obviously inspired by Iraq, but lets talk much more generally…
Suppose you have a large population of culturally, ethnically diverse people. How do you select a reasonably representative group to self-govern, without leaving yourself open to the criticism of installing a puppet regime?
My first thought was to select, say 3000 people as randomly as you can. Let them divide themselves up into groups of 10. Give them a day to discuss the problems in their country, then ask them to nominate 1 representative to move on up.
Similarly whittle the 300 down to 60, down to ten. Give those ten a break and the resources and advice needed to draft their own constitution. Then whittle them down to 3 and have general elections to pick pecking order from there.
Its important to have the “rule of law” first, and I wouldn’t think that Iraq has had that for quite some time now. Totalitarian states don’t have it as everything is subject to the dictator’s wishes.
The idea you have may seem good to us Westerners, because we take for granted that we have the rule of law, and that we know that the rules are set out and that for the most part people obey them.
The hardest part will be for Iraqis to realize that if they want change they would have to use the democratic institutions, rather than picking up a RPG. You can make a huge difference politicaly in Iraq now with a very limited number of supporters with guns. If you were an aspicious politician or just someone trying to become powerful, which would you choose?
For socities to follow the rule of law isn’t always so easy. It only works if people make it work, and it certainly isn’t the lowest common denominator.
:Tongue only slightly in cheek:
One way would be to NOT try to cover the entire population of culturally and ethnically diverse people under one government nor to restrain them within borders that were imposed long after the groups developed their own identities. better to allow the groups to remain small, autonomous tribes with any borders negotiated between neighbors, and only as solid as desired by the parties involved. (National Geographic would be much put out!) Should these tribes so choose, they could form alliances with one another or even agree upon one of their number to assume certain governmental qualities amenable to all parties involved.
Where in the known history of Democracy has a government been created around diversity as opposed to having diversity develop within it? (serious question) In those cases, was the result not called an “Empire?” And how democratic is an empire?
Frankly, the best thing to use is a federalist republic, not straight democracy. Divide it up as much as possible and give the states as much independence as possible while staying under one government and military.
Straight democracy doesn’t do so hot in highly polarized and divided groups with a history of violence.
I agree that giving each “nationality” their own country would go a long way into pacifying new “democracies”. The problem is the US promised not to divide Iraq into smaller parts… and those smaller parts might start fighting each other.
Shi’ites and Sunni are way to mixed up to create separate nations anyway… giving Kurds their own country means pissing off Turkey and Iran. Giving Shi’ites autonomy means giving Iran way too much power and leverage over that new nation. A separate Sunni Iraq might take feel isolated since the south is Shia and it will be a time bomb… certain future war.
Also its not an issue of “don’t Iraqis want freedom and prosperity”… that is simpleminded view. They simply don’t trust one another to share power. Even if they did manage some sharing there will eventually arise the “why are they getting a sliver more of benefits ?” Never mind that the Sunni feel they are elite and more well educated and so deserve a greater share vs Shiite thinking their numbers warrant more power sharing.
forgot to mention… the US probably prefers Kurds to stay in Iraq so that they might leverage the future Iraqi “nation” towards pro-US decision… or at least their veto powers will stop extreme islamic or anti-american laws.
Well the OP said this is not (just) about Iraq… but I have to point out what seems to be a not uncommon misconception:
It is not true that Iraqis or Muslims have little traditional exposure to “democracy”.
Islam has a very strong tradition of “democracy”, they call it consultation. Consider how Muslims hate to be repressed. Consider how they hate their own repressive regimes. A major reason they hate the West is because they see the West as propping up repressive governments.
To be sure, there are similarities and differences between Western and Islam traditions of democracy/consultation, but I don’t think it’s fair to rank one or the other as necessarily “better”.
Back to the OP.
I think the question is framed a little unfortunately. You wouldn’t build a democracy from “nothing”. The best way to build something, is by building on traditions and customs and institutions people already have.
You would have to mold the institutions, processes and participants of democracy from local circumstances. Which leads to my second point: I don’t think it’s always a good idea to import foreign institutions or processes into a nation. Let alone to force them onto the people.
The OP could usefully be cast: How can you build legitimacy for a government, beginning with no legitimacy?
The problem has arisen often in history, after the overthrow of a government/ruler. The people newly in power have power but no legitimacy.
In a democracy legitimacy is achieved by elections, but the first election does arguably not confer total legitimacy because the ground rules (extent of the territory governed, election system, constitution, etc.) have been set by an unelected government. After one or more election cycles the ground rules can be considered to be set by a legitimate legislature.