Co-circulation between discipline liberty and Democracy.
Answers
Answer:
2005, I was the deputy officer in charge of provisional and national elections in Iraq. This was Iraq’s first democratic elections. It was a monumental time in Iraq’s history as a state. It was also America’s first flirtation with exporting Jeffersonian values to the Middle East. The U.S. government violently replaced a secular, authoritarian, and brutal regime with a democratic one. Yet, the results following the elections, and now, ten years later, have been very disappointing. It is as if the American intervention, with its staggering loss of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars expended, has never happened. Iraq is ostensibly a democratic country, but like many other countries’ is one that is authoritarian, corrupt, and religiously biased. Why didn’t democracy yield a better outcome? The question lies within the question I have chosen for this article. In this article, I will argue that there is direct relationship between liberty and democracy. In order to have democracy, a state must value individual liberty and subscribe to liberal values.
Liberalism
Fareed Zakaria, in his essay, “A Brief History of Human Liberty,” argues that Christianity paved the way for the concepts of liberty to become entrenched in society, and thus liberty started in the West, and came before the concept of democracy. [i] He points out that although democracy was created in ancient Greece, the Greeks did not leave behind any viable democratic institutions to influence Europe.[ii] I do partially agree that the notion of liberty does trace its origins to Christianity. By contrast, I contend that liberalism traces its roots back to the European Enlightenment movement, which, was anti religion and against the Roman Catholic Church. Emmanuel Kant advocated the exercise of universal peace. The European Enlightenment ideas paved the way for the French Revolution. The concept of liberty, fraternity, and equality became mainstream political thought. These concepts soon made their way into the American Constitution. Zakaria maintains that, “America’s path to liberal democracy was exceptional.” [iii] Woodrow Wilson was influenced by liberal beliefs long after the founding fathers. His foreign policy was heavily partial to liberalism; as Wilson himself was deeply affected by Kant’s ideas. Zakaria in his essay, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” contends, liberalism is about individual rights. Western states combined the concept of liberalism and the rule of law to develop constitutional liberalism, which holds individual rights, property rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, equality, separation of church and state, and government of checks and balances, almost sacrosanct.[iv]
Democracy
Phillip C. Schimmter and Terry Lynn Karl in their essay, “What Democracy Is…And Is Not,” contend that democracy comes in several forms, and that a state’s socioeconomic condition, institutions, and policies determine the form of democracy being practiced.[v] They define democracy as a modern system of governance where the rulers are held accountable by its citizens. The authors add that like all other forms of governance, democracies depend upon the leaders who hold positions of authority.[vi] Schimmter and Karl conclude by saying that final aspect of democracy is a state held free and fair elections.[vii] It has been widely noted that that liberal democracies yield better economic markets and quality of life, than non-liberal democracies. Examples of liberal democracies are the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway, Denmark, and Germany.