Democracy is often misunderstood, with tragic results, says Stanford classicist
By Veronica Marian The Humanities at Stanford
Josiah Ober says a reexamination of democracy's ancient origins sheds light on the values and limitations of democracy in contemporary politics.
Less than a decade after Iraq became a democratic state, the country is once again battling nationwide violence and terrorism.
Stanford classicist and political scientist Josiah Ober sees the ongoing violence in Iraq and the difficulties encountered by democratic reformers in the Middle East as arising, in part, from mistaken modern notions of democracy.
Ober, who studies the history and practice of democracy, said he believes that efforts to democratize the Middle East in the mid-2000s were crippled by the flawed assumption that democracy would simply flow in to fill a political void.
Ober stressed, "There is a real danger in believing that democracy is good for everything, that it can readily give us everything that we want in terms of good government and the right kind of values and the right kind of moral and social order."
Ober warned that previously autocratic countries like Iraq face a great danger when adopting democratic institutions without first truly understanding what democracy means, what it is good for and not good for.
Ober's research draws from three varied sources: political theories by the likes of Aristotle and John Rawls; game theory; and the classical Athenian definition of democracy.
He pointed out that the term originally meant the capacity (kratos) of a people (demos) to accomplish things together.
Today, the term "democracy" is often, and incorrectly, used as a synonym and at times, equally incorrectly, as an antonym for constitutionalism, liberalism or republicanism, Ober said. With his current book project, A Theory of Democracy, he said he aims to "get clear about what we mean when we use the term 'democracy.'"
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Democracy is often misunderstood, with tragic results, says Stanford classicist