61–70 of 110 posts
The Economist has a democracy index. The US dropped to "flawed democracy" after the coup attempt and has not recovered.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
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> elite and economic consolidation plays a greater role in building lasting ties with a country instead of ideological ties Elite and economic consolidation is a corrupting force, though. A country's actions are just as important as it's stated values - if it partners with others who don't share those values, then it's just performance. If your country signals that it doesn't actually care about its purported values,…
Cambodia used to be American leaning in the 2010s during their transition to democracy, with support for democratic norm building and actual democracy. China on the other hand decided to only conduct outreach to Cambodian economic and political elite [0] The US government funded social infrastructure like health clinics, schools, and sanitation systems, but the Chinese government funded hard infra projects like canal…
My hot take is that, viewed under the right conditions, India today is what a long-term MAGA victory in the US would look like (as in multiple consecutive Presidential administrations). Now obviously the religion must be changed; obviously also the demographic/racial aspect is different too. But in general, to see how MAGA might operate if it succeeded completely, look at India.
That's exactly what I keep saying - both governments use the same tools to control relatively gullible masses. For example, BJP won by a vast majority largely due to their IT cell[1], an army of people paid 1-10$ per day to berate or praise anyone, re-tweet/like/share to manipulate algorithms and make things go viral. This was a huge one-sided operation for the initial few years until the opposition finally caught up…
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Cambodia used to be American leaning in the 2010s during their transition to democracy, with support for democratic norm building and actual democracy. China on the other hand decided to only conduct outreach to Cambodian economic and political elite [0] The US government funded social infrastructure like health clinics, schools, and sanitation systems, but the Chinese government funded hard infra projects like canal…
I (reluctantly) acknowledge the practicality of this, but what happens when those economic and political elite are too extreme and are overthrown? Supporting those actors creates a permanent divide and causes further isolation. Consider the various examples of regime change and/or support for dictators/authoritarians enabled by the United States in South America and the Middle East - has that made any of those countr…
Regimes fall when subsets of the elite decide to defect to the opposition.
For example, Hosni Mubarak fell not because of protesters in Tahrir Square, but because Sisi didn't feel like shooting protesters at that time for Mubarak's sake (Sisi had ambitions). If Sisi and the Egyptian military didn't decide to return to the barracks, the Arab Spring in Egypt would have never happened.
The only solution to this is by actually cultivating multiple different factions within those elites. Yet this is something the US is not good at anymore because this kind of knowledge and understanding requires significant cultural background, and State Dept hiring regulations prevent people of the same ethnicity from working on relations for those countries.
> Consider the various examples of regime change and/or support for dictators/authoritarians enabled by the United States in South America and the Middle East
The most notable one in the post 1971 era is Iran 1979 where US cultivated the secular Shah's government and military leadership, but not the organized Shia clergy. If the US had cultivated Khomenini, we wouldn't have been in such a severe situation. The French on the other hand engaged Khomeini and Shia clergy, and it helped ensure that France could maintain relations until the sanctions regime began in the 2010s.
By the 1990s, US foreign policy in Latin America changed to democracy promotion due to the same points you brought up, and that caused Honduras to switch in favor of China after corruption investigations threatened their leadership, and Nicaragua switched in favor of China due to pushback for democratic backsliding in 2017-18.
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> the good news is that generally, when the system is forced to change to become more transparent Is that what is happening now?
Well compare things now with how they were during feudalism. Things are a bit better for the average person. The problem we have now is that the population is extremely propagandized/delusional due to powerful media, made possible by technology. But the same technologies can also create more transparency... Or the technology may cause more skepticism which is also good; e.g. As AI generates fake videos, people will a…
That is really looking at the long run! :D I hope for improvement on a shorter timeline, myself. All those average people are dead.
> powerful media
If you include social media, I'm with you.
> As AI generates fake videos, people will adapt to be more skeptical.
You said, and I agree, that people have become "extremely propagandized/delusional" due to prior tech development; why would AI tech have different outcomes?
Modi has the highest approval rating, according to western pollsters, of any leader in the world. India’s elections are free and fair. That’s all democracy requires. Democracy doesn’t mean western democracy or liberal democracy. Shadi Hamid has done excellent work on this issue: https://www.brookings.edu/books/the-problem-of-democracy-ame... ; see also https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/18/the-problem-of...
> Democracy doesn’t mean western democracy or liberal democracy It's something I disagreed with you about before, but have come to agree with you about Raynier. Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Turkiye, and Israel have all begun falling out of the US orbit after we began pressing on the liberalism aspect. We should fight for liberal democracy at home, but it is not something we should necessarily evangelize abroad, as…
I’ll leave aside my conspiracy theories about how much Anthony Blinken had to do with Hasina being overthrown last year. But we have a new government promising more liberalism but the security situation has deteriorated: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/3/4/gotham-but-no-ba.... Holding fair elections will be impossible, because the interim government has a tremendous incentive to ban Hasina’s party, which has long been the most popular party.
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> India’s elections are free and fair. Are they, when people opposing one candidate are jailed? > That’s all democracy requires. That is certainly false. Democracy isn't mob rule, or as the saying go, it's not two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Democracy is about self-determination for each person; if people in minority don't have self-determination, it's not democracy at all.
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I'd like to think that aspiring higher than that is neither western nor non-western.
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Isn't it Romania, and not the EU? Also, what do you do about election manipulation? 'Nothing' isn't an acceptable answer.
>what do you do about election manipulation? 'Nothing' isn't an acceptable answer. I agree, and this reinforces my point about the ambiguity of the social contract. When the US constitution was written in 1787, the telegraph wasn't even invented. Now we all live in a single "global village". People from all over the world are commenting on politics in other nations in real time. Where do you draw the line for "electi…
The problem is that we've made this intellectual laziness acceptable. Nobody knows exactly? We have pretty good ideas; we know the difference between legitimate media and propaganda; we just need to encode that in English in specific rules.
And before that, we need to get the people who benefit from propaganda, and therefore defend it, out of power. Look at the widespread, and effective campaign to shut down anyone studying disinformation. The problems with letting things like that fester and not doing anything - which is what we've done, mostly - is that people in power become invested in it.