Clinton: Said Democracy Requires Government Transparency
Clinton: Said Democracy Requires Government Transparency (July 5, 2010)
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TIME Lightbox portfolio Broken Dreams: The Aftermath of 25 Years of Democracy in Bulgaria For Bulgaria, democracy doesn't necessarily mean prosperity, finds photographer Yana Paskova
Talking politics has always been a part of Yana Paskovas life. She remembers her family discussing the state of her home country, Bulgaria, on countless occasions during her youth. But the political was also personal: the grandfather had been sent to a political prisoner camp in the 1950s because he didnt belong to the communist party.
At that time, Bulgaria, known as the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria, was part of the Soviet Unions Eastern Bloc.
My grandpa spent five years in this camp. He survived and this shaped the rest of his life, says Paskova, whose own life would also be marked by the event: after the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989, her family was granted political asylum in the U.S.
Now, 25 years later, the New York-based photographer has turned her lens on her home country to examine its current political standing. During my yearly trips to reconnect with my family and the homeland, it pained me to note a weariness, hopelessness and ennui, so standard in the Bulgarian passerby that it becomes routine, says Paskova, who received funding from the Pulitzer Center to finance her work. Of course, as a Bulgarian that loves her country, I hoped Id find a bit more hope and a bit more faith in democracy, and find that the country was working better, but, unfortunately, almost every single person I talked to communicated to me a lack of hope in political leadership and democracy.
This bleak assessment was particularly apparent when Paskova followed a local political activist who had organized a protest. No one showed up, she says. The conversation I had with him was very revealing. We talked about how democracy is a habit that needs to be exercised, but I dont think many Bulgarians [are encouraged] to do so, especially when theyve seen so much corruption, even after the fall of communism.
For a few years, after Bulgarias accession to the European Union in 2007, there was hope for positive change. [Being in the E.U.] has certainly made trading of goods easier, attracted more investors and brought diversity to the country, but, she adds, Bulgaria is still plagued by country-wide corruption, which a recent study by the Sofia-based think tank [Center for the Study of Democracy] found to be at its highest in 15 years, across civil and political sectors.
Communism didnt die in 1989: it lives in peoples minds, surviving political factions and visual remnants across the nation, she says.
And yet, Paskova remains optimistic: My hope is in those inside and outside of our country who have the patience and passion to continue rekindling Bulgarias democracy.
Yana Paskova is a New York-based Bulgarian freelance photographer.
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Broken Dreams: The Aftermath of 25 Years of Democracy in Bulgaria
In times of war, Athenian voters agreed to spend 15 times more on the armed forces than they did on state pay or festivals.
Is democracy good for balancing a budget? For many, today, the answer is a resonating no. This answer is easy to understand. In the birthplace of democracy, Greece, the state's budget is a mess. For too long the politicians of modern Athens feared voters would not tolerate the financial truth. To pay for unaffordable election promises, they borrowed irresponsibly instead of raising taxes. They lied to voters about the ballooning public debt. It all ended in a huge sovereign-debt crisis.
Even in the midst of this crisis, Greek politicians were afraid to tell voters how the country could escape it. They left it to Greece's creditors to dictate harsh austerity policies, which have caused enormous personal suffering. Greek voters did not vote for them. Not without reason, they are incredibly angry with their politicians.
Politicians do not believe voters can tolerate the financial truth. They assume that democracy is not good at managing public finances. For them it can only balance the budget by leaving voters in the dark.
Greece's crisis might be exceptionally severe but the problem behind it is not unique to Greek democracy. Two other modern democracies, Australia and Britain, were also forced to take drastic budget measures in response to the global financial crisis. In each democracy, centre-left politicians borrowed heavily to pay to prop up the banks and maintain private demand. In each country, these expansionary policies minimised the crisis's human impact. But in the elections that followed, the left-of-centre politicians who had introduced these policies refused properly to justify them. They feared that voters would not tolerate frank public debate about public finances.
The centre-right politicians who opposed them were no better. In these elections they promised to bring budgets back into surplus without new taxes or major public-sector cuts. But these promises again turned out to be lies. In office these conservative politicians have introduced austerity policies without clear electoral mandates. They too continue to face the wrath of their electorates. For good reasons the voters of Australia and Britain have lost a lot of trust in what politicians say about public finances.
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In all these democracies there has been a common underlying problem. Politicians do not believe voters can tolerate the financial truth. They assume that democracy is not good at managing public finances. For them it can only balance the budget by leaving voters in the dark.
As an historian of ancient Greek democracy, this assumption strikes me as plainly wrong. Certainly the politicians of ancient Athens did not share it. Ancient Athens was an incredibly successful state. It developed democracy to a higher level than any other state before the modern period. It was the leading cultural innovator of its age. Athens became one of the ancient world's greatest military powers. These successes did not come cheaply. They depended on Athenian democracy's ability to raise new taxes and control public spending. What made these successes possible was the sound management of public finances.
That the democracy of ancient Athens was good at this will come as a surprise. Germans have been critical of Greek public spending for a very long time. In 1817, August Bockh famously criticised ancient Athens for spending more on public-sector pay and cultural festivals than on its armed forces. For this German professor, this wasteful spending weakened ancient Athens's armed forces. It made it possible for Greece to be conquered by Macedonia.
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If ancient Greeks could balance a budget, why can't we?
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