Thursday, August 7, 2008

Finding the Center (w/ pics)

To understand what it's like for people in a country, you usually look for the middle: What's the median income? What's the average living conditions? What is the typical job? So from one extreme--densely-populated St. Petersburg--to the other--rural village life--I recently found a more middle-of-the-road Russian city, Cheboksary.

Citizens of Cheboksary, capital of the Chuvash Republic, affectionately describe their city as "a very big village." There are very few international tourists here, and both the Russian and Chuvash spirit bind the half-million residents of Cheboksary together. "I see friends every day I go for a walk and every time I shop on the other side of town," a girl told me. Here there is a strong middle, and everyone seems to be together in it. Across Russia now I have begun to see evidence of a strong middle-class. Whatever the numbers say, people in general have access to a wide range of goods and services like America or Western Europe. And similarly, most people may not be able to afford every want and desire, but more than hope for dreams to come true, they are confident that they will get what they want and have everything they will need. This, of course, is relatively new for Russians, and something like the Green Acres family, sometimes Russians persistently desire familiar relics more than modern comforts. Take one ride on the sardine-packed Soviet-era trains and this becomes immediately apparent...

Despite warnings from many Russians now that people in Russia "can't afford" to help strangers, I have noticed a plethora of evidence of civil society in Cheboksary. Below I have two pictures: one of a shopping center
inside which there was a box (second picture)
for donations to support a church. And there was even money inside!

Healthy democracies need a strong middle, and I think that Democracies actually create and maintain their own middle. Can't wait to see what the numbers say the middle thinks about Democracy!!
Posted by Conditioning Democracy

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Why Build Foreign Democracies?

Strong Democracies support the national security not only of the United States, but of the whole world. I'll explain this in terms of psychology: most people are in many important ways fundamentally similar. Natan Sharansky' book, The Case for Democracy, outlined an argument for freedom that relied on this belief. Essentially, people everywhere want the same things: peace, security, satisfaction, etc. Free societies will support these ends because people can act toward achieving what is in their best interest. Wars are truly not in the general interest of people. Free societies are safer because people will choose to be safe. When confronted with a simple choice between death and life, in a free society people will choose life.

I can already hear everyone shouting at me: "But they're different! If those people are free, they will all want war--they'll want the destruction of the United States and all the civility and culture of the West!" This doomsday scenario is actually a perfect example of the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). Look it up on Wikipedia. Don't feel bad if you feel this way, but you are not looking at the whole picture. We all have a tendency to overemphasize the role of the person and under-emphasize the power of the situation. It's impossible to judge what people who are living a fear-based society would do if they were living in freedom. But why would you jump to the conclusion that they are somehow fundamentally different from us? I think people see themselves in a wholly separate manner from the way they see anyone else. Just assume with me for the moment that other people want the same things from life that you do. They want to survive, they have fears, they want to succeed, they want some modicum of happiness, etc. What would the world look like? Probably very similar to the world that we already live in, right? People are placed in different situations. It's hard to imagine someone who would want an ultimately different set of goals in life. And everyone wants to be free. And everyone wants to be safe. And war does not fit into this picture at all. Free societies support everyone's security.

Aside from our own collective security, some have mentioned that strong liberal Democracies have a moral duty to spread liberal Democracy to other countries. I find this argument weak so I won't go there. But you certainly can.

And aside from both of those, liberal Democracies support the progress of science, industry, and economic development. If you think these are bad, then A) I feel sorry for you, and B) ignore this argument and take one of the above. Free societies liberate the innate creativity, ingenuity, and curiosity of humanity. This is what fosters development in these areas.

Proposing "Conditioning Democracy"

After nine years in the Gulag, Natan Sharansky might have conclusively refuted the self-evident nature of inalienability of Liberty in the USSR. Instead, he emerged triumphant, voicing the universal appeal of freedom in his seminal book, The Case for Democracy. With the moral clarity of America at stake, Sharansky writes about the inevitable rise of freedom and Democracy with moral authority like Andrew Jackson spoke about Manifest Destiny and like Karl Marx wrote about Communism: people in every country yearn to be free, and non-democratic governments prohibit this freedom. However with growing resentment toward the War in Iraq, criticisms of the expenditures of the United States on democratizing foreign countries have grown vociferous. The United States is past due for an policy overhaul: Americans want to maximize the impact of every resource allocated to promoting Democratic initiatives. John Prados’s Safe for Democracy identifies five tools that the United States has utilized to promote Democracy: behavior examples, diplomacy, economic sanctions, military force, and covert operations (propaganda). Each of these tools relies on Sharansky’s argument in a large measure for their success; each tool requires that people yearn for their own Democracy.

“Conditioning Democracy” proposes Democratic Propensity Theory to shape the much-needed policy overhaul. With a unique focus on individual endorsement of Democracy, “Conditioning Democracy” relates psychological principles to Democracy initiatives. The United States is missing a sixth tool from its toolbox: conditioning people for Democracy, creating the yearning for freedom from within individuals. Exposing individuals from emerging Democracies to successful Democratic deliberation experiences increases the individual’s propensity for Democratic government. Conditioning Democracy proposes policies that incorporate professional “operational” psychologists into missions that “condition” denizens of emerging Democracies, whole communities at a time, to accept the potential both for participation in Democratic government and Democratic rule of law. If policy-makers consider the evidence that I will present in “Conditioning Democracy,” new policy should both more efficiently use resources and perhaps also save lives.

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