Democracy in decent nonliberal nations: A defense

Philosophical Forum

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 309-337

  Herr, Ranjoo Seodu ^a  

^a BENTLEY UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 68949152573     PISSN: 0031806X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9191.2009.00332.x     Document Type: Article

References (157)

1. While this term may sound awkward after the collapse of the "Second World," I use it to refer to regions of the world that have been adversely affected by Western and Japanese imperialism and colonialism
2. I call them, "nonliberal nations" for short. "Nonliberal," "culture," and "nation" shall, be elaborated on in sect. II
3. John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed show the widespread aspiration for democracy among Muslims in VWio Speaks for Islam? (New York: Gallup Press, 2007) 47, 48, 56
4. According to Ken Silverstein, even political actors labeled as "terrorist" by the West, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, advocate democracy. "Parties of God: The Bush Doctrine and the Rise of Islamic Democracy," Harper's Magazine (March 2007): 34, 40
5. Although political "philosophers" and "theorists" are generally distinguished based on their respective academic disciplines of philosophy and political science, I shall use "theorists" to encompass both
6. See James Bohman, "The Coming of Age of Deliberative Democracy," The Journal of Political Philosophy 6/4 (1998): 400-25, 403
7. The liberal value of individual freedom and its cognates are expressed differently as "basic liberty, basic opportunity, and fair opportunity" in Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1996) 12
8. as "liberty and opportunity" in their Why Deliberative Democracy? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2004) 103
9. and as "equal freedom, basic opportunity, and civic equality" in Amy Gutmann, Identity in Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2003) 28
10. Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003)
11. Allen Buchanan, "Rawls's Law of Peoples," Ethics .110 (July 2000): 697-721, 697
12. Charles Beitz, "Rawls's Law of Peoples," Ethics 110 (July 2000): 669-696, 687
13. Gutmann (2003): 48
14. For similar sentiments, see Susan Okin, "Feminism and Multiculturalism: Some Tensions," Ethics 108 (1998): 661-84
15. Joseph Raz, "Multiculturalism.: A Liberal Perspective," Ethics in the Public Domain (New York: Clarendon Press, 1994) 184-85
16. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1995) 75, 153, 158
17. Jeff Spinner, The Boundaries of Citizenship (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1994) 69, 70, 72
18. Charles Taylor, "Politics of Recognition," Multiculturalism and the "Politics of Recognition, "ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1994) 62, 66-68, 72-73
19. Zakaria (2003): 13
20. This definition of democracy, however, is too anemic and is better described as "competitive authoritarian." See Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, "The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism," Journal of Democracy 13/2 (2002)
21. Joshua Cohen, "Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy," Democracy and Difference, ed. S. Benhabib (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1996) 97-98
22. Cohen, "Democracy and Liberty," Deliberative Democracy, ed. Jon Elster (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1998) 187, 201
23. Gutmann and Thompson (1996): ch. 1, esp. 26 ff
24. Ronald Dworkin, "What is Equality? Part 4: Political Equality," Philosophy and Democracy: An Anthology, ed. T. Christiano (Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2003) 117-21
25. while Beitz does not directly discuss liberal, democracy, his "human right to democracy" is unmistakably liberal (Beitz [2000]: 687)
26. I shall, closely follow John Rawls's definition in The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999a)
27. Cohen's works utilized in the reconstruction are "Moral Pluralism, and Political Consensus," The Idea of Democracy, ed. D. Copp, J. Hampton, and J. Roemer (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1993) 270-91
28. "A More Democratic Liberalism: Political Liberalism," Michigan Law Review 92 (May, 1994): 1503-46
29. Cohen (1996); "Deliberation and DemocraticLegitimacy," Deliberative Democracy, ed. James Bohman and William Rehg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997) 67-92
30. Cohen (1998); "Reflections on Habermas on Democracy," Ratio Juris 12(4) (December 1999): 385-416
31. "For a Democratic Society," Cambridge Companion to Rawls, ed. Samuel. Freeman (New York: Cambridge UP, 2003)
32. "Is There a Human Right to Democracy?," The Egalitarian Conscience, ed. C. Sypnowich (New York: Oxford UP, 2006) 226-50
33. Rawls has explicitly endorsed "deliberative democracy" in "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" The Law of Peoples: with "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999b) 138
34. Although Gutmann and Thompson (1996, 2004) provide another influential version of deliberative democracy, in line with Rawls's political liberalism, Rawls points out that Gutmann and Thompson's theory is "more general and seems to work from a comprehensive doctrine."
35. See Rawls (1999b): 137, footnote 19
36. Cohen (2003): 107
37. See also Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971) 505
38. Cohen (2006): 240
39. Cohen (1997): 73
40. Cohen (2006): 240. 12 Cohen (1998): 193
41. Ibid: 186
42. Ibid: .185, original emphases
43. See Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia UP, 1993) 131 shall use Cohen's term unless otherwise noted
44. Cohen (1999): 396
45. Rawls (1999b): 131
46. Rawls (1993): 63
47. Cohen (1996): 96
48. Cohen (1994): 1537
49. Rawls (1993): 54-56
50. Cohen (1998): 186f
51. Cohen (1994): 1533
52. Cohen (1998): 193-94
53. Cohen (2003): 89
54. With the possible exception of William Galston ("Two Concepts of Liberalism," Ethics 105/3 [1995]: 516-34)
55. the overwhelming majority of liberals advocate individual freedom, often referred to as "autonomy," as a core liberal value. See John Christman and Joel Anderson (ed.), Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism (New York: Cambridge UP, 2005)
56. Nomy Arpaly, Unprincipled Virtue (New York: Oxford UP, 2003)
57. Sarah Buss, "Personal Autonomy," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (March 2002)
58. This liberal conception of equality underlies the liberal values of civic equality and fair opportunity
59. The practical difference between versions of "comprehensive"/ "perfectionist" liberalism and. political liberalism, seems to be that the latter, while committed to politically protecting members' individual freedom, does not promote it as a societal goal, while the former advocates both
60. Cohen (1998): 187
61. See Kymlicka (1995): 18, 76
62. See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1983) 111
63. see also Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991)
64. Rawls (1999a): 24
65. Anthony Smith, Theories of Nationalism (London: Duckworth, 1983) 176-80
66. Not every nation has a state, as the Kurds and Tibet illustrate. "Nations" are equivalent to Rawls's "peoples." For a similar identification, see Kymlicka (1995): 18
67. Some members may subscribe to less individualistic, but still Western, socialist/communist ideals
68. Examples of homogeneous nonliberal nations are various ethnic-religious nations in the Middle East and elsewhere, in which the emphasis on nonliberal ethnic or religious identity is public and pronounced. However, even in seemingly liberalized and secularized East Asian nations, such as South Korea, their nonliberal Confucian culture is quite pervasive. Even though the nonliberal Confucian identity in South Korea is diluted and diffuse, daily practices indicate the pervasiveness of Confucian values among the overwhelming majority, operating at "the most basic level of the popular consciousness and in the routines of daily life" (Koh [1996]: 194)
69. Indeed, even members who are "westernized," through Western education for example, are not quite the free and equal individuals envisioned by liberalism, as most take their Confucian familial identity and values/ practices for granted. See Koh Byong-ik, "Confucianism, in Contemporary Korea," Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity, ed. Tu Wei-Ming (Harvard UP, 1996)
70. Rawls (1999a): 80, n. 23
71. Ibid: 68. On the Muslim aspiration to protect human rights proper, see Khaled Abou El Fadl, "Islam and the Challenge of Democracy," Boston Review (April/May, 2003): 10
72. in the case of Confucianism, see Daniel Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2006) pt. I
73. Examples include not only Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, but also "panentheism" of various indigenous cultures. See J. B. Callicott and T. W. Overholt, "Traditional American Indian Attitudes toward Nature," Voices of Wisdom, ed. G. Kessler (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2000)
74. Rawls (1999a): 66
75. See footnote 45
76. for the prevalent Muslim aspiration for decency, see also Esposito and Mogahed (2007): 18, 46
77. Prime examples include Ken Saro-Wiwa's movement to protect his Ogoni people's well-being and their environment in Nigeria and the majority of the people, including Buddhist monks, in Myanmar who advocate democracy
78. Although the focus of this article is on decent nonliberal nations, the hope is that my case for democracy in decent nonliberal nations may provide a rationale for and moral sustenance to struggles by decent groups within outlaw states and overburdened societies to transform their entire society into a decent nonliberal nation
79. Beitz (2000). For similar positions, see also Buchanan (2000)
80. Kok-Chor Tan, "Liberal Toleration in Rawls's Law of Peoples," Ethics 108/2 (1998): 276-95
81. Beitz, "Human Rights as a Common Concern," American Political Science Review 95 (2001): 269-83, 277, emphasis added
82. see also Betz (2000): 683-84
83. Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1979/1999) 53
84. For a similar conception of human rights, see Gutmann. (2003): 57, 65, 66, 84
85. Rawls (1999a): 65
86. Beitz (2000): 684
87. Gutmann (2003): 40
88. Ibid: 48. Gutmann presents this argument in relation to nonliberal cultural minorities in the liberal West, justifying intervention by the dominant liberal society. It is applicable to foreign nonliberal nations and Beitz recommends foreign intervention, albeit of nonmilitary nature, in the name of the liberal conception of human rights that includes the right to liberal democracy ([2001]: 277)
89. Interestingly, this is equivalent to seeing themselves as free and equal individuals unconstrained by their culture. In other words, rejecting the comprehensive conception of culture as defined by Gutmann is equivalent to accepting the liberal conception of persons, which is why most liberal philosophers are against the concept of "comprehensive" culture. See Gutmann (2003): 81-84
90. Samuel Scheffler, "Immigration and the Significance of Culture," Philosophy and Public Affairs 35/2 (2007): 93-125
91. Jeremy Waldron, "Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative," University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 25 (1992): 751-93
92. Brian Barry, Culture and Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2001) ch. 7
93. Kwame Appiah, The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2005) ch. 4
94. For a relevant discussion pertaining to culture, see Edward Shils, Tradition (Chicago, IL: The U of Chicago P, 1981)
95. See Esposito and Mogahed (2007): 26, 46, 113-14
96. in the case of the Confucian Self, see Tu. Wei-ming, "On the Mencian Perception of Moral Self-development," Humanity and SeIfCultivation (Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1979)
97. This conception has been inspired by Charles Taylor's discussion of "strong evaluator." See "What Is Human Agency?" Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1985)
98. Rawls (1993): 19
99. Rawls (1999a): 71
100. Cohen (2006): 241-42
101. This assumes a certain metaphysical position about human beings, which I cannot fully discuss here. Let it suffice to say that it is increasingly supported by cutting-edge research in psychobiology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience. See Marc Hauser, Moral Minds (New York: Ecco, 2006)
102. Frans de Waal, Primates and Philosophers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2006)
103. Laurence Trancredi, Hardwired Behavior (New York: Cambridge UP, 2005) esp. ch. 6
104. Richard Royce, The Evolution of Morality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006) sect. 45
105. For more on valuational agents, see Ranjoo Seodu Herr, "Liberal Multiculturalism," Philosophical Forum 38/1 (2007): 23-41
106. Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1989) 63
107. For example, although the Confucian value of social harmony is less culturally specific than the value of "filial piety," the former would be interpreted as requiring filial piety, thereby gaining cultural specificity through interpretation
108. Taylor (1989): 5
109. Stuart Hall, "Introduction," Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. S. Hall and. P. du Gay (London: Sage, 1996) 4
110. Gary Watson, "Free Agency," Free Will, ed. Watson (New York: Oxford UP, 1982) 100
111. See Herr (2007): 34-40
112. See Harry Frankfurt, "The Faintest Passion," Necessity, Volition, and Love (New York: Cambridge UP, 1999) 13
113. Michael Bratman, "Planning Agency, Autonomous Agency," Personal Autonomy, ed. James Taylor (New York: Cambridge UP, 2005) 45
114. See also Rawls (1971) on "deliberative rationality," 417
115. For the last example, see Tu Wei-ming, "Pain and Suffering in Confucian Self-Cultivation," Way, Learning, and Politics (Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1989) 48
116. Cohen (2006): 233
117. For Muslim, sources on "representation" and "consultative government," see Abou El Fadl (2003): 7-8
118. Beitz (2001): 275
119. Rawls (1999a): 64
120. Cohen (2006): 233. Indeed, Rawls agrees with Cohen and Beitz that decent consultation hierarchy is not democratic (Rawls [1999a]: 72)
121. Cohen (2006): 239. Cohen acknowledges that this idea comes from Rawls who "says that his two principles of justice as fairness express the underlying 'democratic conception of society as a system of cooperation among equal persons' " ([2006]: 240)
122. For a conception of equality in the Muslim tradition, see Abou El Fadl (2003): 6, 11, Esposito and Mogahed (2007): 11, 56
123. for Confucian equality, see Ranjoo Seodu Herr, "Confucian Democracy and Equality," unpublished manuscript (2009) pt. IV
124. On how liberal values can also become the common good, see 323 above
125. On Muslim democracy, see Abou El Fadl (2003): 9
126. See Okin, "Gender Inequality and Cultural Differences," Political Theory 22 (1994): 5-24
127. Spinner (1994): 70
128. Esposito and Mogahed (2007): 111, 124-25
129. See Ranjoo Seodu Herr, "The Possibility of Nationalist Feminism," Hypatia 18(3) (2003): 135-60
130. "A Third World Feminist Defense of Multiculturalism," Social Theory and Practice 30(1) (2004): 73-103
131. Helena Andrews, "Muslim Women Don't See Themselves as Oppressed, Survey Finds," New York Times, June 8, 2006. On Muslim women's commitment to their cultural values, see Silverstein (2007): 37-38
132. Shirin Ebadi, Iran Awakening (New York: Random House, 2006)
133. Ebadi (2006): 214
134. See also "Nobel Peace Winner Shirin Ababdi," Newshour, May 5, 2006, (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle-east/jan-june06/abadi-5-05. html), accessed May 9, 2006
135. Malalai Joya, the brave Afghan female dissident, states that "I think that no nation can donate liberation to another nation. Liberation is not money to be donated. It should be achieved in a country by the people themselves." "Enemies of Happiness," Now, March 2, 2007, (http:// www.pbs.org/now/shows/309/index.html)
136. Ranjoo Seodu Herr, "Cultural Claims and the Limits of Liberal Democracy," Social Theory and Practice 34(1) (2008): 25-48, 35
137. The popular notion in the liberal West that democracy can be "exported" to undemocratic nations from the outside is not only misguided but gravely dangerous, as it can rationalize morally unjustifiable military invasions, such as the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which can disrupt or derail any internal democracy, however incipient. See also Ebadi (2006): 214
138. see also Rawls (1999a): 74-76
139. Beitz (2001): 274
140. If the case involves a minority nation within a multinational state, then the former's collective right to self-determination ought to be respected by the state. See Ranjoo Seodu Herr, "In Defense of Nonliberal Nationalism," Political Theory, 34(3) (2006): 304-327
141. For the Islamic emphasis on tolerance, see Abou El Fadl (2003): 9-10
142. See Zakaria (2003): 17
143. Cohen (2006): 227
144. See, for example, Rawls (1999a): 70-78. Bell's advocacy of the "Xianshiyuan" in Confucian, democracy seems to be in line with this line of reasoning (167)
145. Silverstein argues that the "new Islamic movements," such as Hamas and Hezbollah, endorse "free elections" and that if free and fair elections were widely implemented, then such groups would "control, significant blocs, if not majorities, in almost every [Muslim] country" ([2007]: 34). Indeed, Hamas won 74 seats out of 132 in the largely free and fair Palestinian Legislative Council, elections of 2006. See http://www.ifes.org/ features.html?title=How%20Hamas%20Won%20the %20Majority, accessed 3/30/09
146. Abou El Fadl argues that democracy which assigns "equal rights of speech, association, and suffrage to all" may indeed be "most effective in helping [Muslims] promote" central Muslim values ([2003]: 6)
147. See Chaihark Hahm, "Constitutionalism, Confucian Civic Virtue, and Ritual Propriety," pt. Ill and IV
148. Jongryn Mo, "The Challenge of Accountability," both in Confucianism for the Modem World, ed. D. Bell and C. Hahm (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2003)
149. Also, Abou El Fadl states that in the Muslim tradition the ideals of "the rule of law" and "limited government" are already incorporated in the political system of the "caliphate" ([2003]: 6)
150. Gutmann and Thompson (2004): 99
151. Cohen (2006): 246
152. Scheffler (2007): 99
153. See footnote 67
154. Herr (2007): sect. V
155. Gutmann (2003): 81
156. Cohen (1998): 189
157. Cohen recognizes that liberal democracy is "one form of collective self-determination" ([2006]: 233)