Why do the "Free World" oppose any system other than western form of democracy?

Question

I have an impression that the Free World, in principle, is opposed to any system of government other than the Western form of democracy. At least the leader of the free world, the USA, likes to portray that routinely. Whenever there is a crisis of democracy, they impose sanctions.

The Western form of democracy is also known as liberal democracy.

According to Wikipedia --

Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterised by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all people.

Let us, for the sake of argument, ignore the fact that the Free World apply this principle selectively. Yet, arguments against this policy would be --

1. Liberal democracy is a Western idea that originated in ancient Greece. So, why should, say, the PRC adopt it when they have their own ancient civilization and ancient philosophers?

   • Sure, China is using a custom-made version of communism. I.e., they borrowed an idea from Europe and then modified it according to their needs. However, would the West agreed if China adopted something else which was not western democracy? I very much doubt that.

     • e.g., Afghanistan has a traditional system called Jirga.

2. Secondly, why shouldn't a country have the liberty to choose its own system of governance for its own people, should the people approve it through either a referendum or a revolution?

   • According to the West, Iran is a theocracy. Yet, according to Iran themselves, they have a functioning presidential democracy. I.e., they are using a custom-made version of democtracy.

So, why does the Free World oppose any system other than the western form of democracy?

Answer 1

"...a Western idea ... So, why should, say, the PRC adopt it ..."

Because ideas don't belong to anyone really. They are just ideas, immaterial and existing everywhere (once you hear about them). Taiwan or South Korea or Japan for example are not Western countries but still subscribe to the idea of liberal democracy. There is no reason PRC shouldn't subscribe to it too, even though it's more applied in Western countries currently.

"...why shouldn't a country have the liberty to choose its own system of governance for its own people should the people approve it through a referendum..."

That's exactly democracy. People choose how they are governed. Surely you didn't just mean some people at some particular time but all the people of a country choose all the time their own system of governance. The liberty of choosing your destiny already severely restricts the number of possible systems.

There may be other more convincing objections to liberal democracy, but I'm not aware of them. The prevalence of democracy in the Western World might simply be a historical coincidence.

Answer 2

Liberal democracy is a Western idea that originated in ancient Greece. So, why should, say, the PRC adopt it when they have their own ancient civilization and ancient philosophers?

Greek Democracy was not a liberal one (see, e.g., a discussion in this answer). Liberalism has largely emerged in the end of 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, as a view that puts individual rights, and equality of individuals as at the center of economic, social, and political life. This is opposed to the view that the rights of individual are superseded by the interests of a social class or caste determined by their birth/ancestry (as in feudalism or slavery systems) or by the interests of the economic class they belong to (as in Marxism and its offshoots).

As can be seen from the previous sentence, there have been a world-wide movement that challenged the idea of liberal democracy throughout all of the 20th century - that is the Marxist/Communist ideology and its offshoots. This system has largely proved to be dysfunctional and resulted in about hundred millions deaths, although there are still countries and movements that try to implement it (such as North Korea or Venezuela), and to some extent this ideas are popular with the left wing in what western countries (which are mostly Europe and North America).

PRC is somewhat peculiar in this respect: on the other hand, it can be seen as one of the communist countries that has been trying to challenge liberal ideas. On the other hand, in practice it has transformed in economically liberal country, remaining "post-liberal" only in its political system and perhaps social structure.

Secondly, why shouldn't a country have the liberty to choose its own system of governance for its own people should the people approve it through a referendum?

In liberal view, country is an abstract notion - a country does not have a will of its own, but only that of the individuals living in it or that of the government, having power over these individuals. If by a country's liberty to choose we mean the will of its individuals (at least their majority), we essentially advocate for democracy (though not necessarily a liberal one). If the government decides for the people, without their agreement, this essentially means that most individuals in the country are denied the liberty to choose for themselves, which is a bad thing from the point of view of the belief in the individual liberty.

Thus, the bottom line is: as long as we accept that individual freedom is the main consideration in political, economic, and social life, we are stuck with democracy and capitalism. Any other system means limiting individual rights in the name of religion, economic class, national interest, "common good", and other abstract concepts.

Answer 3

Besides the usual disclaimer that "the West is not a hive mind", this Q blurs together vastly different levels of opposition. E.g. I'm sure the majority of US citizens (but maybe not all) would rather not have lived under Salazar's Estado Novo (TLDR version: it was dictatorship that promoted Catholicism, to a point, still maintaining church-state separation) ... even though it was in NATO from the beginning. (There were perennial conflicts within NATO between a set of countries that wanted to hold Salazar over a barrel for his undemocratic rule and those--including most USA administrations--who thought that approach would have been counterproductive.)

And likewise, many (more) US citizens would probably not want to live in Saudi Arabia, but they don't mind (that much) buying oil from it or even selling it weapons (although they're probably more split on the latter).

And likewise if you ask: "should the EU condition some aid on democracy or human rights?" you'd get substantially different answers than to, say, "should the EU member states' armies invade some country to bring it democracy". (If you want to read EU's points why it thinks it should "export democracy" (by some means like "democracy conditionality" or elections observers you can read the official blurb here. Their "why" points are a bit standard: democratic peace theory, generating wealth, inequality reduction. One somewhat obvious point from that EU doc as far applying this "export" in practice is that the EU cares more about democracy in its neighborhood than farther afield. E.g. conditionality means much less in practice when it comes to China or Vietnam than it comes to "its neighbors south the Mediterranean".)

Without making such distinctions between levels of promotion (or conversely levels of opposition to alternatives), it's impossible to make any further progress on discussing a matter like this.

I don't want to get your numbered subquestions much, because the 1st one is rather silly considering that China's government is singing praises to Marx, who was not an ancient Chinese philosopher. The 2nd is basically circling back to the main issue above, but it's throwing in the referendum business... You might want to ask that separately, but FYI none of the 4 PRC constitutions were adopted like that. As for the 99.5% referendum-approved Iranian one (which is what seems to motivate that given your subsequent comments)... why does that remind me of some dubious referendums in the European past?! Mind you, two of the 3 parties that supported it (as opposed to half-dozen that boycotted it) were soon banned thereafter as well. Members of one of those [3] original supporting parties were even hanged en masse in the next decade. If I'm to draw some parallel here between some regimes criticized in the West, Iran has some features in common with other regimes criticized in the West, which I could frame (modifying a Stalin-related joke): it doesn't matter who votes, it matters who decides who can run in the elections. E.g. "in 2004, [the Council of Guardians] again rejected nearly a third of the 8200 candidates, including 88 incumbent Majles deputies" (that's more than a quarter of the seats.) That critical paper then says/concludes "Needless to say, this is not consistent with any reasonable definition of democracy."

(I know a lot less about jigra, which was added in an edit to the Q. A cursory search suggests that the defunct US-backed regime actually did try use such a format sometimes, so I'm not sure the West is really critical of that. Of course, the same kind of assembly now unreservedly backs up the Taliban. It depends who's in it and how pliable they are to the men with the guns, I guess. As far as I can tell, the same kind of assembly was used to rubber stamp the [autocratic though somewhat anti-communist] regime of Mohammed Daoud Khan in the [pre-Soviet-invasion] past. Daud Khan's regime apparently relied extensively on ethnopolitics, but not quite majoritarianism, since the Pashto he exclusively promoted in army and government are only like 40% of the population of Afghanistan nowadays.)

I see Roger's answer has already "schooled" you on the difference between liberal and electoral democracy. This however is a bit less relevant to our discussion since generally speaking "the west" is also "exporting" human rights as well trying to apply it themselves, which is on the liberal end/angle of democracy. For an exaggerated distinction between the two; see "tyranny of the majority", which one might gorily exemplify as the 51% voting to eat the 49% for dinner. If you want a philosophical defense against the latter see Rawls' "veil of ignorance", which is more or less an elaboration on the "Golden Rule". Aside to the aside: there are actually some subtle defects to using just that rule for human rights, e.g. Rorty's "[self]-consistent Nazi" argument which is actually explored a bit by the protagonist in The Man in the High Castle (if you like novels more than dry philosophy), although the latter explores it from a combination of social environment/pressure and true beliefs, while Rorty's argument is just about the latter.

Answer 4

First of all, the picture is not that clear. Clear-cut attempts by "The West" to export liberal democracy have been rare historically. There has been a lot of support for right-wing dictatorships in "those other countries", in particular throughout the cold war. The idea that non-white people are not suited for democracy at all, or just not "ready for it" right now is (sadly) not really uncommon.

But let's indeed ignore this. Why are your counter-arguments not persuasive to the proponents of universal liberal democracy? Basically, because of individualism, ie the belief that each individual human just has a bunch of rights that do not derive from being a member of some group, but that just are. States and governments are supposed to serve the individuals (with all the comprosises necessary because of divergent individual interests).

From this perspective, the constraints on the right of eg a majority of Chinese people to pick whatever form of government they want are not coming from whatever Europeans or a bunch of dead Greek philosophers think about it, but from the rights of the other Chinese individuals (as well as future Chinese generations who may want to change whatever system the current generation prefers). And then of course there is the question of how you really figure out what "the majority of the Chinese" wants. Any reasonable attempt probably requires some amount of free speech, the ability to vote without fear of reprisal, etc.

Once you address all these concerns, you have a liberal democracy. It might be one that looks very different from the political systems currently used in the West (which have a lot of flaws and historical baggage in them), but at its heart, it would be a liberal democracy.

Answer 5

Whenever there is a crisis of democracy, they impose sanctions.

This is rather vague, but I think the following rationale applies. For some years now, there is a global decline in democracy which can be interpreted as non-liberal values gaining ground around the Globe.

This means that "the West" doing nothing is not an option and I guess they need to use a strategy similar to the Containment one used by the US against the spread of communism after WWII. After all, it is also a matter of the long-term survival of your own culture.

Answer 6

"...why shouldn't a country have the liberty to choose its own system of governance for its own people should the people approve it through a referendum..."

As someone pointed out, that is the point of liberal democracy. Democracy is not just a western idea despite how people treat it in history. The Enlightenment made democracy more popular in the West, but democracy already existed in other cultures because democracy allows the people to have a say in their governance and actually choose what representatives/policies they are governed by instead of having a dictator or a small number of elites choose for them. The Nri Kingdom in Africa existed from the 9th century to the year 1911 and had a democratic elective monarchy, the Edo Republic in Japan was established in 1869 as a democratic nation, & the Middle East had some democracies in antiquity and some communities are democratic in modern times like how Rojava -a semi-autonomous region of over 2 million with a population of mostly Sunni Muslims - is a semi-direct democracy.

Basically, democracy is not purely a Western idea and the West helped to popularize it, but many people like having the ability to choose how they are governed. The Free World is about people having a say. Iran claims to be democratic, but it is an authoritarian theocracy that is currently facing protests, and plenty of authoritarian regimes like North Korea claim to be democratic while operating as a hereditary dictatorship, so calling yourself 'free' or a 'democracy' when you have an authoritarian regime that spreads propaganda and can remove anyone who disagrees does not instantly make you 'free' or a democracy.

The Free World (or people who tend to like the idea of a free world in principle) does not accept other forms of governance that are more severely restrictive because most other historically popular forms of government are usually authoritarian and do not require a free people to implement, but can simply be a 'tyranny of the minority' situation where people are in charge because a radical enough minority installed a regime at the expense of what the people actually want like how Hitler was only liked by 36% of the population & came to power through many backroom deals despite the claims he was widely liked or South Africa from 1910 to 1994.

Answer 7

I know that the West or the Free World, in principle, is opposed to

That is not true. You are confusing the propaganda that appears in the Western media as with the public opinion of their population. The quickest example that comes to mind is Saudi Arabia ruled by the Saudi family with absolute power and a very strong Western support. But by far this is not the only example.

Rather than the Western countries you might better say the Western population because obviously they would not like to live under such rule and they pity those who are forced to endure it.

Secondly, why shouldn't a country have the liberty to choose its own system of governance for its own people

In theory that is already happening, if you see big powers meddling in the affairs of other states that is not out of democratic principles, that is just out of the interests of those in power.

should the people approve it through a referendum?

I doubt that the people would approve an autocratic or dictatorial rule in a referendum without any coercion or vote rigging.

Answer 8

I think that the main thing the West reasonably opposes is the systems that are the threat for them. If the system breeds terrorists, generates large streams of refugees or has a habit of threatening to invade the West and actually builds the army for that, the West then "reasonably opposes". Otherwise, I think, live you under any orders you like as you do this peacefully in your country. Who cares that Saudi Arabia is Islamic? They live in peace, this is enough for respect.

In the past, there was additional big danger that the Socialist/Communist system would show itself more viable, more efficient than Capitalism, and would attract the working class in other countries to slay the capitalists for the common good as happened. Nobody likes to be slayed and capitalists have reasonable influence on the society under Capitalism, so some negative attitude could be expected. But now it seems there are no strong pro-Communist countries remaining.

Answer 9

It is a question of mindset, "the truth rules over a human", vs. "a human rules over the truth". The first mindset is the accepted one all over the world, because it is safer in the short term and easier for a person to develop correctly, but the consequence is, people who believe that the truth should have control over their thinking pay little attention to how they actually think (introspection), and a lot of attention to how they should think (rules). And that, naturally, leads to the situation where people find it acceptable to impose things on others just because something is true: morality of thought and, consequently, of action becomes therefore subordinate to truth, that is to what one knows. "But that is true!" becomes a valid answer to "It is bad to think so". And that is why people in the West do have an inclination to impose their own mindset, in its entirity, on all others, which I believe what your question is about. The reason they find it ethical is simply that they don't feel they actually impose anything, they believe that all others have had exactly the same mindset from the very beginning anyway and have always deemed things true or false from exactly the same point of view as they usually do. So any "ancient philosophers" you're referring to get simply ignored because it comes to be irrelevant. So what they feel they impose are just rules that are correct, given a certain mindset, not the mindset itself, and so they feel for example "how come it is so bad to impose a truth if it's a question of life or death?" So in the end, it is a question of bad understanding among people in the world, not one of evil intent. People like to have control over their own thinking, quite understandably, but for that reason they lose touch with reality and routinely get lost in empty words like "communism", "nation" etc, ignoring the real thoughts and feelings of their neighbours (not always, but importantly enough to warrant a generalisation).

Three caveats:

1. "the West" is a wrong word here, groups never think anything, only people do, and people think on their own, in fact the same problems of imposing one's thought on another without recognising it's at all an imposition do happen regularly inside the West too, and not even "between countries" (countries cannot think and therefore cannot impose their thinking on anyone), but between all sorts of people, e. g. between relatives in a family who "manipulate each other";
2. nor is it specifically a Western thing, as the same kind of agressively bad understanding routinely happens in every modern country of the world just the same way, with the exception that people in less developed countries may take the liberty to ignore the problems of the world in general;
3. democracy is a wrong word here, because it is a rather formal thing while the imposition concerns the contents of political thinking, not the form; the proof is, even if a government, like one in Hungary or Poland, does assume for a while a democratic form, that alone still does not change magically the substance and contents of the political process in such a country; nor does such a form preclude severe violations of freedom and dignity of people even in most developed democracies, as we have witnessed during the pandemic. One can't impose something that doesn't stick, and it is the substance that sticks, not merely the form.