The High Price of Democracy

After an unprecedented explosion of political freedom that felled more than 40 of the world’s most infamous regimes, democracies around the globe are imperiled.

The raw energy that inspired political upheaval across five continents, launched by Solidarity’s bold strike against Poland’s Communist government in 1980 and climaxed by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, is increasingly turning into frustration and even anger.

Democracy’s latest wave may even be receding.

“The third wave has come to a halt and probably to an end,” said Larry Diamond, fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and co-editor of the Journal of Democracy. “We may or may not see the emergence of a few new electoral democracies. But a further sizable increase seems unlikely, given that democratization has already occurred in the countries where conditions are most favorable.”

Democracy’s first wave opened in the 1820s and lasted a century. The second followed World War II for about 15 years. The third and by far the biggest gathered force in the 1980s, with 118 of the world’s 191 countries reaching various forms of democratic rule by the mid-1990s, according to Freedom House, a New York-based group that monitors political liberties worldwide.

If indeed the latest wave has crested, the implications would be global. The hopes of millions for dignity and equality would be thwarted. The potential for conflict would mount, because full-fledged democracies have historically not gone to war against each other. And for the United States and other democracies, the world could become a less friendly and potentially more dangerous place.

The challenges to democracy at the close of the 20th century have many facets.

Prominent are the passions and excesses, such as ethnic rivalries and political corruption, that commonly thrive when Communist governments, military dictatorships and apartheid succumb to democracy. Elsewhere, several of the world’s major cultural traditions--especially Islam and Confucianism--have so far held out against democracy.

But perhaps democracy’s most pervasive obstacle derives from the very economic aspirations that often aroused millions of people to tear down walls, face down tanks and defy death squads.

Poland, the first Eastern European nation to break with communism, also became the first to replace champions of free enterprise with Communists in open elections--a vote reflecting disillusionment with falling standards of living.

In Latin America, economic inequities have sparked unrest in Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. In South Africa, tension is mounting in formerly white-run cities where millions of blacks who moved in search of jobs and homes are instead squatting in parking lots, mine dumps, parks and highway strips.

“The only way you can change the political system is with the support of very powerful social forces,” said Janusz Onyszkiewicz, a member of Poland’s Parliament who was a political prisoner during Communist rule. “And you can’t mobilize those forces without consciously raising expectations.

“We didn’t promise a rose garden, but people thought that’s what we meant. And when democracy didn’t immediately improve life, there were repercussions.”

Democracy Redefined: Getting a Fair Share

The threat springs from a broader change: Democracy is being redefined in the late 20th century.

At a time when national power is measured increasingly by economic strength as opposed to military might and territorial size, democracy has come to mean more than simply the traditional right to vote in multi-party elections, speak openly and worship freely.

To life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, add prosperity. To freedom, add entitlement. For many, a VCR culture and a new-car economy have become as much a part of democracy as free elections.

“Philosophers may think democracy is the best political system for idealistic reasons, but most people want it for the things they wish and hope for,” reflected Ketumile Masire, president of Botswana, Africa’s most stable democracy.

“People in new democracies are impatient--that a child is not provided a school, that a hospital has not been built, that the goodness of life associated with democracy has not yet been fulfilled. To believe democracy is working, everyone must feel that he is getting a fair share of whatever is available.”

Botswana’s success, Masire acknowledged, is due as much to diamond riches under its vast Kalahari Desert and the export of beef cattle that grow fat on its veld as to its political leadership.

In the 1970s, Botswana’s economy grew at an annual average of 14%; since 1980, growth has averaged almost 10%.

But the wellsprings of discontent run far deeper than unmet consumer expectations. The fields of ocher grains and verdant crops that carpet much of Poland illustrate other dangers.

On paper, the economy of Central Europe’s largest nation is the fastest growing on the continent--a stirring 7% in 1995 and 6.2% in 1996. Poland is now at the top of the list to join the European Union and NATO. It was the first former East Bloc state admitted into the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the rich countries’ club.

The impact of Poland’s rapid growth, however, is grossly uneven. Poland’s private farms and former collectives, which not long ago served as a breadbasket for the Communist world, can no longer compete with mechanized American and Canadian farms that sell grain to Poland’s European neighbors.

“The problem of the Polish countryside is huge, because 35% of the population lives there,” said Polish Sen. Zbigniew Romanszewski, an early democratic activist. “The transformation is leaving them behind, and we don’t have the means to educate or move them to something else. And that doesn’t take into account the urban unemployed or those who live in towns with a single industry that has been closed or is threatened with closure.

“That’s why the Communists were so popular in the election,” Romanszewski said. “Some reforms failed. Others will take time. Either way, a lot of people became poorer.”

Turning Back to Ways of the Past

Setbacks were predictable in young democracies, where newly privatized industries laid off millions of workers, and downsized governments shredded the social safety net for millions more.

“In the short run, governments that have democratized and simultaneously sought to produce rapid changes in the rights of property owners, the distribution of wealth, the balance of public-private sector power and so forth have usually failed,” said Philippe C. Schmitter, a political scientist at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. “The consolidation of democracy then becomes much more difficult.”

Not only in Poland have disillusioned voters turned back to discredited politicians.

Democracy dawned in Benin, an African trend-setter, in 1991. But high unemployment and economic woes led voters in the inland savannahs and palmy coastal cities last March to replace a committed pro-democracy president with an ex-Marxist leader whose previous two-decade rule had made Benin one of Africa’s most unstable nations.

And in the South American nation of Suriname, where a democratic government was installed in 1992, the party of notorious dictator Desi Bouterse, a high school dropout and automobile salesman before seizing power twice in 1980 and 1990 military coups, came in a close second in parliamentary elections in May.

“From Aristotle to the present, democratic success or failure has usually been linked with economic success or failure, a pattern in older democracies from Norway to the United States,” said Seymour Martin Lipset, editor of the Encyclopedia of Democracy. “But these countries had a century or more to become rich and democratic. The problem for new democracies is having to do both in a short period of time.”

Even some older democracies are endangered.

In Latin America, where the third wave of democratic change made the earliest inroads, a 1996 Chilean poll found that 27% of people were content with the way democracy is working. Venezuela, which became a democracy in 1958, is a microcosm.

“Most of my life I’ve been lucky,” reflected Estrella Alamo Viallar, a small woman with dark hair and animated eyes who lives with her two daughters in a tiny apartment in Caracas, the capital. “My father was a prosperous baby-shoe manufacturer. I got a degree in accounting from Venezuela’s oldest university. As oil made this country rich and things opened up for women, I went back for a degree in psychology. I’ve worked full time ever since.

“Yet now I’m so broke I’m selling my daughters’ toys.”

Alamo’s rent absorbs about 80% of her meager income as a psychologist at the Foundation for the Study of Population and Growth. She also works part time whenever possible as an accountant or typist.

To feed her family, she has sold most of her furniture plus her typewriter, books and kitchen appliances. Clean squares on the faded walls reveal where pictures once hung.

“A year ago I was crying all the time because I didn’t know what was happening,” she said, nervously toying with the neckline of her red T-shirt. “Now I’m just numb from trying to make ends meet. I feel betrayed.”

Disillusionment as Promises Are Unfulfilled

Alamo’s saga is not unusual. In Venezuela, Latin America’s oldest democracy, more than 60% of the population of 23 million can no longer afford basic food, transportation and clothing, according to local economists. The cost of food, which averaged 28% of a Venezuelan household’s costs in the 1980s, soared to 72% in 1995, one reason the standard of living has dropped by at least one-third since 1992.

Despite national oil wealth that produced $18 billion in 1995 and $30 billion last year, economic mismanagement has in the meantime led to water rationing, crumbling schools on multi-shift schedules, abysmal health care and serious job insecurity.

Many Venezuelans blame their form of government. “Democracy has not provided what it promised,” Alamo said. “For me, it is as barren as this room.”

Three out of four Venezuelans expressed disillusionment with democracy, according to a 1996 poll by the International Republican Institute, or IRI, in Washington. And 93% said democracy had done little or nothing to ensure equitable distribution of wealth or justice, as may have been anticipated.

“Venezuela is no longer taken for granted as a democracy,” said Juan Carlos Navarro, coordinator of the Center for Public Policy in Caracas. “For many, democracy has simply turned out to be too expensive.”

The common denominator in Poland, Venezuela and elsewhere is the status of the middle class, the traditional mainstay and barometer of democracy.

More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle, the world’s first democratic theorist, advised: “It is manifest that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.”

In Venezuela, the middle class is withering. In Poland, it is not growing fast enough to stabilize the new political system.

The problem is widespread. Eighty-nine countries, including many new democracies, have been rocked by economic decline or stagnation since the 1980s, reducing incomes of more than one-quarter of the world’s people, according to the 1996 survey by the U.N. Development Program, or UNDP. Forty-three of these countries are poorer than they were in the 1970s.

“Despite a dramatic surge in economic growth in 15 countries over three decades, 1.6 billion people were left behind and are worse off than they were 15 years ago,” the U.N. report said. “Economic gains have benefited greatly a few countries, at the expense of many.”

Skipping Meals --and Elections

Until a couple of years ago, Xiamara de Barazarte, a 24-year-old bank teller in Caracas, considered her family to be among Venezuela’s lower middle class. But as food prices rose, Barazarte, her mother and her three brothers and sisters had to eliminate meat, cheese, eggs and then milk from their table.

“It started slowly,” Barazarte recalled. “Then last year we had to skip meals. By mid-month we’re usually down to breakfast and dinner. The last week we often eat only once a day.”

As a result, the Barazartes are withdrawing from the system. Their alienation, experts warn, represents one of the greatest long-term dangers for democracy.

Sitting on a ginger plastic couch in her living room, Maria de Barazarte, Xiamara’s mother, recalled the first time she voted a quarter of a century ago.

“I waited in line for hours, and I sweated in the sun, but it was worth it,” she said. “I felt good about having this power.”

Now she no longer bothers.

“Over the years my vote has changed the politicians but little else. My vote is meaningless,” she said with a shrug.

Xiamara was old enough to vote for the first time in Venezuela’s 1993 election, but she and her three siblings stayed home.

“Theoretically I believe in democracy,” she said. “But free speech and free elections haven’t solved our problems.”

Many agree, the IRI survey found. One of four Venezuelans called voting “useless,” while 75% had little or no confidence in Congress, political parties, governors or mayors. Abstention from voting was in “great danger” of becoming a permanent feature of Venezuela’s politics, the IRI concluded.

Last April, in a desperate bid to reverse Venezuela’s fortunes, President Rafael Caldera launched austerity reforms to cut a bloated budget and put the national economy on a sounder footing. But the short-term impact is more pain. The price of formerly subsidized gasoline soared ninefold. Wholesale and luxury taxes jumped 16.5%. Annual inflation hit 100% last year.

“Most of my friends anguish over whether democracy here can survive as people become increasingly poor,” said Elias Santana, a Caracas civic leader and political commentator. “People are really afraid of going to jail because of debt.”

Whatever the long-term potential, economic shock therapy has had only selective impact so far throughout Latin America. Not enough jobs have been created to keep growing numbers of homeless off the streets in Lima, Peru, and Rio de Janeiro. Rich and poor are giving way to superwealthy and destitute from Bogota, Colombia, to Buenos Aires. Bolivians in the southern suburbs of La Paz can hook up to the Internet on home computers; in the north, most do not even have electricity.

Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor

The problems extend far beyond Latin America.

New laws to narrow the racial economic gap in South Africa have not improved the majority’s plight. On paper, blacks’ incomes have grown 10% since 1985, but only a tiny elite draws most of the benefits, while soaring numbers live below the poverty line.

Up to 40% of the black labor force is without formal employment--with few prospects. In 1995, the South African economy generated 100,000 new jobs, but 400,000 people entered the job market.

In Russia, democracy has given birth to initiative and opportunity--but also to homeless children begging in subways and families scavenging for meals and clothing and seeking shelter in garbage dumps.

With industrial production plummeting 60% and gross domestic product down 40% in the six years since the demise of the Soviet Union, Russian society is significantly poorer than it was under Communist rule.

At least 30 million Russians now live at or below the official poverty line. Even life expectancy is down; the average male lives into his late 50s, down from the mid-60s under the Communists.

Worldwide, the yawning gap between rich and poor is illustrated by a stunning statistic: Assets of the world’s top 358 billionaires exceed the combined annual incomes of almost half the world’s people, according to the UNDP.

The repercussions for democracy are wide-ranging, from unrest to crime and even a desire for new dictators.

In South Africa, a 1996 International Labor Organization survey warned that wage inequities, which in the post-apartheid era are among the world’s worst, could spark trouble.

“Ten years down the road we can’t have a society that looks in its main features quite unchanged,” acknowledged Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, the heir apparent to President Nelson Mandela. “If it does, then we are asking for a rebellion.”

In August, tranquil Jordan, the Mideast’s newest democracy, experienced its worst violence since the first open elections in 1989 after bread price increases--recommended by the International Monetary Fund as a prerequisite for IMF assistance--sparked riots in poor towns and villages of the arid southern desert.

In country after country, cynicism is mounting about the prospects of closing the gap.

“Over half of Polish society not only feels it has not done better in an open system, but it feels it can’t do better,” said Marcin Krol, a University of Warsaw political philosopher.

The sense of being cut off from democracy’s promises is reflected at Poland’s universities. In 1995, 700 youths applied to Krol’s department; only two came from villages.

“They don’t have education, but they can’t afford it even if it’s free,” Krol said. “So I see a rather black future because the gap will inevitably widen, and that’s the biggest danger for democracy. If nothing is done to close the gap, we are bound to have a kind of revolution.”

Unrest, Crime and New Strongmen

When new freedoms fail to produce overall economic gains, people often exploit them for their own purposes. Liberties translate into license to steal, a soaring problem in young democracies from Poland to Paraguay. In former Soviet republics, a new generation of mafias and globalized gangs is acquiring clout that rivals the power of the new democratic governments.

The result is a cycle from which many states find it hard to break short of reining in freedoms, as in Peru and Uganda, or outbreaks of vigilantism, as in South Africa and Venezuela.

Street-corner justice is common in Caracas, where murders average 30 a weekend and rampant crime makes wearing a watch a dangerous provocation.

Instability brought on by economic decline can also open the way for new democrats to become new dictators.

“Crime leads to cynicism,” said Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. “People ask what good democracy does if they can’t leave their homes. Or why have an open political system if it produces fear and chaos in daily life? Crime and corruption inevitably make people, even liberals, long for a strong hand. People get fed up.”

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, a democratically elected leader who suspended parliament and part of the constitution in 1992, visited Venezuela in 1995. At a cooperative warehouse in Caracas’ worst slum, where the poor shop for bulk-rate food, he was mobbed by housewives and laborers shouting for a Fujimori-style government in Venezuela.

“People went crazy,” said Jose Ignacio Gainxarin, cooperative coordinator. “Because of insecurity and crime, there’s a feeling now that people want an authoritarian democracy, just short of dictatorship, like what Fujimori did in Peru, to solve our problems.”

Ironically, Fujimori’s popularity at home dropped more than 20 percentage points last year because of Peru’s troubled economy.

But the economic factor also sometimes works in reverse.

Lithuania, the first Soviet republic to declare independence, was also the first, in 1992, to choose Communist leadership at the ballot box as its economy collapsed. But in December, with economic problems persisting, Lithuania voted the Communists out.

What Lithuanian voters rejected, however, was one of the most successful economic turnarounds among the former Soviet republics. Through austerity, the former Communists brought down inflation from 1,200% a year to 25% and spurred new growth. But only a new elite has benefited from the new wealth of BMW dealerships and a mobile phone culture.

Among younger democracies, Lithuania, Venezuela and Poland are lucky. Their prospects are comparatively bright because of factors ranging from resources to literacy. The dangers are far more serious in democracies such as Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

In Haiti’s second multi-party election in 1995--held only after U.S. troops restored the democratic experiment quashed by the army in 1993--28% of registered voters turned out.

For several reasons, Haiti has little to show for its transformation--no significant new jobs or investment, no major improvements in electricity, water or telephones. For many, the incentive to vote is receding.

“People around the world are trying out democracy to see if it can deliver to them,” the Carnegie Endowment’s Carothers said. “In many places, the verdict is not yet in.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Where Freedom Fails

In varying strengths, democracy has now taken root in 118 of the world’s 191 countries, according to Freedom House, a group that monitors political liberties worldwide. But many still face overwhelming obstacles, and democracy remains beyond reach for vast numbers in nations big and small.

Free countries

Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mali, Mongolia, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela

*

Partially free

Brazil, Cameroon, Columbia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, India, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine

****

Not free

Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Chad, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Zaire

Source: Freedom House

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Democracy’s Three Waves

FIRST: 1820s to 1920.

By the time the first wave ended, 30 countries were democracies. Progress began to be reversed with the rise of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. By 1942, the world boasted only 12 real democracies.

SECOND: Mid-1940s to 1963.

The Allied victory in World War II fostered a period of democratization that reached its peak in 1962 with 36 democracies. By 1975, only 30 countries ranked as democratic--the same as in 1920.

THIRD: 1974 to the mid-1990s.

Beginning with the Portuguese revolution, the third is the largest and fastest transformation, with more than 110 countries ranked in varying stages of democracy.

****

Defining Democracy

A democracy is a government in which the people hold the ruling power either directly or through elected representatives. Democracy is also the principle of equality of rights, opportunity and treatment, or the practice of this principle.

--Webster’s New World Dictionary

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

ON DEMOCRACY: ARISTOTLE

“If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attached when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.”

--Aristotle

****

Wealth: Assets of the world’s top 358 billionaires exceed the combined annual incomes of nearly half the world’s people.

--United Nations Development Program

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

About This Series

After spreading to many new countries in the past decade, democracy is in trouble in many corners of the globe.

Today: The paramount reason for the imperilment of democracy is its failure to meet the economic aspirations that motivated democracy’s boom in the first place.

Monday: New freedoms have unleashed a host of old evils. Two in particular--ethnic violence and political corruption--are corroding democracy from within.

Tuesday: As democracy spreads, it faces its most profound challenges from two of the world’s oldest cultures: Islam and Confucianism.

Wednesday: Devolution--the transfer of power from the national government to the regional and even the municipal levels--is the most dynamic trend in today’s new democracies.