Extended Phenotype

The fact that elections were held in Afghanistan last month is an important achievement. But elections alone don’t accomplish what most people think of as “bringing democracy” to a country. It’s worth considering why, because the same factors will be at play in Iraq, and are at work in many so-called “democracies” outside Europe and the United States today.

We tend to think of “democracy” as a synonym for the type of government that we have in the United States, or in the United Kingdom, and thus when we wish to expand democracy around the world, we tend to focus on holding fair and free elections. But democracy, or the popular selection of leaders and/or policies, is only one aspect of governance in our society. Arguably, it’s not the aspect of our governance that provides stability. Accordingly, over-emphasis on the role of democratic elections in Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t likely to lead to liberal democracy. Here’s why.

The distinctive character of American or British governance is constructed of at least two parts: liberal constitutionalism and democratic selection of leadership. Liberal constitutionalism seeks to structure and therefore limit the power of government, and is a practical way to achieve the “rule of law.” Constitutionalism formally defines the nature of government in the form of a covenant which supersedes ordinary law and executive action. Constitutionalism is “classically liberal” when protection of individual liberties are built into the legal covenant alongside the rules specifying the structure and powers of government. Democratic selection of leadership is designed to give the governed population an ongoing voice into how constitutional powers are used, a way to provide input to elected leadership on the needs and desires of the populace, and a method of redress when power is used in unpopular ways or the constitutional covenant is breached.

Having one does not imply the presence of the other; the world today is littered with “democracies” that elect leadership, but whose leadership either has no constitutional limits or is capable of ignoring them without consequence. Fareed Zakaria has used the term “illiberal democracy” to describe such countries, and it’s a good one. In addition, there are countries with constitutional limits on power but limited (or no) ability to vote for their leadership. We can term these countries “liberal autocracies.” Examples of the latter would include Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, or (partially) Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf.

Now that the Bush team has won a second term, and seem likely to continue their present course in Iraq, Afghanistan, and possibly start focusing on Iran, it’s worth dismantling the term “democracy” into its component parts and examining how each might be realized in the Middle East. After all, holding elections isn’t going to yield the results we want if the population isn’t first committed to limited government and the rule of law. Elections without popular commitment to constitutionally limited government will simply yield popularly elected autocracies, and in the Middle East today these are most likely Islamist and anti-American. Exactly what we hoped to avoid.

Boy, were we wrong. Yesterday’s triumphal confidence in the final polls have turned into the grim realization that Gallup was probably living in the real world and the rest of us were following polls which weren’t. The youth vote didn’t matter, and possibly didn’t materialize. Despite long lines at polling places, it looks like turnout wasn’t as high as many (including myself) expected. And John Zogby has prudently deleted last night’s final projection of a Kerry blowout from his website.

There’s no particular reason to be hopeful about Ohio, but those who filed provisional ballots have the right to a determination of their voting status. This means that the final election result won’t be certifiable for some time, but it won’t be in much doubt in anyone’s mind. (UPDATE: Senator Kerry conceded the race shortly after this paragraph was written.)

And thus the post-mortem begins.

The nation has never booted a "war-time" President, and the Bush campaign has successfully leveraged that trend. Fear was their best weapon, made doubly potent by the conscious and cynical exaggeration of the threats posed to this country by our current enemies. The Democrats ran a thoughtful, experienced war veteran who understands the limits of conflict and the value of peace; the Republicans countered with an inexperienced xenophobe. In our manufactured fear, arrogance and the illusion of strength seemed like the rational choice.

As progressives, we have to change the dialogue that made this choice seem rational. Now that the election is over, I hope to start seeing some rational analysis of the "war on terror." Folks like Jeffrey Record, whose expert analysis of the "war on terror" was virtually ignored during the election cycle, should be our point of departure. The public understanding of Islamic fundamentalism must be bolstered by familiarity with Richard Fletcher, Nabil Matar, and Fareed Zakaria, as antidotes to the dangerously fanciful "clash of civilizations" being peddled by Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington. More on this in future posts.

The social conservative victory last night deepened. All 11 referenda on banning same-sex marriage won, presenting progressives with a decade of work to repeal state constitutional amendments, if it can be done at all. The Democrats ran a tolerant, moderate progressive; the Republican candidate is not only allied with social conservatives (like Bush Senior and Ronald Reagan) but seems genuinely one of them. This view won’t be shared by everyone reading, but last night faith and fear won out over reason and tolerance.

Domestically, we need to fight a rear-guard action to ameliorate (to the extent possible) the effects of a second Bush term and expanded GOP control of Congress on the Supreme Court, Social Security, fiscal profligacy, and civil rights. Last night, GOP leadership was already talking about an aggressive legislative agenda, and we must make common cause wherever possible with Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, and the remaining Republican moderates to stop the more egregious instances of the conservative agenda.

Sitting bleary-eyed over coffee this morning, I keep wanting to ask Christopher Hitchens if this is really the outcome he wanted, deep down. Bush’s re-election will represent a mandate to continue the foreign policy that Hitchens endorses, while further entrenching the very same forces of intolerance and fundamentalism here at home. The nature and depth of this tradeoff is incalculable at present, but the gloves are off and the next four years will show us how far an unfettered conservative Republican establishment is able to go, and how much a weakened Democratic minority is able to fight.

Having just finished Azar Nafisi’s incredible book Reading Lolita in Teheran, I keep thinking this morning that we’re in for our own fundamentalist revolution, and I am filled with sadness for my country and my society. And filled with apprehension about what it will take to repair the damage that lies ahead.

I wanted to post an election prediction with about a week to go, but internet connectivity on Saltspring Island turned out to be problematic. Ah well, I guess that’s why they call it a "vacation."

By now it must be obvious to everyone that the popular vote polls really are deadlocked, and whether an individual poll shows Bush or Kerry slightly ahead, it’s within the margin of error. Statistics buffs will know that this really does mean that you can’t falsify the null hypothesis that the two data series have identical means, so small variations in the percentages don’t mean a thing.

I’m a partisan in this election, so take this with a grain of salt, but I do believe that since the final debate, the evidence has shown that Kerry has been in a strong position to win this election.

Popular vote polls notwithstanding, my prediction is that Kerry is going to win the electoral college, and likely the popular vote by a small percentage. The electoral college will be 295 +/- 5 for Kerry, as GOTV efforts and the incumbent effect solidify his position in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. New Hampshire and New Mexico really could go either way, and turnout there will likely decide things. Today’s final Gallup poll and Zogby tracking polls confirm this for me; following Chris Bower’s reasoning, if the popular polls are in a dead heat, the challenger will likely win.

The above would suggest that the race should not going to drag on past Nov. 2nd — there may be some challenges in individual states, but depending upon which state is involved in a vote challenge, the electoral college count may already have decided the race. Only a significant challenge in Florida, Ohio, or Pennsylvania would likely stall our knowledge of the final outcome.

At any rate, I wanted to get a prediction posted. On Wednesday we’ll see whether it held up.

Schieffer’s question in last night’s debate didn’t really cause the neurons to fire at all — during the debate I was busy listening to how the candidates answered the questions. But later, before hitting the sack, I did something I often do to restore my faith in Western Civilization: I watched an episode of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, digitally remastered on DVD.

My subconscious must have been twitching a bit, because I managed to choose the last episode, Who Speaks for Earth? Sagan wrapped up his late-1970’s series by calling our attention to the juxtaposition between the best and worst of human instincts. The best, represented by peaceful scientific endeavor to understand our world. The worst, represented by the deadly standoff between superpowers which held the world hostage with tens of thousands of individual nuclear warheads, many set to “launch on warning.”

The episode, and indeed the series, was a triumph of scientific rationalism and a call to action. Today, however, they feel more like an elegy for the Enlightenment. It’s hard to watch the series without feeling like we’ve lost something essential in the last decade. But that’s a subject for another time.

As I think about Schieffer’s question, it’s hard to accept the premise. When, precisely, were we safe? Certainly not during the forty-five years of the Cold War, with its policies of mutually assured destruction and hair-trigger missile launch windows. Not during the Korean War, as we played a game of chicken with the Chinese and by proxy, the Russians. Not during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and not during Vietnam. There’s a case to be made that the United States has been safer since 1990 than the previous forty-five years.

Certainly, today we face enemies of a new and different type. I disagree with those who say that analyzing the causes of radical Islamic insurgency is “defeatist” or “irrelevant”, but again that’s a topic for another time. It’s enough here to acknowledge the threat as a real one, and acknowledge that we’re not as safe as we can and should be. But I can’t help but feel that we’ve developed a dangerous myopia in this country since 9/11/2001, where suddenly the threats we face are of epic and unprecedented proportions. So quickly do we forget the much greater, much broader, and much more final threat we lived under for several generations.

Remembering the breadth and depth of that historical threat — the superpower nuclear standoff, mutually assured destruction, overkill, and nuclear winter — is important to help us bring today’s threat back into perspective. We’ve faced deadly threats before, without losing our heads, without destroying civil liberties (except for episodes like McCarthy’s reign of terror), and we can do it again.

And so, my answer to Bob Schieffer is this: we are just as unsafe as we have been for the last 50 years. We need to strive to become as safe as it seemed we would be in those halcyon days of 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell, and everything seemed possible.