Many countries include ‘Democratic’ or ‘People’s’ in their names, even though they are not democratic and do not serve their people. Examples: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Lao People’s Democratic Republic People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Democratic Republic of the Congo And German Democratic Republic (East Side) in 1949–1990. None of these states are democratic, power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling elite. Who are they fooling with these names?
Virtually every country in the world has some form of elections, outside of a handful of literal monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. What’s more debatable is how legitimate they are and which metrics we use to evaluate that.
Often a country is considered undemocratic if it doesn’t allow international observers, but of course that requires a degree of trust, as it gives those observers the power to delegitimize the elections. Furthermore, the idea that observers from country A would be legitimate and that country B should be expected to let them in already carries a whole bunch of presumptions about which countries are and are not democratic, which winds up being circular. The US, for example, is never expected to invite international observers to legitimize it’s elections.
If you really stop and think critically about how to evaluate elections from the outside, without just assuming the answer based on vibes and presumptions, it’s a very challenging and complicated question. An American may take it as a given that China isn’t democratic while their system is, but a Chinese person could easily feel the opposite. Without establishing clear metrics, it would be impossible to evaluate who is correct from a neutral and objective standpoint. Even if a metric is agreed on, people might have different assessments based on looking at different information.
Personally, when possible I prefer to avoid arguing over it when possible because without establishing a metric it’s impossible to discuss productively, and if you try to establish a clear metric, people will just immediately call you a tankie or red fascist because of course everyone knows bad country is bad, and how dare you try to examine things from a neutral point of view instead of agreeing with what “everyone” already “knows.” I’ve also found that it’s better not to talk shit about random countries I’ve never been to and which don’t really affect my life in any meaningful way.
Having said that, if you’re actually interested in learning more about the subject in good faith, you might be interested in this Luna Oi video where she discusses how the government of Vietnam actually functions and collects feedback from regular people, or the one where she describes how elections work.
Luna’s videos have been so informative and interesting. Honestly they kind of make me want to go to Vietnam someday.
This sounds like a great way to erase the definitions of all words. Most times when we use words, we understand that rarely anything is absolute. For example, we call western nations capitalist even though they all have some degree of socialism. Just because there aren’t clearly defined lines, doesn’t mean that all words lose meaning.
The fact that some nations have opaque elections, is actually a strong sign that they are authoritarian. Because suppression of information is authoritarian.
When the US refuses to invite Chinese election observers to oversee it’s elections, is that “suppression of information?” That’s nonsense.
The reason that a country wouldn’t invite observers isn’t that they’re trying to suppress information, it’s that they don’t want to give another country the authority to delegitimize them.
What’s actually far more authoritarian is this idea that every country in the world needs to bend the knee and allow the West to come into their country and declare whether they are a legitimate democracy or not.
Suppose there’s a country that’s a legitimate democracy, but they have such valuable and plentiful natural resources that any major power they invited in would seek to delegitimize them in order to seize control of said resources. Because you assume that they’re “authoritarian” for not inviting in a major power to oversee their elections, you are ruling out the possibility that such a state could exist.
What this means in practice is that you’re giving the West a justification for aggression towards any country on the planet. If they refuse to invite observers, they must be authoritarian and illegitimate, but if they do invite observers, then those observers can simply declare the government illegitimate anyway.
What that works out to in practice is nothing short of chauvanism, imperialism, and world domination. It isn’t a real, objective metric, because it’s only obfuscating the real metric which is just how well a country gets along with the West. A country being on bad terms with the West does not definitionally make it undemocratic, but by your standards it would be.
Opaque elections are a sign for information supression, but not the only sign.
However if I wanted North Korea to be considered democratic, I would first ask that voting be implemented such that voters can’t be identified and punished for voting against a candidate (source)
I have little reason to weigh in on the DPRK specifically because it makes no difference to my positions in practice. Even if retired US army lieutenant-colonel Roger Cavazos’ allegations are true, my stance is the same: just leave them alone.
The US government has a very long record of orchestrating regime change in countries across the globe, but I’m not familiar with any case where the result was actually an improvement for the people who live there. It’s also incredibly inconsistent and hypocritical for the US to take such an aggressive stance against the DPRK while buddying up to countries like Saudi Arabia which make absolutely zero pretence of being a democracy. If I were going to entertain the notion that US policy is in any way driven by benevolence and promoting democracy, then obviously step 1 would be to not actively give weapons and military support and even perform military attacks on behalf of a literal monarchy.
Why is it that the DPRK and Saudi Arabia are treated so differently? Because the Saudis provide the US with access to their country’s natural resources, while the DPRK doesn’t. This is a far more consistent through-line that explains US foreign policy much better than any concern with “human rights” or “promoting democracy.” When they do talk about promoting democracy, it’s opportunistic, it’s just because someone who is standing in the way of the expansion of the empire can plausibly be labeled as undemocratic.
Even in cases like Afghanistan, which is controlled by Al Qaida and clearly undemocratic, I see no reason to support sanctions or other forms of aggression towards them, because I have no interest in supporting imperialistic expansionism. If a country is just trying to be left alone, why would I support going there and fucking with it?