User talk:Stabby the Misanthrope/List of credible democracies

Israel
Do credible democracies illegally occupy territories and commit gross human rights abuses against occupied populations in violation of UN resolutions? PFoster 17:00, 23 January 2008 (EST)
 * Er, yes they do. A democracy only describes how the government of a country is elected. If the electorate are predominantly racist, homophobic or whatever then that's the democratically elected government they return. That's part of the dilemma in the Middle East.  A democratically elected government may turn out to be raving Islamofundamentalist. Dubya was elected "democratically" but that didn't stop the USA invading Iraq.  I guess it would be entirely possible to have a "liberal" dictatorship that gave due regards to women's rights, education healthcare, sexual orientation etc. but wasn't democratically voted in.  Indeed, that is one of the problems with democracies, a lot of the populace in most countries (for one reason or another) are xenophobic, homophobic bigots. [[Image:jollyfish.gif|25px]]Genghis  Marauding


 * All the time, PFoster. Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, anyone?  For a non-American example, Britain has Northern Ireland.  But to more adequately address your argument, think of it this way:  if enough of its citizens voted accordingly, would the nation in question change its policies?  For Israel, being a democracy and all, the answer is yes.  There is a robust and vocal (if unfortunately powerless) "justice for Palestinians"  movement on the Israeli side.  If the movement could garner enough political support then, yes, Israel would cease occupying the territories.


 * That is the definition of a democracy: the capability to change policy via the will of the people.  Whether the people have the will to change is a whole other issue.  -- 17:30, 23 January 2008 (EST)


 * Nice to get in first for a change, RA. Normally, other people beat me to it and I end up in an edit conflict. :( [[Image:jollyfish.gif|25px]]Genghis Marauding 17:35, 23 January 2008 (EST)
 * Well, anonymous person above - I'm not sure that the US (think Iraq, as you said) or Great Britain and France (because of nasty colonial histories) have always been democracies in the last century. And the fact of the matter in the Israeli case is that it's Israelis, and not Palestinians, who have the right to vote to change the policies. Give the Palestinians in the disputed occupied territories the right to vote on the occupation, and you might have a case. But, since the Israeli state holds the rule of law and violates the sovereignty of a large body of people who do not, have not, and will never have the right to say something about it without Israeli acquiescence,  the democratic nature of the Israeli state is tainted, if not outright false. And Ghengis, is democracy to be defined *only* in terms of how states choose their governments? Do states that use race gender and class, for example, as de facto barriers to access to power truly count as democratic? Is it really a democracy if only propertied male elites of one racial group tend to hold most positions of power? Or if unelected corporate heads have more say in the way that the country is run than working people? PFoster 19:33, 23 January 2008 (EST)
 * Democracy is a pretty nebulous concept, full stop. You run into pretty much the same problems as when you try to define, say, "freedom" or "beauty." --Robledo 19:58, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Well, if Robledo is right and "democracy" is difficult - if not impossible - to define, then should we be creating a list like this one that uses the term in an uncritical, un-nuanced way? I nominate delete. PFoster 18:24, 24 January 2008 (EST)
 * As long as you proceed from the notion that it's an intangible ideal you're trying to nail down, then you can define away to your heart's content. You should (hopefully) generate a series of increasingly satisfactory approximations, from which you can pick your favourite and yet not be too horribly disappointed when people still endlessly quibble. ;)
 * On deletion: I don't see the list serving any particular RW function yet, but there are various international bodies who draw up similar lists as a means of charting democratic progress around the world. I think RA probably had something like that in mind. --Robledo 20:10, 24 January 2008 (EST)
 * Well then howzabout instead of this yea or nae list, which keeps me up at night, we craft something where we can put countries on a spectrum that represents not only whether or not people get to vote every few years but whether countries have institutions (like proportional representation, representative seats guaranteed for women, etc) that are designed to enable a more robust democracy than first-past-the-post, mostly-rich-white-boy systems. And that takes into account legislation designed to limit the exercise of political power by corporations. And that takes into account things like blatantly undemocratic colonial projects like the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. PFoster 20:21, 24 January 2008 (EST)
 * I agree with your concept. I'd volunteer to construct the Democracy Continuum, but I don't think I'm the most qualified person here to be doing that.  Any political science majors on the wiki?  -- 20:45, 24 January 2008 (EST)
 * Ay caramba! Sounds like a whole shitload of hard work. Go nuts, fellas, 'cos I'm off to bed. This might help - the country profiles in each issue have some of the info you're looking for. --Robledo 20:51, 24 January 2008 (EST)

delete
I second the delete template. This article is just random wanking. human  00:16, 26 January 2008 (EST)