Can you point to any papers published in reputable journals that make that point? Its not that I don't trust you, being some random guy on the internet, but there are people who study history and government structure for a living and I'd think they might have more experience with this sort of thing.

If you want your truth from authority, join a church. Universities have the same selection method (existing clergy/academics choose the next generation based on whether the existing clery/academics agree with the views of the rising class), and same history (Harvard, Yale, etc were founded seminaries).

I studied political-science at Yale, and the professors are in their own world. Their studies had little to relation to the real world of politics, which I had learned about from actually working in Congress. The university in many subjects has devolved into the modern equivalent of scholasticism. Peer-review can be a tool for eliminating falsehood. But it can also be a tool for filtering out truth, and perpetuating falsehood. This applies 10X for politically sensitive subjects. Universities receive greats amount funding from nominally democratic governments.

That said, even a politically correct institutions can't always avoid the truth. Check out this NYTimes article, it cites a bunch of professors who have studied the link between democracy and violence: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/opinion/30patterson.html?a...

I haven't read any of the works cited in the article, so I can't vouch for them. I came to my conclusions by studying for myself the history of dozens of democratic transitions. I suggest doing the same yourself, if you are really interested. Pick five or ten countries randomly. Trace their history, starting as far back as you can. Read both progressive, reactionary, and primary sources. And then examine whether the democratic transitions they underwent increased or decreased the quality of governance.

Wow. I don't even know what to do with a historical argument this absurd.

From Sydney George Fisher's History of the American Revolution: "When we consider that this mob rule was steadily practised for a period of more than ten years, it is not surprising that it left an almost indelible mark on our people. They seem to have acquired from it that fixed habit now called lynch law, which is still practised among us in many parts of the country in a most regular and systematic manner, and participated in by respectable people. The term lynch law originated in the method of handling the loyalists in the Revolution, and was named from the brother of the man who founded Lynchburgh in Virginia....If the loyalists could come back from the grave, they would probably say that their fears and prophecies had been fulfilled in the most extraordinary manner; sometimes literally; in most cases substantially. There is no question that the Revolution was followed by a great deal of bad government, political corruption, sectional strife, coarseness in manners, hostility to the arts and refinements of life, assassination, lynch law, and other things which horrified Englishmen and afforded the stock material for the ridicule of such writers as Dickens and Mrs. Montagu." (source: http://books.google.com/books?id=SZccAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA166-I... )

This will come as a great surprise to Martin Luther.

I misspoke. I should have said, the virulent anti-semitism of the 1930's did not exist in Germany in the era of Metternich (first half of the 19th century). Anti-semitism was prevalent centuries before. The situation had gotten much better by the mid-1800's. But with the introduction of universal suffrage in 1870 it got much worse again.

But leaders in autocracies do the exact same thing as well. So it seems like how widespread the franchise was might not be the relevant variable.

It happens most in autocracies that came to a power as a result of party politics, or a violent struggle between political parties. Elections are the poison, tyranny and civil war are the disease. It's extremely rare in history to find a demagogue monarch.

Do you have any model societies where a small fraction of the population votes instead?

Victorian Britain, America before 1820, Rhodesia. Modern Hong Kong.

Actually, I have read that book and I think you're misrepresenting Chua's thesis

It's not her thesis that's interesting, but the examples. Most of them do involve democracy. She tries to make her book less politically incorrect by spreading the blame on markets too, but I don't buy it.

I think the takeaway there is that democracy involves a lot more than just voting: you need to build the rule of law and emplace a whole set of norms about how power is shared amongst dissenting groups. If you ignore all that and just impose elections immediately, then yeah, things can go very badly.

If you already have a government that provides rule of law, and a good set of norms about power sharing, why change things up?

What makes democracy in America and Europe less pernicious is that a) its diluted a great deal by the committee system, unelected civil servants, and a permanent usually unelected judiciary. And b) there is a K-12 education system telling people not to be racist or jingoistic.