From: monsourc@dent.uchicago.edu (Christopher Monsour)
Subject: Re: War & Democracy
Organization: Dept. of Mathematics, U. of Chicago
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 21:42:20 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.152958.28960@arbi.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> Klaus.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Klaus Moeller) writes:
>
>I now define 9 more or less arbitrarily choosen points, that have to be
>fullfilled to qualify a state as democratic in a modern sense. 
>There may be other and better classifications, but I use this from
>the top of my head to classify a state.
>
>1)  Free, secrect and equal elections.
>    (This would rule out *a lot* of states, including antique greeks and
>    romans, the soviet systems, wilhelmine Germany, etc...) 
>2)  A constitution.
>3)  Established judical [sic] equality of all people. 
>    (i.e. no slavery, womans right to vote, etc.) 
>4)  Three way division of power.
>5)  Freedom of speech and media (press, radio, etc.). 
>6)  Civil control over police and military.
>7)  No political prosecution.
>8)  No torture.
>9)  Respect of privacy. 
>    (Secrecy of mail, housing, etc.)
>

I don't think there are _any_ countries that qualify as democracies under
these extraordinarily stringent requirements:

(1) Free, secret and _equal_ elections (emphasis mine).

If by "equal" you mean "one man, one vote," then the United States certainly
doesn't qualify:  Each state sends two senators to the United States Senate,
regardless of population.  (In case you're wondering, the ratio of the
population of the most populous state to that of the least populous is over
fifty to one; this isn't just a small deviation from "one man, one vote.")
I happen to think this is a good idea, because the senators are supposed to
be representatives of the states, not of the people; besides, without
this particular compromise on the composition of the Senate, the United
States would never have come into existence.  In fact, the article on
amendments in the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits any amendment
that would alter the equal representation of the states in the Senate.
Thus, the U.S. constitution specifically _forbids_ "one man, one vote"
in this instance.

(2) A constitution

Written? Or is unwritten acceptable?

(3) Established judicial equality of all people.
   (i.e. no slavery, woman's right to vote, etc.)

I think we agree that equality before the law is a good thing.  I think
that there are very few countries (if any) in which it perfectly exists.
The grossest violation is that unborn children are in most countries not
treated equally before the law.

My other qualm with what you say here is that you mention the right to vote
as part of judicial equality--it is not.  Equality before the law has to do
with how people are governed.  Who votes has to do with who governs.  These
are not the same thing.  I hardly think that a teenager or a convicted felon
or an alien has been denied equality before the law by being denied voting
privileges.  If any of them were denied a jury trial, that would be a gross
violation of equality before the law.

(4) Three way division of power.

Well, this doesn't exist in any country with a parliamentary system: In such
countries the executive is directly accountable to the legislature, a
situation which is the antithesis of separation of powers.

(5) Freedom of speech and media.

This would probably cause you to count countries that you would otherwise
consider democracies as not being democracies when they're at war.  No 
country allows complete freedom of the media during a major war.
This is particularly relevant since the question is whether democracies
have ever fought a war against each other.

(6) Civil control over the police and military.

I think that if the government doesn't control the police and military, then
it is _de facto_ not the government, so what's your point?

(7) No political prosecution.

I suppose then that if a country elects its prosecutors, then it is not a
democracy because political prosecutions (showboating before an election,
prosecuting a particular person because it's the popular thing to do, or
because he might run against you in the next election) are the inevitable
result.  On the other hand, if the country doesn't elect its prosecutors,
then it isn't a democracy either.

(8) No torture.

I am definitely against torture, but democracies, if they don't already have
torture, can always elect people who want to use torture, so I don't see
what this has to do with being a democracy.

(9) Respect of privacy.

I always thought of this as a necessary _limit_ on democracy, not a _part_ of
democracy.  It says (along with (7) and (8)) that there are certain things
that the government can't do even if the majority wants it to do them.

You have listed 9 characteristics that a government may have.  Some of these
characteristics are, IMO, prerequisites for a good government.  Some of them 
seem to me perhaps useful devices but certainly not necessary (e.g. (4)).
I see no purpose in ascribing all of these meanings to the word democracy,
which already has a perfectly good meaning, namely a system of government
in which the decisions are made either directly or indirectly (via election
of government officials) by a relatively large portion of the adult
citizenry.  It is very fashionable these days to equivocate on the meaning
of democracy, sometimes using it in the etymological (and proper) sense
and sometimes using it to mean "whatever form of government I think is good."
The result is that no one knows just what the speaker means, which is far too
often the speaker's very intention.  The world would be far better served were
people to insist on the clear meanings of words (cf. Orwell).

Sorry for taking up the bandwidth, but I do think that the definition of
democracy is relevant to a discussion of whether two democracies have ever
been at war.
    

                                     Christopher J. Monsour
                                     monsourc@zaphod.uchicago.edu