Plainly, however, democracy is more than just holding elections and counting votes. As John Stuart Mill wrote in Representative Government, a people have to be “willing to receive” such government, they have to “be willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation,” and “they should be willing and able to fulfil the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them.” Egypt and most other Arab Spring countries have simply not yet achieved these conditions. This is no criticism of a region or a people. Europe did not exactly cover itself with democratic glory in much of the 20th century, and today in Russia we see a country sliding out of a brief season of democracy back into authoritarianism. John Bolton
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:47:40 +0000
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