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On Pessimism Concerning Egypt

Larison’s pessimism is a sometimes necessary corrective, but his current campaign against Egyptian democracy is confusing. He requests that fans of democracy promotion in Egypt flesh out the connection between economic betterment and free elections. He’s right that democracy by itself can’t fix Egypt – democracy is a tool that can be used to fight […]

Larison’s pessimism is a sometimes necessary corrective, but his current campaign against Egyptian democracy is confusing. He requests that fans of democracy promotion in Egypt flesh out the connection between economic betterment and free elections. He’s right that democracy by itself can’t fix Egypt – democracy is a tool that can be used to fight corruption or it can be perverted to entrench it. The exact effects of democracy on Egypt are unknowable, but Larison’s abstract arguments against Egyptian democracy are a lot less convincing when considering the alternative – the continuation of a regime that has already failed its people. Democracy is a high risk, high reward proposition, but at least it has the power to produce change. ~Patrick Appel

As far as the corrective goes, I’d like to think that this is what the “current campaign” is providing by way of balancing out the countless arguments in support of rapid political change in Egypt (and especially the opportunistic “we were right” bleating from democratists who haven’t been right about anything so far). It’s true that I am very skeptical of mass democracy as a form of government, but that is because I worry about its potential for degenerating into an equally oppressive despotism, creating majoritarian tyranny, and smothering liberty. I have concerns about the prospects of Egyptian democracy, but what really moves me to keep making contrarian arguments is the need to counter the enthusiasm and wishful thinking that characterize most of the Western responses to these events. What I am most interested in here is that everyone paying attention to these events give some serious thought to how representative of the Egyptian people the protesters are, how Egyptians perceive these protests, and the possible consequences of rapid political change.

If the protesters are actually unrepresentative, that makes a significant difference not only for how we understand what to expect in a democratic Egypt, but it also tells us how successful democratic reformers are liable to be. Austrian liberals made great strides in forcing their government to become a constitutional monarchy with a representative parliamentary system, but they represented a small minority of the population and their politics and their agenda were profoundly unpopular in rural areas and among the working class. As the franchise expanded, they were swamped by mass movements that were more representative of the population and were also strongly illiberal and anti-liberal. Should democracy ever come to Egypt, that process will happen all at once. The Ghad and Wafd parties will be buried under tidal waves of populist, Islamist, nationalist, and socialist sentiment. Perhaps Egypt will still be better off in the end as a result, but it does no one any good to overlook the potential pitfalls.

It may be that the economic policies that would most benefit Egypt and most effectively address the economic grievances of the protesters would also be enormously unpopular and politically radioactive in a democratic Egypt. In that case, democratization might cause Egypt to stagnate economically more than it already has. Economic liberalization was associated with Gamal Mubarak and his circle, and that program is now politically dead for years to come, especially if the military has anything to say about it (and they have a lot to say about it). If most Egyptians see the protests as protests about economic conditions and unemployment, the main causes of instability in Egypt are not authoritarianism and repression as such, and Egypt will likely continue to suffer from political instability as long as these economic problems persist. If most Egyptians do not see a lack of democracy as the principal reason for the protests, that suggests that they may not see constitutional change as a top priority, and they may regard a movement focused on constitutional changes as irrelevant to their concerns. That doesn’t bode well for the flourishing of a functioning democratic system. What I have been trying to do is to use as many concrete examples of democratization as possible, and to discuss the realities of Egyptian politics as specifically as I can, so I would like to think that these arguments have been something other than abstract.

Every time a “color” revolution broke out somewhere in the last decade, we were treated to fairly superficial analysis and triumphalist cheerleading that ignored any explanation for the events we were seeing except for the one that suited our assumptions. When the Green movement protested the election results in Iran, we were bombarded with commentary that expressed with certainty that the movement represented the Iranian people and that the Iranian government was tottering and gravely wounded. These were things that we Westerners wanted to believe, and so for the most part they went unchallenged. They also happened to be wrong. It was only later, after this initial wave of enthusiasm was broken by unpleasant realities, that people started to notice that events were not matching up with the stories we were telling about them. Many of the stories people have been telling about the Egyptian protests do not ring true to me, and so I am trying to explain my objections as best I can. If that is a “campaign against Egyptian democracy,” so be it.

Update: So that there is no misunderstanding about my argument, readers should also look at the follow-up remarks I make in the comment section.

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