After today’s spectacular unveiling of the
question in class, it got me thinking more about places around the world that
live under dictatorships and the different types of democracies. I read several
articles in the tutorial today about countries under competitive authoritarianism
and what the conditions were like for the people there. It lead me to wondering
if another compelling question would be regarding countries where there was less
emphasis on individuality and more on the collective consciences of the family,
community or state. In these countires there might be more tendency to be more dictatorial and to have a competitive authoritarianism regime.
In places where your last name being your family name is more important than your
first and the most popular names are sometimees shared in majority across the county,
could be seen as a sign that individualism is less important. Is there more vulnerability in these societies or capacity
for these non democratic regimes to emerge? If there is less of a desire for individuality, could there be less of a desire for individual representation? For example in New Zealand where there is a strong
focus on the individual and names are something that we even like to individualise
down to the spelling of say Taleighah as opposed to Talia. Here people are encouraged
to speak for themselves and have an opinion. would this mean there would be less chance or possibility
for a competitive authoritarianism or dictatorship to arise? That is not to say
it wouldn’t happen just that it would possible be more likely to happen
somewhere like Cambodia, Russia or Kuwait
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ReplyDeleteOne way of thinking about the conservative right vs the liberal left is in terms of how they view community. This destination fits much better into Britten and America than it dose NZ, although it still exists hear to some extents. Conservatives can be said to value community more than most ideologies. They see it as so essential to life that working community norms cannot be played with or altered. This would only serve to fragment and atomise society, preventing trust and preventing a co-operative side to compation. A Liberal left can be contrasted to this by esplaining it as seeking to create a future, or theoreticle ommunity that dose not yet realy esist. The left often seek to destroy the "us and them" lines that define and bind communities together. This is with the goal of creating a sence in with everyone of any social group or minority can meaningfully partisipate and join the community. In the community culture of rural NZ a type of masculinity is fairly widely valued and this shaired value and appriciation is part of what allows a sence of enduring commeradory that is embuned in both culture and friendship. Individuals wich challenge this may well feel more excluded. To what extent the culture should be changed and the communities weekend is the divide.
Individulisum comes in meny different way and at meany differnt depths. You seem to be implying that people who are more engaged with a culturaly destict community are are less likely to value democracy. This amounts to saying that globably much of the conservative right do not value democracy,at least not in the saim way as can happen in more atomised socioties. A communal mindeset, and viewing oneself as part of a greater whole is not the saim as a defferentule mindeset. That is viewing oneself as irrelivent to the greater whole.
One application of your theory seems to be that 'competative authoriterian' regeems happen in countries with too much of a communal/ defferential culture to allow a more jenuine form of democracy to flurish. I object to this as well on the grounds that the objective of any 'competative authoriteran' rageem is delibetral trying to remove any democratic accountibiliy (although possibly not democratic institutions). To my knowlige no 'competative authoriterian' regeem has actuly ever been voted out useing democratic institutions alone. If their rule was a matter of populations bordly being complaisent, it seems preposturous that this tend to complasentsy has never been pushed to braking point. Even if communal mindeset equated to defference, as some point human rights abuses would reach such an exstent that defference was pushed to its limmit. Limmitless defference is not defference, it is worship or subugation.
This line of thinking casues one to question wether 'commpetative authoriterian' rageems should be seen as a kind of half way house to democracy. If they are so rairly removed though democratic instictutions (I do not know the histry of all of the 20th century world), the their is no genuine commpation. Their is just no uncirtionty to the outcome of an election and so an opposition victory is an impossiblility.
carictorising these rageems as in terms of some kind of "soft authoriterian" rageem is probably more usefull. Meaning full democracy dose not exist but the state is far from totaliterian for a noumber of reasons wich would very case by case. Whyever they have elections it is not becasue the state wished to be publicly accountable