Future of democracy not assured say panelists
Democracy forum panelists Jim Lehrer and Sandra Day O'Connor were among panelists leading a discussion on the future of democracy.
The future of democracy in the world is not assured nor is the spread
of representative forms of government necessarily welcomed, according
to a panel of experts featured during a public discussion at the World
Forum on the Future of Democracy Conference hosted by the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation and the College of William and Mary on Sept. 17.
The discussion, “The Future of Democracy: Why Does It Matter?” was
moderated by celebrity PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer before several
thousand people at the College’s Kaplan Arena. The panel, which
comprised Sandra Day O’Connor, former associate justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court and chancellor of the College, Lawrence S. Eagleburger,
former U.S. Secretary of State and a senior policy advisor, and Ali M.
Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University
of St. Andrews in Scotland, repeatedly extolled the benefits of
liberalized democracy as a platform for extending human rights and
economic benefits to the world’s people. Its members also cautioned
that democracy takes time—even generations—to incubate, making
strategies to export it suspect. In the words of Eagleburger, “You
can’t drop American democracy” on nations and “expect it to work.”
Elaborating on that point, O’Connor pointed out that American democracy
has been successful due to its system of checks and balances on
executive power, including its independent judiciary, conditions that
may be absent elsewhere. “All kinds of things can happen at the hands
of the majority,” she said. Citing abuses exercised against
African-Americans following the Civil War, she added, “Sometimes we
must even change the Constitution.”
Eagleburger responded that many popularly elected leaders today
tend toward exercising “executive authority” as opposed to functioning
within a system of executive checks on power. Referencing Hugo Chavez,
the controversial president of Venezuela who was swept to a landslide
victory in a 1998 election, Eagleburger said that even if the United
States wanted to remove him from power, it could not simply do it.
“That kind of thing does not work anymore,” he said.
Perhaps the most instructive discussion during the night’s proceedings
focused on statements made by alumnus Robert Gates (’65), U.S.
Secretary of Defense, comparing “idealism” and “realism” as related to
U.S. foreign policy. Gates, who spoke to a private lunchtime audience
at the world forum, had said, “It is neither hypocrisy nor cynicism to
believe fervently in freedom while adopting different approaches to
advancing freedom at different times along the way—including
temporarily making common cause with despots to defeat greater or more
urgent threats to our freedom of interests.” Responding to those
statements, Ansari said unilateral actions taken by the U.S. government
were the reasons governments such the one in Iran could seriously
question whether the U.S. sought to extend democracy or merely to
protect what it deemed to be its own interests. Eagleburger countered
that if the United States did not protect its interests, it would have
long ago become a second-rate international power.
Concerning a question involving theocracy and democracy, Ansari agreed
with the other panelists that the two were mutually exclusive, although
he countered that religion and democracy may, in fact, foster each
other. “You can’t have a republic without virtue, and Islam [can]
provide the moral framework in which the moral virtue can operate,” he
said. Eagleburger suggested that it was, in fact, the Protestant
work-for-reward ethic that provided an initial foundation for American
democracy while O’Connor stressed that the founders of the United
States, while themselves Protestants, went to great lengths to ensure
that no citizen would be penalized for adhering to any religious view.
Throughout the evening, members of the audience were quick in their
applause for various points of view that were expressed, even as they
were admonished to secure the fruits of their own representational
form of government for succeeding generations. O’Connor said that
teaching the fundamentals were important, as “democracy is not passed
on through the gene pool. It must be taught.” Later she added, “The
mantra of democracy does not solve everything. … Citizens have to make
it work.” Eagleburger cautioned that vigilance was necessary,
especially in terms of the threat posed by rogue states with access to
nuclear weapons. He predicted that unless the United States joined with
other nations to become more attentive to the threat, a nuclear device
would create chaos within decades.
