shuggy's blog
I like reading your blog. It helps me think. But most of this entry is total tosh.
MB makes a criticism of the heroin state the west has fashioned in Afganistan, so, therefore (whew *therefore*,) the "logical inference", you say, is the that her position demands a return for the taliban.
What sort of nonsense is this?
Second, the rather vague reference she makes about the sectarian divisions in Iraq turns into, according to you, an opposition to democracy. Another straw man.
Hmm, yes, straws, yes, that's the image. Grasping at them.
A nice post. Bunting may not be racist, but she gets pretty close to islamophobia in her insistence that Muslims have a political culture which makes them unsuited to democracy. She also seems to think that like little children they are not responsible for their actions. So if they kill each other, they are not to blame, someone else is. All of this seems very close to thinking of those who insisted in the heyday of the British empire that various peoples were not fit to govern themselves.
"These two world leaders have so prostituted words such as democracy and freedom that they have lost all meaning"
I smile grimly as I imagine Bunting writing these words whilst sitting in her nice flat in London or wherever, sipping a latte and wondering where to take lunch.
Simon - yeah well, I'm making the point that a) if people like Ms Bunting think the west "created" Aghanistan as a narco-state she, and you if you agree with her, doesn't know anything about the international production of heroin b) it's a nonsense argument - and she does do this - to point to opium production as a reason for opposing the war. I don't understand how you can argue otherwise - she mentions it in this very context.
As for the sectarianism-democracy issue - deliberately blowing up golden domes to provoke civil war is generally not considered conducive to life in a democracy under the rule of law. Straw man indeed!
Its not so much a belief that the people of afghanistan and Iraq were incapable of creating a democracy, more a belief that the neo conservative bush administration lacked the capability and intention to create anything more than a new oligarchy adopting neo liberal policies with occasional elections between similar minded parties. And thats a generous reading of what they intended to do. The likes of Johann Hari decided that an IMF run hell hole was better than a Baathist hell hole and thus supported the war, but opponents of the war didn't. (and that debate has been done to death so I'll leave it for now)
In fact the belief that the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are incapable of democracy is one that increasingly appears amongst those who supported the war, as you hint at when discussing Fukuyama's new thoughts. The idea being that the post war insurgency prooves that the natives weren't ready for glorius liberaton.
As for afghanistan, I'd hardly call replacing one set of murdering bastards with our own set of murdering bastards a success, although doubtless some of those in favour of the war will play the numbers game and show that the Northern alliance's human rights record is marginally better ( a bit like showing lethal injection is better than the electric chair).
Shuggy,
like Simon, I like your blog. Equally, like Simon, I think this is fairly tendentious. For example, the use of 'logical' in the claim about Bunting's point about opium cultivation - I'm not sure there's really a deductive chain of reasoning there. There is, surely, a perfectly legitimate point to be made about opium cultivation, which you obscure by presenting the options as the current situation or the Taliban, although Bunting, if she opposed the invasion, may, polemically, be denied it. Economic reliance on a crop which is more or less universally illegal does not tend to breed stable or democratic societies, for fairly obvious reasons, and so failure to deal adequately with that reliance is an indictment of the Coalition authorities and the government they installed.
I also don't understand your reply to Simon's second point, since it would appear that you agree with him and Bunting - implanting democracy in highly sectarian societies is unlikely to succeed; therefore, it's not a good idea - yet by using much the same argument as you, Bunting becomes anti-democratic and patronising.
I'm not trying to vindicate Bunting: she is self-righteous and irritating at times. So is everyone though, and, however satisfying it may be, being self-righteous and irritating back is hardly the best way to put your case against her. I sound like a latterly pious wanker. Oh well.
Hmmm, the opium thing: that production has increased is frequently used by opponents of the invasion as a example of how things have gone wrong. Surely this is what Ms Bunting means? She does after all use it along with other examples (i.e. people getting killed) in the context of her own opposition to the invasion, no?
The sectarian point's a bit messy, I see now - I misread Simon's original comment. I thought he meant sectarians weren't necessarily anti-democratic... On Ms Bunting's view, I do think she's rather dismissive of the importance of political democracy. I don't share the view that democracies can't implant in sectarian societies. On the contrary, what political scientists sometimes call "consociational" democracy is really the only non-dictatorial model that would be workable in countries like Iraq. I'm thinking of the development of political democracy in "pillarized" societies like the Netherlands and the RSA, for example.
Good post. Do you think Bunting is still under the impression that there's something homegrown and explicitly Iraqi/Syrian, about Baathism? The Baath themselves always seem clear on this, that they were basing their approach on Nazi and Stalinist models.
Shuggy,
I don't know about Bunting's position on the invasion, but it seems to me that opposing the invasion on the grounds that the regime which replaced the Taliban was not likely to be particularly satisfactory and so it wasn't likely to be worth the blood and treasure spent installing it is at least an intellectually respectable position. Reference to opium cultivation would make sense in this context, since it would demonstrate that the predicted outcome - crap government - has come about. Even if you don't accept that, the use of logical surely was a bit strong.
On the sectarian/democracy thing, the impression I got from the literature on consociationalism was that it was basically a jerry-rigged theory utterly lacking in empirical support. In Lijphart's original cases of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria, he was unable to show that either the consociational elements ensured stability - it would be unfair for example, to ascribe Austria's postwar success to different political mechanisms, when prewar it was right royally fucked in a huge number of ways - or that there was much that was democratic about them - elite control seems more or less definitionally non-democratic. Later versions of the theory seemed to be increasingly searching for something desperately to apply itself to. That said, any of the original three would be preferable to Afghanistan. The best piece I read on democracy as a student, by someone called Rustow, argued there were four preconditions of transitions to democracy, which were:
that there is national unity, to prevent disagreements over which people it is that are sovereign; that there is some entrenched and polarizing conflict whose resolution can overturn the ancient regime; that democratic rules must be consciously adopted, as a solution to the conflict, so that there is no confusion about what is going on; and that politicians and the population at large must have time to become habituated to these rules.
This was based on studies of Sweden and Turkey and excluded states where the transition occurred through outside intervention, but still...
I don't know about Bunting's position on the invasion
She opposed it - and she does refer to this in the article...
but it seems to me that opposing the invasion on the grounds that the regime which replaced the Taliban was not likely to be particularly satisfactory and so it wasn't likely to be worth the blood and treasure spent installing it is at least an intellectually respectable position
I'd struggle to imagine a regime "less satisfactory" than the Taleban but in any event, doesn't that overlook the principle cause behind the invasion? 9/11, and a UN mandate (for those for whom this is an issue) to respond by an attack on Al-Qaeda.
Lijphart's original cases of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria
Ah, that's the very man. Thanks for reminding me; I wasn't exactly at university yesterday. There were others - and I've still got photocopies of their work in these arcane political journals we used to read... Maybe I should get back to you on this. From memory just now, I more or less ignored Austria - these being a special case for obvious historical reasons; I didn't remember about Switzerland, but the Netherlands example stayed with me and was reinforced, I remember we discussed at the time, with the example of post-apartheid RSA. I took it to be a more basic insight than you're alluding to here, which was that winner-takes-all systems (did you read Lucian Pye when you were there? I blended the concept with some of his notions about the "Perils of Presidentialism"), the quintessential case being Britain, I suppose, are ill-suited to these "pillarised" types of situation. Or indeed, infeasible. I took it to represent nothing more really than reasonably plausible historical examples of functioning democracies that survive without succumbing to the fantasy of a homogenous electorate with no allegiances other than those of class and ideology.
Shuggy; you say "...what is the point in engaging with those who exude self-righteousness, who value individual moral vindication above all else, who wish to demonstrate that they alone are blameless..."
There is a point Shuggy. Some years ago - about the time of Tiananmen Square, ironically, the left largely allowed itself to be redefined as 'anti-capitalist', 'anti-globalisation', and increasingly as 'anti-imperialist' rather than as 'pro-democracy'.
In our complacency, we still delude ourselves that democratic principles are implicit in the positions of all of our various 'lefts'.
It isn't. And we can't make this point often enough, because so many commentators actually (quietly) don't share this view. When you refuse to endorse the universal human right to a democratic voice, you are pretty far from blameless. Ms B at least has the decency to mention the subject. Most of the anti-war left never even discuss democracy, except when the accuse elected politicians of flouting it.
The successor regime to the Taliban doesn't have to be as bad as the Taliban for it to have been a waste of blood and treasure to have invaded. Say the Taliban has a rating of 1, on a scale of 1 to 10, and the successor regime has one of 3. It still might not have been worth the extra cost - whatever it was - to make that change. I'm not personally convinced that it wasn't, but I don't pretend to have taken a great deal of interest in it, and I think it remains intellectually respectable - despite UN resolutions, because, of course, the fact that the UN authorised something doesn't make it right - to oppose it on these grounds.
On the consociationalism thing, Lijphart originally meant more than just the claim that FPTP systems are not suited to deeply socially divided societies. The original claim was that “that the ‘elites of rival subcultures’ are willing and able to ‘accommodate the divergent interests and demands’ because they are committed to the maintenance of the system and they see the need for accommodation as a means to this”. This definition, even if it could be shown to apply, immediately calls into question the claim that such societies would be democratic, since it focuses on elite mediation of popular demands so as to avoid the breakdown of the state. To adapt Rustow's formulation, these societies aren't democratic because they have agreed on who constitutes the demos yet.
On the 'FPTP is not good for deeply socially divided societies' thing, I'm skeptical about this too, actually: FPTP in Britain managed to accomodate three and sometimes five quasi-nationalities for much of the twentieth century, despite a social system also divided by class, without the system totally breaking down. The US also has a number of cross-cutting social divisions - race and class - and manages under a FPTP system.
On the 'FPTP is not good for deeply socially divided societies' thing, I'm skeptical about this too, actually: FPTP in Britain managed to accomodate three and sometimes five quasi-nationalities for much of the twentieth century, despite a social system also divided by class, without the system totally breaking down.
Consociationalism is about more than voting systems. Britain managed with its "quasi-nationalities" (why quasi?) because of the social system divided by class. Class isn't a "cross-cutting" variable; it is ethnicity, religion, nationality that cut across the traditional left-right class division. Federalism, devolution etc are part of the picture and we have the latter here, as I'm sure you'll have noticed. The US survives FPTP (just) because of its thorough-going decentralisation.
immediately calls into question the claim that such societies would be democratic, since it focuses on elite mediation of popular demands so as to avoid the breakdown of the state.
It depends on how you understand democracy - not a few would argue that you've given a rather neat definition of how it operates in a numbe of countries.
Rob,
You say....
"...this definition... immediately calls into question the claim that such societies would be democratic, since it focuses on elite mediation of popular demands so as to avoid the breakdown of the state."
Sorry - could you explain why an 'elite mediation of popular demands' isn't democratic. Admittedly, if I were trying to argue for representative democracy, I'd chose a more flattering description, but fundamentally, it's the least-worst option available to us. It's what we have here in the UK.
Are you suggesting that - if the 'democratisation' project in Afghanistan were only as successful as our own (the one that's taken a good deal longer than four years btw) then it would be a failure?
Paulie,
I'm not making any claims about Afganistan. I'm making a series of points about consociationalism, in the context of the question of whether deeply sectarian societies can sustain democratic regimes. In particular, I'm questionning whether consociational regimes are actually democratic.
"Sorry - could you explain why an 'elite mediation of popular demands' isn't democratic."
"It depends on how you understand democracy - not a few would argue that you've given a rather neat definition of how it operates in a numbe of countries."
Well, perhaps 'mediation' was not the best term to choose. Suppression or control might be better. The idea I was trying to point to, which is central to Lijphart's definition of consociationalism I gave earlier, is that in the absence of elites making various accommodations to each other the state would actually break up or in some other way fail (as in Austria's collapse into authoritarianism). Whatever else you might think about the processes of political compromise which go on in all (democratic) states, it's not usually true that unless elites agreed otherwise, the state would break up into its various sectarian constituents.
"Britain managed with its "quasi-nationalities" (why quasi?) because of the social system divided by class. Class isn't a "cross-cutting" variable; it is ethnicity, religion, nationality that cut across the traditional left-right class division."
Why quasi first: to avoid arguments about what counts as a nationality. I was trying to be ecumenical. Cross-cuttingness: I meant cross-cutting in the sense in whicg any cleavage can cut across any other cleavage. Which cleavage is fundamental doesn't seem to me to imply anything about whether or not it cuts across another cleavage. On the substantive point, the fact that Britain managed for most of the twentieth century with devolution - devolution might make it more complicated, particularly if the West Lothian question starts to get really serious - is precisely what the consociationalists can't admit: here is a multi-national state, with class-based political parties, which doesn't obviously have consociational political arrangements, and yet didn't break up or otherwise fail.
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