When I read this article about despots, I thought the author was talking about John Howard, then I read further and was convinced he was talking about him untill lesser despots like mugabee came into the frame. So why is it so important for you europeans to export democracy and your way of life to other nations. Are you that arrogant that you think your culture is so superiour because you have an armed force that will back up your demands on smaller weak nations?.

The problems in most of these countries came about as a result of colonisation by the european powers over the last five hundred years. Most of these nations like Australia historically were made up of competing and often hostile tribes who with colonisation became united with one tribe supported by whites being in charge of another.

This has created the problem we see today and helped the extremists in these countries spread their form of nationalsim based on religious and racial intollerance leading to in some cases to genocide.

If America and Australia were to mind our own business and leave these people do there own thing then maybe we might be a lesser target for violence in the future.

why worry about kazahkstan?

oz is not a democracy, by aristotle's definition. he'd call oz an 'oligarchy'. but, for the same reason that they have elections in kazahkstan, they have them in oz.

the people don't rule, here. usually they don't even know what's going on. if they did, they can't do anything about it.

if you apply the schools and the media to training the people to call themselves 'citizens', to call oz a 'democracy, the result is that the people are trained. they line up to be shorn, they line up to be counted, they imagine politican rule is natural, inevitable, inescapable, and as good as it gets.

it doesn't really matter, i suppose. but calling oz a democracy suggests ignorance, or complicity. i urge the use of 'westminster society', it's close enough, and makes no claims that are not true.

Demos, did you read my coments? of course its not a democracy you don't have to tell an Indigenous person that because, we know from bitter experience that its not. So why the hell would you want to import such a flawed concept anyway, when these other groups have their own flawed concept, and as for the westminster system thats crap too.

Non elected inbreeds in the house of lord deciding on the fate of the country, which is overseen by a person not elected by the people. How flawed was this system imported to Australia at the time of invasion.

As usual, this is an excellent contribution by Mr Roth. I think there is a crucial and important distinction between the legitimacy of the sort of proto-formalist nod to democracy, which might have ballots but not much else, and the full throated type which is impossible to separate from complex social enablers like robust public institutions, an independent judiciary and the rule of law. As regards the latter, I think Mr Roth is correct that human rights treaty regimes, though imperfect, and often misunderstood by the public, have a sufficient specificity which makes them a credible indicia of legitimacy. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is guilty of indulging the former view, engaging in what many commentators have called the ballots and bombs theory of democracy.

“Democracy is a metric by which the United States still measures up fairly well,” … and so I would have thought did Israel with fair elections, independent judiciary, and a mainly free press. But according to Amnesty International there are “More than 8000 Palestinians, most of whom are nonviolent prisoners of conscience and few if any of whom have received trials that meet international standards, are being held as political prisoners.”

The article states of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov that “His government holds some 7,000 political and religious prisoners, routinely tortures detainees, and, in 2005, massacred hundreds of protesters.”

It would seem the countries are on a par until you consider that Uzbekistan has nearly four times the population of Israel.

Israel could be argued to have a fully functioning democracy of the kind touted by the article as desirable, but a human rights record deserving of condemnation. Ultimately the only reason they appear not to have been fingered in Mr Roth’s article is they are not under a dictatorship.

BBoy
No matter if it is a human rights treaty democracy, or a bombs and ballots democracy, the man or men who control the country have the loyalty of the army.

Mr Rudd (and Mr Howard) only rule this country because they have the loyalty of the legalized warlords, the army. The same is true for president Bush and it is also true for every other system of government in the world.

In other words men with guns and military muscle rule according to their belief systems and luckily in the West we are ruled by men who grew up believing in the right to vote and to a certain level human rights. If other armed men every take control such as terrorists or so called freedom fighter groups then the country will be subject to their way of ruling.
Human rights treaties although noble and right in their aim will mean didly squat if the warlords in control choose to set up their own laws and systems of justice.
A treaty is only a piece of paper after all. The rulers and the armies in the West could change their stance on certain laws protecting human rights and freedoms in a heartbeat if they felt threatened enough by terrorists attacks or the like.

Yindin “This has created the problem we see today and helped the extremists in these countries spread their form of nationalism based on religious and racial intolerance.”

Religious and racial genocide has been taking place in every war ever fought on the planet long before colonization, this has more to do with human nature than British colonization but if you mean that the British caused it by forcing the tribes to live together I agree with you there. The point you made here would seem to back up the fears people have about the future stability of multiculturalism. That is the dubious immigration policy that brings multiple tribes in to live together in one country.

I do agree with you that the West cant stop these genocidal wars indefinitely and is only making enemies of tribes who are thwarted in their aims. Who knows which one of them will target America in a 9/11 type attack for interfering next.

Yindin mate.... you said:

<<So why is it so important for you europeans to export democracy and your way of life to other nations.>>

Well.. I suppose we could always opt for the alternative, Divine Right of Kings and their Colonial Exploits?

But to address your question, I think in all honesty, its not about 'democracy' or whatever..its about 're-shaping other nations into either overtly friendly ones or.. castrating their political unity to make them less of a threat, AND.. democracy is also about an extension of the power which the oligarchy in ours (for example) hold.

When the Americans talk about "Bringing freedom and democracy" they really mean bringing the economic power of THEIR political machinery to bear on the politics of other countries, and establishing deals which are of economic benefit to US corporations, in particular the Arms industry and Pharmeceutical. You see... 'democracy' makes it look a lot better than 'propping up some tin pot dictator' so that you can have the same economic gains :)

Rather than ask 'why do they want to export democracy'.. you should be asking deeper questions about what secretive societies and old boy power groupings exist.. family ties, connections etc...it all comes down to money and power.

Last weekend I and my wife went to Werribee park Mansion. UNNNNNbelievable ! The Churnside family set up this incREDible homestead which looks like you have suddenly dropped in on some regal Lord/Barren/Prince's estate in the heart of England. It is situated on one side of the Weribee river, which formed a dividing border between 2 aboriginal groups....in the same way they came, saw, took... extending Democracy is the same, its just more by publically 'palatable' means :)

that's an important point, sharkfin. the cure for military rule, is more military rule: instead of a small professional army working for their generals, disperse military power throughout the citizenry by requiring all citizens to participate in the national militia.

this is the characteristic of athens, and switzerland, the very models of democracy.

In the matter of sociology, human nature allows only two positions.
DICTATORSHIP and ANARCHY. Anyone who forsakes Anarchy can only go towards dictatorship.
Hence all politicians are dictators. It's only question of degrees.
You give your power to a politician or anybody else and you become a servant.

“But that is what is needed if the embrace of democracy is not to become a ploy for bypassing international human rights standards in favor of a feel-good, empty alternative.”

Appeasement resolves nothing
Appeasement of dictators leads to the development of copycat Hitlers

If we do not stand up for a democratic values and support it by being prepared to defend it, through all means necessary, we are betraying those values and thus living a lie.

Yindin “When I read this article about despots, I thought the author was talking about John Howard,”

Your knowledge is so obviously deficient in so many ways as to make your post pointless.

Like “If America and Australia were to mind our own business and leave these people do there own thing then maybe we might be a lesser target for violence in the future.”

I see the garb of an appeaser becomes you, please re-read above.

Difficult question is do you have true democracy under conditions when that would mean all hell would break loose in that country, or do you have a responsible dictatorship? Ie one that does what is generally best for the country, even if that means civil liberties are curtailed in the short term?

Easy for people in the west to moralise about democracy but it helps to remember that even in the west it only came recently, & based on hundreds of years of gradual cultural development to that end. Democracies & democratic institutions cant suddenly materialize, less be imposed on people who have had zero experience of it & it’s totally unrealistic to expect it.

Pakistan’s Musharraf has done wonders for the country in terms of raising standards of living - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Pakistan

- it was a basket case when he came to power and is now the star economic performer in the region since his time at the helm. Do you take this? Or a sham democracy? – which is what every single predecessor was - & have the country stuffed up? Forget true democracy – that takes a long long time.

The west needs to be patient with the rest of the world's gradual move to true democracy. It will come, but not at the flick of a switch.

Frankly, I think Roth didn't pursue his point far enough. The old dialectic demonstrates that by allowing 'new' democracies to adopt a 'watered down' version of Democracy, we inevitably weaken our own.
Whether these countries become more and more democratic as time goes on is highly debatable. What is evident from recent history and the facts, is western democracies are becoming less democratic.
Witness Beattie's forced amalgamation of shire councils, which was always going to happen, whether of or not we voted, or regardless of the result of the vote.
If we don't start codifying democracy very soon, we will have a corporatised world, where the vote is determinded by the size of our -ever diminishing- real estate (capital) holdings.
thecomensalist.com

Yes , this parallels our High Court masquerading as justice. Note the Magill High Court decision in which Justice Susan Crennan herself previously produced a child as a result of an affair ( while still living with her then spouse ) The same Judge then feel she is fit to make an non bias decision in FAVOR of Liam Magill's ex wife Meredith Magill ( a woman who bore 2 children to her lover Derek Rowe and passed them off as Liam's children )

The Liam Magill Story - DAYS OF TEMPEST can be downloaded at http://www.leaannacooperseastofeden.com