Which moves me to the second point, for the belief in the exportability of democracy rests largely on the myth that democracy is no more than certain formal political institutions, which can be handed around from country to country like so many used cars. A few new parts, a little adjustment to climatic conditions, and you can drive them anywhere. But democracy is not an automotive blueprint. It cannot be imposed top-down, it grows bottom up. Constitutions do not create democracy.
Democracy creates constitutions.
Bills of rights do not create rights. They codify rights already defined, fought for and won. America had a hundred and fifty years of experience with local civic cultures and civil liberty before it codified that experience into a constitution and a bill of rights. Great Britain still hasn't gotten around to writing down the principles of constitutional liberty by which it has been living for many centuries. Democracy, said John Dewey, is not a form of government, it is a way of life, a set of ingrained attitudes, a culture of independent thinking, as well as cooperation, of conflict as well as consensus.