The spring issue of the Journal of Democracy (April 2006, vol. 17, number 2) has electoral systems as central theme. Richard Soudriette and Andrew Ellis, specialists in this topic, give an overview of electoral systems in all the (more or less) democratic countries the world. They establish the fact that ‘today the voting booth has become the internationally accepted instrument of political change. In 1974 there were only 39 electoral democracies – that is countries where multiparty national elections took place on a regular basis. By 2006, there were at least 120 countries that could be regarded as electoral democracies in one form or another.’ If there is an international trend in changes of electoral systems it is toward more proportionality. This overview article is followed by contributions on the electoral process in Iraq resulting in the December 2005 election of a National Assembly; on the September 2005 elections in Afghanistan; on the parallel political developments and electoral changes in Japan and Taiwan with as central question: ‘How did developmentalism coexist with electoral competition in these two countries? In other words, what kept economic planners from being disturbed by office-seeking politicians?’ Further contributions deal with the Tulip revolution following the flawed elections of March 2005 in Kyrgyzstan and with the fraudulent elections of November 2005 in Azerbaijan.
Furthermore, this issue contains a discussion on the relationship between identity, immigrations and democracy by Francis Fukuyama. He compares the politics of multiculturalism and the integration of Muslim minorities in several European countries with the way integration has been dealt with in the United States. He stresses that in establishing important differences in approaches and results in this field between Europe and the United States, one should take into account that Europeans face a harder problem in integrating their immigrants than the United States for two reasons. First because of the cultural differences of the respective immigrant populations. The bulk of immigrants in the United States are Hispanics and they share the Christian heritage of the dominant native group. And secondly the number of Muslim immigrants in Europe is relatively and absolutely far bigger than that in the United States. In the United States the Muslim population is less than 1%; in France this percentage lies between 7 and 8 and in the Netherlands it is more than 6% (figures from 2003).
The last contribution in this issue we want to draw attention to, because it could be interesting from an European point of view, is about the growing offensiveness of authoritarian regimes against democracy promotion by NGOs – especially those seeking to empower civil society - in their countries. Carl Gershman and Michael Allen (National Endowment for Democracy) report a backlash against democracy promotion in several East European countries. The Orange revolution in the Ukraine has frightened authoritarian or hybrid regimes of democratic changes in countries such as Venezuela, Egypt and several other Arabian countries, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Among measures to obstruct democracy assistance are: constraints on the right to associate; impediments to registration and denial of legal status; restrictions on foreign funding; constraints on political activities; arbitrary interference in NGO’s internal affairs; harassment by government officials and establishment of ‘parallel’ organizations or ‘Ersatz NGOs’.
The main theme of the summer issue of the Journal of Democracy (July 2006, vol. 17, number 3) is reforming security and intelligence organizations from a very American point of view. Most of the contributors teach at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate school. After a general introduction on the subject of intelligence agencies and democratic control, articles follow on intelligence-sector reform in South Africa, Taiwan and Russia. Furthermore this issue contains, to name but a few, articles on Islam and democracy (strongly resisting the idea that Islam and democracy are incompatible); on the populist turn in some Latin American states and two assessments of the Palestinian elections.
Interesting from an EU perspective, given the process of Romania and Bulgaria joining the EU, is the contribution by Alina Mungiu–Pippidi (from the Romanian Academic Society and a consultant for Freedom House and the UNDP-Balkan program) on corruption. She gives a useful introduction to the phenomenon and the ways to fight it. She makes a strong distinction between corruption as a mode of social organization (called ‘particularism’) and the occasional individual corruption that can be found everywhere. Refreshing is her rather critical approach of what she calls ‘the anticorruption industry’ with global expenditures growing to an estimated one hundred million dollars per year but ‘to date, few successes have resulted from this investment’.
Ivo Hartman, Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, Amsterdam