I believe that democracy, referring to it as a political system, does not require or contemplate violence as a vehicle that makes its emergence possible. Similarly, it is not used by the replacement or adoption of the political model as a new form of government; regardless of the location of the territory or its historical tradition.
In turn, due to the conceptual bases on which the concept is built, I find the use of violence in any of its forms illogical for the establishment of democracy or its development in any sovereign country. I have wanted to use the term "illogical" to refer to this point, alluding to the fact that, in the event that pressure were exerted on the democratic processes through the use of violence (direct or indirect), it would cease to be a democracy for transform into an authoritarian regime or a dictatorship.
However, violence has always been present in the moments that preside over the establishment of democracy as a system of government. When carrying out a historical review of the countries where the democratization process has taken place at some point in their political evolution, we find that violence, whether through specific moments such as war or revolution, is a dynamizing agent of the process of change in which the model that best suits the common interest is sought to emerge victorious (winner).
However, I consider that violence is a variable that, although recurrent, can be isolated without altering the process of the establishment of democracy; In other words, it is not a requirement for democracy to emerge, but rather a “probable” reaction within a process of change from an old system to a new one.
By speaking of a democratizing process, I mean the historical evolution in which other forms of government allowed the “development of an equilibrium to avoid the force of a crown or the independence of the landed aristocracy” (Moore, 1967a, p. 430), and within which not only a change takes place in the systems of governments (and their classical representatives), but also brought about a transforming process of the economic and social systems.
It is these two factors that make up the concept of what we understand today by (social) democracy, and which evolves to the concept of liberal (economic) democracy. In reference to the formal definition of democracy, Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003a, p. 4) define it as a form of state that has “a representative government elected by an electorate based on the entire adult population, whose votes carry the same importance and those who are able to vote for any opinion without being intimidated by the state apparatus ”.
This definition evolves to the concept of liberal democracy, where in addition to the social component, the economic component is introduced into its jargon. In this way, Beetham (1981, p. 191) defines it as a socio-political formation in which the principle of popular control in which decision-making coexists with the conception of representation that is granted, through the expression of the majority, a representative to decide on public affairs.
In relation to the economic universe, in addition to goods and public affairs, the existence of private property is allowed and regulated. In the words of the author, liberal democracy refers to "democracy as a principle of government and popular control in decision-making and the principle of private property rights in the means of production, distribution and exchange."
In this way, we can observe how there is a great difference (at most conceptual) between the old forms of government (authoritarian, divine and without social participation of any kind) and the concept of democracy (with social and economic participation) that today in day is applied, to a greater or lesser extent, by most countries that allow the participation of the civilian population.
Violence for the process of change of liberalism
In this model that I propose, what I place in the "change process" box refers to the moment during which there are greater probabilities of acts of "violence" as a reaction or resistance to the transition to the new political system. It is, in my opinion, the point from which the transition of political models begins and that arise from changes (or variations) in the systems of social organization and economic models.
An example of the appearance of "violence" as a reaction to the processes of social or economic change can be found in the results produced by the work The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy carried out by Barrington Moore, in describing the path of three concrete cases (England, France and the United States) towards the establishment of democracy as a system of government.
In the English case, there were changes in both the social structures and the economic model that were fundamental on the road to parliamentary democracy. Namely, the social factors that influenced the process of change from the monarchy towards the current model were the disappearance of the peasant problem (those who worked the land for their owners) and the separation of the landed aristocracy from the nobility..
This change was the initial fee for the change in the economic model to take place, which went from being an agriculture for consumption to a commercial type agriculture in which it was built.
As the author explains, and I quote, “What factors stand out in England's progress towards democracy? a relatively strong and independent parliament, a commercial and industrial interest with its own economic base and the absence of serious problems with the peasants ”(Moore, 1967b, p. 39).
I have wanted to approach this case first to exemplify that, unlike the French and American cases, in the English case there were no violent acts (in general terms) in its transition process towards democracy. Although there may be records of confrontations, these take place around specific issues referring to the social revolution (landlord and peasantry aristocracy) or the economic model (agriculture as the basis of the economy), but not in relation to the emergence of the system of government (democratic - parliamentary).
In the French case, there was a profound social change (the French Revolution) that occurs as a consequence of an economic model in which the French nobility lived at the cost of fees, in kind or in money, collected from their peasants. This situation, taken to the extreme, produced a massive reaction in which the peasants used violence as a reaction against the nobility due to the poverty generated at their expense. As a result of this reaction, the monarchical system disappeared and the second French Republic was established.
As stated by the Moore (1967c, p. 108), the "consequences of the French Revolution is the violent destruction of the acien regime which was a crucial step for France on the long road to democracy." However, the violence that occurred in the French case occurs as a reaction around a specific situation of power of the leaders with their subordinates (nobles and peasants), but it does not occur with the firm objective of establishing democracy as a new system of government; although if as a scenario for this to arise as a result of the confrontation.
Finally, we find that in the North American case the development of an economic model was made possible thanks to (roughly) a social revolution. The United States, representatives of the new world, did not need to dismantle an agrarian economic model with historical vices on the part of feudal lords or in bureaucratic hands. The Americans, who saved that part of history, recognized commercial agriculture as an important factor in their economic model from the beginning. However, this was not a sufficient reason to prevent the civil war between the north and the south from happening.
Despite its independence from the English, the division of the country occurred due to a social issue; slavery. While the south, which developed its economic activity based on agriculture, had slaves as the base of its labor force, the north that based its economic activity on industry and refused to have slaves as a base of the labor force. for the development of its economy (capitalist1‑). As the author describes it, “an inherent conflict between slavery and the capitalist system of free formal wage labor” (Moore, 1967d, p. 114).
Although democratically founded, this ideological confrontation (which was unleashed in the Civil War) would have as a consequence (beyond the imposition of an economic model) the legitimation or delegitimization of democracy as a political model of the entire nation; since it could not present itself as such allowing slavery as one of the pillars of its economy. The use of violence, then, is not presented as a requirement for democracy to exist in the United States, but rather as a reaction to the process of social change around the concept of slavery as a requirement for the development of the economic system.
Based on these three examples, we find that the two agents of change (social and economic) can be treated as an explanatory variable that do not develop independently of each other, but rather, depend on and influence each other. framework of government dynamics. In this sense, it is worth clarifying that the characteristics of social revolutions and the change of economic models exposed in this model.
In relation to social revolutions, I mean all kinds of actions that vary or change the structures and organization of society in a territory. Thus, we find among the main ones the Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution or the claims of the Latin American guerrillas during the last century. Normally, this type of revolution is mostly directed towards Socialism or Communism; that is, to the search for social equality where the properties are public and not private (an aspect that comes into direct conflict with liberal democracy).
In relation to changes in economic models, I mean actions that vary or change the forms of economic production in a country. These forms of production, beyond their location within the production chain, refer to the development of private enterprise as the engine of the territorial economy. In this way, we find that the capitalist system 2 - goes hand in hand with the concept of Liberal Democracy for its attribute of allowing free participation in production systems.
The development of this idea greatly influenced social organizations since the strength of Liberal Democracy, expressed through its form of economy, ironically succeeded in creating a “inclusion of the masses in the framework of the political process under conditions of a representative government and electoral competition ”(Mahoney & Rueschemeyer, 2003b, p. 28), an aspect which its socialist counterpart did not contemplate within its development (the non-option to participate and the imposition are also triggers of violence).
It is in this negotiation that is generated between economic models and social revolutions that the greatest probabilities of violent actions occur. In the process of change towards the new forms of government, these agents enter into a pulse to obtain the greatest possible benefit from the historical conjuncture (process of change) towards a new system of government. This situation, however, not only happens when a nation moves towards a Liberal Democracy, but it can also happen when the objective is to achieve a state oriented more towards the social than towards the private. Violence arises when these negotiations find dead ends or do not intend to give in to the other.
In closing, I would like to present one last example based on the findings of the historical review conducted by Mahoney & Rueschemeyer. Within the text Comparative Historical Analysis: Achievements and Agendas, the authors make a series of descriptions based on categories on how various countries have established democracy as their models of government. One of them (Internal Development Democracies) describes how Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland adopted the democratic model without the need for violent acts or external agents (many of the countries became democrats in Europe as a result of the Second World War).
Although this is a small group compared to the number of countries studied, it shows that violence is not a requirement for the emergence of democracy but rather depends on other factors such as, and I quote the authors in this category, "force independent of small agrarian landowners and petty bourgeois, and divisions within the ruling class ”(2003c, p.23).
Based on the conceptual definitions and examples cited in this work, I affirm that democracy (both in its formal definition or in its liberal variation) does not require or depend on violence for its emergence. Nor does it require it for its development because when violent pressures arise on democracy or its processes (tax actions), democracy ceases to be considered as such, to become a dictatorship, regime, etc.
References
- Beetham, D. (1981). Beyond liberal democracy. Socialist Register, 18 (18). Mahoney, J. and Rueschemeyer D. (2003) "", in Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (eds) Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Moore, Barrington (1966) The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press.
Referenced literature
- Economic and social system based on private ownership of the means of production, on the importance of capital as a generator of wealth and on the allocation of resources through the market mechanism Economic and social system based on private ownership of the means of production, in the importance of capital as a generator of wealth and in the allocation of resources through the market mechanism.
