kong. But they’re the exception rather than the rule.
Therefore these small states need to come together so that they can insert themselves in a wider marketplace, etc.
So that’s really what I mean by the fragility of democracy.
Sun: I’m not sure how close the parallel is with a failed market economy and a failed democracy, but I think there is some overlap. And I think in a sense it’s the failure of a faux market economy and perhaps, in some cases, a failure of a faux democracy – that there was the vigorous election, which is that great trapping of a democracy, but there weren’t all of the checks and balances and messy little mechanisms that actually make it work.
AK: Without any doubt, without any doubt.
And I think the relationship between democracy and resources is a very sensitive one in the developing world. Even in the industrialized world it’s sensitive, but in the third world it’s even more sensitive – who is using what resources to achieve what goal?
And if elections take place and the outcome is not what people expect or like, suddenly there’s an issue – has democracy shown up the best? Well, that’s up to the population to decide. You can’t challenge that.
So these are situations which we’re learning about.
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(Submitted by Aziz Ali)
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