Libya's Morning After the Night Before

“Gadhafi is dead and now the hard part begins” ... we hear that same refrain every time a dictator is deposed and there is an opening for democracy.  We’ve heard it so often that it has become a cliche.  But it is still profoundly true.  Winning -- a war, an election, a rebellion  – isn’t everything.  When the euphoria wears off, when it really is the morning after the night before, there is a chance to move in new directions, one of which is “democracy.”

Most of us, most of the time, take it for granted that we know what democracy is (perhaps along the lines of the Supreme Court justice who wrote that he could not define pornography but he knew it when he saw it).  Some of us -- meaning pundits, commentators and you and me -- sometimes seem to assume that creating a democracy is pretty straightforward: write a constitution, set up some elections, create a free press ... and away you go. 

And some of us portray democracy as a delicate flower, thriving only under rare and exotic conditions. The right kind of culture, a developed capitalist economy, wise and saintly leaders, and the absence of internal conflicts are commonly cited as both causes of democracy and reasons why some countries have failed to develop democratic systems.  At an extreme, this becomes the pessimistic “you can’t export democracy” and “some people just aren’t ready for it” positions.

At least since the time of Aristotle political scientists have been studying democratic regimes.  And we have learned some things that are relevant to political development.  At the same time, there is a big difference between studying politics and doing it. 

What we know

I don’t intend this as a comprehensive overview of theories of democracy, but a highlighting of some major points.  There are real and serious debates about the relative importance of the various factors and the causal relationship that I am going to ignore, perhaps at my own peril. 

*Democracy is NOT either/or but a process.

*Culture (meaning political values and beliefs) matters.

*Institutions matter

*Leaders matter

*Dynamics

*Results matter

Quick reminder -- to myself if no one else -- that political systems have multiple causes ... there is no magic bullet that always and everywhere causes democracy.  The multiple factors that are causally related to democratic development interact with each other in what can be a virtuous circle, or when things go wrong, a vicious death spiral.

The Democratic Process

Even though we routinely talk about democracies and non-democracies, or (heaven help us) “true” democracy, it makes more sense to see democracy as a continuum.  Is the United States a democracy?  Was the United States of 1911 a democracy? (I’ll bet your first reaction was “yes” but it was quickly replaced with “depends on what you mean” or “well, kinda” or some other more nuanced response, especially when you thought about 100 years ago.)  It is much easier to answer the question, “Was the United States of 1911 more democratic than many other countries?” or “Is the United States more Democratic today than we were 100 years ago?”  The question to be asked in 2021 about Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, South Sudan and other countries undergoing great changes right now, is not “are they democratic?” but “are they more democratic than they were?”  

One useful way to think about democracy is to focus on results and suggest that democracy is a system which provides everyone with an equal ability to influence the key decisions that affect their lives.  Then we can ask what aspects of a society contribute to making that happen.

Culture. 

Leaving aside the slipperiness and ambiguity of this term (that’s a rant for another day), we know two things. 

1) If culture means some broad, national or societal set of values and relationships, it seems to have little to do with democracy.  A century ago Max Weber’s notion that it was the Protestant work ethic that explained why some European countries were democratic and the burden of Catholicism that explained why others weren’t. But dominant religion is no longer associated with democracy.  Not that long ago some folks were convinced that democracy was impossible in Latin America as long as machismo dominated the culture.  There has been lots of regime change in Latin America, but far less movement toward gender equality.  There were some quite plausible explanations for why Confucian cultures weren’t likely to become democracies; the success of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have now inspired a few articles on why Confucian cultures are so supportive of democracy.

2) If culture is defined more narrowly and carefully as political culture, it does seem to matter.  Beliefs and values about how authority is gained, how rulers deal with the ruled, about the legitimacy of opposition and about the stakes of politics, among others, do matter.  In the early stages of developing democracy, political culture among elites matters far more than among followers. For example, the establishment and preservation of democracy in India owes a great deal to the values and attitudes of the relatively small political class rather than the values and attitudes of the hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens.

Institutions.

Democracy is closely related to  institutions: free and fair elections, effective legislatures, an independent judiciary, free press, limitations on government, and others.  Institutions work by shaping behavior, making some things easier to do and others more difficult.  The rules and roles embedded in a functioning legislature, for example, make it easier for diverse interests to be represented and accommodated; they make it more difficult to initiate rapid and tightly focused policy changes.

Several decades ago, when the European empires were breaking up and dozens of countries in Africa and Asia were becoming independent, there was a naive belief in England that if you set folks up with a parliamentary system like the United Kingdom’s (the so-called Whitehall system) you’d get democracies, even if there had been little development of a democratic political culture.  The mixed histories of former colonies show that the “right” institutions by themselves do not guarantee democracy but jettisoning those institutions makes it far more difficult to avoid repressive dictatorships.

European parliamentary institutions are far more common around the world than the American system of sharply separated executives and legislatures.  But the basic strategies are similar: use the legislature to provide some restraint on the executive; use rules for representation to balance the needs and desires of majorities and minorities; use elections to move people in and out of office.  Democratic institutions invite conflict and division; an effective opposition is an important indicator of healthy democracy.   This can be a difficult path for countries that have just had a successful struggle for independence or rebellion against an oppressive regime where unity and shared dedication have been key to success. 

An important trend in thinking about democracy has been the idea of “social capital.”  People who work together in private voluntary organizations (service clubs, social groups, neighborhood organizations for example) learn important lessons about trusting others and working comparatively.  And these lessons spill over into the public sphere.  Collectively, these groups constitute the institutions of  “civil society.”  Most elements of civil society are not political but the existence of a social space in institutions outside government control contributes indirectly to greater democracy.  Without such institutions, it is far more difficult for people to learn the give and take, tolerance of diversity, and skills at persuading people to go along with you that democracy requires.

Leaders

Leaders matter most in developing democracy in the initial stages.  As the dust settles from the rebellion or independence struggle, the first generation of leaders are the ones who set the tone and precedents.  If they are committed to democracy (along with all their other goals) then they are far more likely to think about good institutional design and far more likely to reflect the kinds of values that make democracy possible.  The continuing impact of Nelson Mandela on South Africa’s development is profound.  His successors have not been noted for their deep personal commitment to democratic values, but Mandela effectively institutionalized democratic values by force of example and personal prestige. 

Almost everyone who comes to power after a coup or revolution promises democracy, just as soon as the conditions are ripe.  More often than not, the new authoritarian ruler finds that the conditions are never quite right, the people have not yet learned how to be democratic.  Mustafa Kemal of Turkey is a major exception.  He held largely unchecked power for 15 years, but left behind institutions and changed attitudes that have let Turkey develop into a functioning democracy.

Leaders by themselves cannot cause democracy; but the wrong leader at the wrong time can kill it at birth.

Dynamics

Listing factors and discussing them one by one risks losing sight of a critical point: democracy develops over time and the causal factors interact with each other.  Leaders with democratic values try to create institutions that reinforce and support those values.  Democratic institutions can not only reinforce democratic political culture; they can prevent leaders or popular movements from subverting democracy. 

An important term of art in thinking about democracy is a “consolidated democracy,” a system that has passed the most crucial early test: an election that transfers power from one ruling elite to another.   For example, 1998 was a pivotal year in South Korea: the third set of national elections elected a president who was a long time opponent of the military dictatorship and its immediate successor regime. The old regime accepted the elections results.  The notion of consolidation is a nice reminder of democracy as a process, a series of developments over time rather than a single dramatic event after which everyone can go home. 

Results Matter

More democratic regimes are held to higher standards by their citizens.  Democracy has many attributes that make it appealing to people around the world.  For many an important factor is the association of democracy with prosperity and material well being.  That means the regimes claiming to be democratic are under more pressure than others to meet basic needs for physical security, clean water, electricity, food security and housing.  It means greater pressure to foster a growing economy that provides jobs. 

Beyond Science

We know a lot about democracy and a lot about what contributes to democratic development and what doesn’t.  There is a great deal of expertise in the United Nations, in the U.S. and other governments, and in universities around the world. But in Libya, or any other concrete situation, people are not starting from scratch and are not free to map out a comprehensive plan to develop democracy.  The challenge is to apply what is known in the midst of a specific situation, with some circumstances dictated by the past, and diverse goals and interests among both the leadership and the citizens.  You have to play the hand you are dealt. This is the realm of the art of policies, of statecraft.  Development of an increasingly democratic system is not foreordained, nor is it doomed from the start.  It is up to the people on the ground and, as Machiavelli pointed out, a heavy dose of luck.

Libya Today

The success of the new Libyan leadership in keeping their pledge to move toward democracy is going to receive a great deal of  scrutiny in the U.S. and around the world.  Libya will be watched more closely and judged more quickly than, for example, its neighbors Tunisia and Egypt. The prominent role of NATO in supporting the end of the Gadhafi regime and the expectation that Europe and the UN will keep playing a vital role in the transition will keep Libyan development in the spotlight.  In the United States, there is the added dimension of partisan politics.  The Obama administration is eager to claim credit for every sign in progress in Libya; the administration’s critics are equally eager to pounce on any shortcomings. 

Libya faces much greater challenges than the two most prominent triumphs of the Arab Spring, Egypt and Tunisia. 

Political culture. Libya does not have even the rudiments of a democratic political culture that promotes cooperation and a broadly national perspective on policy making.  It will be quite difficult for the new leadership to tolerate opposition within its ranks or to avoid making decisions that are only about rewarding friends and punishing enemies.

Institutions. Gadhafi abolished the few political institutions that existed when he seized power.  In their place he built a system of highly personalized, centralized control. In both Egypt and Tunisia there are potentially democratic institutions such as parliaments and experience with elections, albeit rigged and distorted elections.  And there are formal governmental structures and bureaucracies at the local and provincial level, that actually allowed for some citizen involvement.  The Egyptian and Tunisian regimes were repressive and controlling, but they did not even try for the almost total control that Gadhafi’s regime attempted.  The new governors of Libya will have to start scratch.

Leaders. The rebellion against Gadhafi started rather suddenly and unexpectedly in Benghazi.  As it spread a group of leaders emerged, but it has been marked as much by infighting and instability as anything else.  Some of the prominent members of the National Transitional Council are known quantities, others have vaulted overnight from obscurity.  If they cannot quickly learn to act together and reach agreement on immediate issues, we can expect confusion and chaos and nostalgia for the strong man who could get things done.

Dynamics.  Perhaps Libya’s biggest asset in the near future is the availability of advice and support for building a new government from the UN, Europe and the US.  Foreign advisors and experts can nudge people in the right direction and the promise of aid can encourage good behavior.  But the defects in the political culture and fragility of any new institutions will remain very high hurdles for political development. 

Side note on oil  Libya has great potential oil wealth.  It will require substantial technical assistance and new investment to compensate for the years of neglect under Gadhafi and the damage done to facilities during the recent fighting.  Oil wealth is not the magic panacea that cures all the problems of the country.  In fact, countries with economies dependent on oil are more likely to suffer from the “resource curse.” (Oil is a capital intensive rather than labor intensive industry.  That means it does not create a large number of jobs.  Great oil wealth leads to spending on consumption, such as subsidized education, housing, or fuel rather than investment in job creating industries.  Countries reliant on oil are almost always plagued by high levels of corruption.)

Results. The first challenge facing Libya’s new leaders is physical security.  The national army is gone, the police force is gone.  The rebel armies, by most accounts, are a coalition of locally based militias with a relatively weak national command.  If the rebel forces cannot quickly be reorganized into a cohesive force with top down command and control, then ordinary Libyans will be at the mercy of whomever in the neighborhood has guns.  In addition to the grievances everyone has against Gadhafi, there are local grievances against those who were favored by Gadhafi, or collaborated with the regime.  If the people with guns are not controlled, Libyan could become the scene of score settling bloodshed.

For a long time the most central part of being Libyan has been how you survived under the Gadhafi system.  The exhilaration of victory and sense that this is a shared experience that cuts across traditional regions or communal relationships could be the start of a new Libyan national identity.  But the thrill of victory wears off very quickly and the routine challenges of every day life take over.  Unless the new leadership can build on the current good feelings and maintain a sense of unity, Libyan politics could degenerate into regionalism and factionalism.

Thumbs up, thumbs down.

Libya is not going to blossom into a recognizable democratic system overnight, or even over the next decade.  If the standard is perfection, Libya will be judged a failure.  It is easy to say that the standard should be “good enough, all things considered.”  Each of us is going to have decide whether what is emerging in Libya is good enough.