Democracy isn't for everyone

Democracy isn't for everyone

23 May 2007

The panel discuss the concept that democracy is not a style of government that can be applied to all states.

Defending the motion are Edward Luttwak and Matthew Parris. Edward Luttwak proposes the motion by arguing that, whilst he is not against democracy per se, he feels it is a change that should come from outside. He says democracy is more complicated than installing parliaments and courts, and that foreigners should not get involved in the intricate and complicated political affairs of other countries. Matthew Parris argues that he is not against certain cultural groups having democracy, but rather that if democrcy is to be installed it needs to suit needs of the state that receives it. He suggests that democracy might not be right for Iraq, but also that it might be the wrong solution for Northern Ireland. As populations, we can sometimes be gripped by fevers and panics that prove to be ill-founded, and these things need to be modified, and sometimes delayed, by mechanisms that run counter to the theory that people are always right. Democracy, he says, is a system that encourages the rule of a numerical majority, and is not always correct.

Arguing against the motion are Nick Cohen and Bernard-Henri Levy. Nick Cohen begins his argument against the motion by pointing to some of the times when democracy has been considered unsuitable for some people: when the working class was denied the vote in Victorian Britain, and when women were denied the vote in the early twentieth century. He says that when we say democracy is not for anyone, we mean certain cultural groups, and argues that there is no cultural determinism that dictates people cannot take to democracy. Bernard-Henri Levy says that we have to believe in democracy, because the alternative too often produces disastrous results - he points to the genocides in Darfur and Rwanda as evidence of this. He says that true democracy does not happen overnight, but is a process that takes time, and that people who believe that democracy can be planted overnight are not democrats themselves.

First Vote: 325 For, 203 Against, 201 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 326 For, 366 Against, 37 Don’t Know

Motion defeated by 40 votes.

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Speakers for the motion

Edward Luttwak

Historian and military strategist. Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, and of the F&M Institute of the Japan Ministry of Finance.
Matthew Parris

Columnist on The Times and the Spectator, author and broadcaster