The Failure of Democratic Nation Building.

The Failure of Democratic Nation Building: Ideology Meets Evolution (2005) is the second book on this subject by Albert Somit & Steven A. Peterson. Their first book, Darwinism, Dominance, and Democracy: The Biological Basis of Authoritarianism (1997),  contends that democracy is very difficult to establish and maintain. This recent book looks at the subject again, with new warnings with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan.

They submit that “[O]ur basic thesis was that, contrary to the prevailing ideology, humans were genetically predisposed to authoritarian and hierarchical, rather than democratic and egalitarian, social and political structures. Even in a so-called Age of Democracy, we noted, democracies still constituted a definite minority among governments, as has been the case throughout the ages.”

They interchange “nation building” with promoting “democracy,” and find fault with any one nation trying to bring about change in another. They demur, “We probably should have taken the hint that the times were not yet ripe for a neo-Darwinian approach to human behavior and to public policy were it not for the egregious folly of our ‘nation building’ ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. To borrow a famous epigram, U.S. policy has been worse than a crime; in terms of our national interest, it has been a staggering blunder. In the hope of lessening the likelihood of a repeat experience, we offer here not so much a moral argument (it should not be done) as a practical one—it really cannot be done…. Our major thesis is that the United States should drastically curtail, if not abandon, its efforts to establish democratic governments elsewhere, that is, the so-called policy of ‘nation building.’ With rare exceptions, this policy has been unsuccessful in the past; it is unsuccessful today; and is almost surely certain to be equally unproductive in the foreseeable future.”

I haven’t tried to compare the above approach with Salter’s universal nationalism, but both approaches seem to indicate that it is simply better to stay out of other countries’ internal affairs.

Somit and Peterson (S&M) discuss real, not normative, human behavior: a tendency to dominance and submission behaviors, hierarchical social and political structures, human docility, ease of indoctrination, and so forth. They also point out that human nature is not invariant. Western-type democracy may be enabled by the West’s leanings towards rationalism, skepticism, materialism, individualism, etc. The people that embrace Islam are “inherently authoritarian,” which may result from genetic-cultural interaction. S&M discuss material and social “enabling conditions” to bring about democracy. “[T]hese enabling conditions normally take decades, often generations, to emerge and mature; they cannot be achieved by import, fiat, or external imposition, no matter how well intentioned.”

S&M used three main sources for collecting data on how nation building is achieved or democracy advanced. One of the three was Tatu Vanhanen, who along with Richard Lynn wrote IQ and the Wealth of Nations (2002). S&M observe that, “We are on solid ground in saying that democracy requires a reasonably well-educated citizenry—and that countries where the population is largely illiterate are hardly promising venues for nation building.” Education and a nation’s innate intelligence are linked: the higher the IQ, the easier it is to educate the population. Lynn and Vanhanen also link a country’s average IQ, the presence of a market economy, and democracy with high per capita income. S&M however ignore Vanhanen and Lynn’s work on IQ: they rely on Vanhanen when it comes to democracy, then ignore him when it comes to linkage between democracy and intelligence.

S&M state: “Given the basic bias of our evolutionary legacy, we (hastily: our species, not the authors or our readers) are probably more inclined to embrace authoritarian political, social, and religious ideas and values. This tendency may have been strengthened of late because, for democracies to be viable, there must be a willingness to listen to, or at least tolerate, differing opinions and ideas; to compromise or amicably agree to disagree; to pursue one’s objectives by peaceful means, rather than by force; to treat opponents as equally human—in sum, to play ‘within the rules.’” However, as Frank Salter and others point out, such gentleness is hard to achieve when a nation is fractured along racial, religious, and ethnic lines. S&M seem to be very concerned that the United States is entering a period where democracy is threatened at home because of our nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq (and no doubt in other countries as needed).

They also point out that in the United States, there is an increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth. No doubt the neoconservatives’ promotion of corporate capitalism and free markets is exacerbating this inequality (here and around the world), but so is the inability of national populations, including those in the United States, to understand their governments well enough to not be influenced by propaganda, and vote according to their class interests or ethnic interests.

President Bush likes to make reference to “freedom loving people’s” desire for freedom, but is the desire for freedom really universal? S&M state, “Furthermore, there are the consequences of poverty itself—malnutrition, wretched housing, high infant mortality, and, for those who survive, chronic ill health and a low average life span. Under such circumstances, getting food on the table today (if they have a table) may be more important than securing the right to vote tomorrow. Not surprisingly, a recent UN study found that half of those surveyed in Latin America ‘would prefer a dictatorship if that improved their living standards ...’ and that ‘democracy does not enjoy good health fundamentally because it has not provided benefits in terms of reduction of poverty and inequality.’ Many Russians, looking back to what may now seem to be the ‘good old days,’ have expressed similar sentiments.”

While they never mention that the neoconservatives surrounding Bush were responsible for our foray into Iraq, S&M are familiar with the guru of the neocons, Leo Strauss: “For democracy to take root, especially in a newly liberated nation, a major proportion of the population and its political leadership must be willing to abide by three basic rules: to utilize discussion, persuasion, and voting as a means of resolving political issues; to compromise and settle for ‘half a loaf’; and to accept defeat peacefully, if not graciously, without resorting to arms. These habits come slowly and painfully. Leo Strauss is often cited as the philosophical mentor for those who preach that it is our national mission to carry democracy abroad, one way or another. But, as one of his long-time University of Chicago colleagues has cautioned, ‘Strauss would have seen as a historical distortion the idea that one could implant one’s own culture on people who had not been taught it. . . . One could not liberate the citizens of a bad state and expect them to emerge from the war with a good state intact.’ Or, as Stanley Hoffman has put it even more pointedly, ‘Democracy cannot be implanted surgically in countries that have no experience with it or preparation for it ....’” What they fail to realize however, is that nation building promulgated by the neocons is not really meant to spread democracy, but to subjugate other nations to American might.

In fact, S&M seem unbelievably naïve about why Bush went to war in Iraq: “The Iraq war is a classic instance. For decades to come, scholars will be trying to explain not only how and where the decision to invade Iraq was made but why, in the face of expressed staff misgivings, were we so egregiously unprepared to deal with the consequence of a sweeping military success.” For two scholars to be so obsessed with the perils of nation building as it is occurring in Iraq, they seem to be totally out of touch with the ideological movement which inspired it. (It is possible that they are very aware of delicate issues like differences in average intelligence between different races, and the neoconservatives’ involvement in our military adventures, but are protecting their careers by being politically correct.)

Lamenting the loss of democracy at home, S&M advocate a policy to increase social capital: “Few political developments have greater potential for damage to the American democracy than the erosion of what social scientists call ‘social capital.’ Rather than attempt a precise definition, it might be more useful to identify the major elements which, most students agree, collectively constitute ‘social capital’: (1) a general acceptance of and agreement on a body of basic political beliefs and values—and a widely held conviction that even those with whom one differs on specific issues, share these basic beliefs and values; (2) a willingness to ‘play by the rules’—and the belief that even those with whom one disagrees politically share that willingness; (3) a readiness, albeit sometimes reluctant, to compromise, even on important issues—and the belief that those with whom one disagrees also share this readiness; (4) a willingness to accept political defeat, even on important matters, and still continue to work amicably with one’s political opponents—and the belief that one’s political opponents also share this willingness; and (5) a willingness to conduct political campaigns primarily in terms of issues, rather than by focusing largely on the alleged personal weaknesses and shortcomings of one’s opponents—and the belief that one’s political opponents share this willingness.”

S&M advocate a broader educational program to teach civics and the political system. Unfortunately, President Bush’s No Child Left Behind program is designed to teach the basics like reading and math, because the intelligence of certain subpopulations, with the nation’s commitment to naïve environmentalism, makes a rounded educational system impossible. The goal is to provide basic skills. A broader education for all is impossible when students vary so widely in innate potential.

The other elements of social capital: a common belief–values system; accepting playing by the rules; a willingness to compromise; acceptance of political defeat; and concentrating on issues rather than personal weakness of opponents—these are all far more difficult in a diverse and multicultural society. Various worldviews can be tolerated within a homogenous nation with a shared culture and a shared genetic interest: but such a nation becomes less viable as it becomes more fractious.

S&M have provided solid arguments for why the United States may be in decline when it comes to its democratic systems. However, their policy recommendations do not recognize the entrenched problems we suffer from. A house divided cannot stand; besides,  the dwellers in a divided house cannot stand each other.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Saturday, January 28, 2006 at 06:51 PM in The Proposition Nation
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