Critical summary and reflective analysis of Gerard Alexander's essay, "Making Democracy Stick."

Résumé du document

Published in the issue of December 2005 & January 2006, the article "Making Democracy Stick" written by Gerard Alexander is part of a wider movement distancing itself from the American muscled intervention in Iraq and its lack of preparation for democratic consolidation. The initiators of this war, namely the neoconservatives, sought that with the right application of force and will Iraq would fall into democracy. They based their judgment on a simple idea; everybody aspire to be free, democracy offers the wider level of freedom, the Iraqi people would embrace the opportunity to work along the American administration to build the first democratic regime within the Arab world. Unfortunately this prediction proved to be wrong: the country acts as a magnet for radical Islamists and offers all the characteristics of being under Civil War.

Extraits

[...] If we extend Alexander arguments, we can say that it is not because of the American intervention that Iraq is in such a mess but it is because of the lack of domestic conditions necessary to build a stable democracy. Bibliography The Sources of Democratic Consolidation par Gerard L. Alexander (Relié - 30 janvier 2002) The Sources of Democratic Consolidation par Gerard L. Alexander (Relié - 30 janvier 2002) Fukuyama, F. ‘After Neoconservatism'. February 19, 2006. [...]

[...] For him the willingness to lose and the capacity to challenge and enforce are the basic features of a real democracy, they must also be scrutinized on a regular basis. The main argument here comes when he speaks about the main difficulties of such a regime that ultimately become obstacles to its subsequent stabilization. The first is related to the party system where the public opinion is so polarized that the battle between parties can only be exercised outside the democratic system. [...]

[...] Critical summary and reflective analysis of Gerard Alexander's essay, "Making Democracy Stick." Democracy in America, Fall 2007, PLAP 424D Published in the issue of December 2005 & January 2006, the article “Making Democracy Stick” written by Gerard Alexander is part of a wider movement distancing itself from the American muscled intervention in Iraq and its lack of preparation for democratic consolidation. The initiators of this war, namely the neoconservatives, sought that with the right application of force and will Iraq would fall into democracy. [...]

[...] The IDC should pressure for moderation in local politics, encourage necessary reforms and compromises through new decision-making institutions. Also IDC should empower sectors of civil society by forcing their rulers to redistribute their control on wealth or help to create new sources of wealth. The difficult part for him is to create “self-sustaining indigenous institutions”, his solution is to foster the civil participation in small scale communities that would create a democratic culture within the civil society. When we look at his solutions, it seems that we are going back in time. [...]

[...] To complement this principle, the IDC should use intrusive comprehensive strategies to go inside the country and implement Alexander's solutions. In Alexander's account most of the solutions envisaged are political and intrusive, it seems that non democratic states need an outside intervention to change its habits in order to be a stable democracy. This outside intervention obviously cannot be unilateral but from multilateral institutions that compete along regional and functional lines[1]. Alexander encourages interventionism from the international community but acknowledges the importance of preconditions for a real democratization. [...]