That is definitely true, but I think there’s an effect where citizens of a democracy are less likely to be willing to go to war against another democracy. It would be easy for americans to justify war against china, because americans value democracy and can say “we’re liberating them from their oppressive government”. (And some segments of the chinese population are very oppressed, so it wouldn’t be wrong.) But it seems less likely that a democratic government would oppress a majority of its population than an autocracy world, so that justification is harder to make
> because americans value democracy and can say “we’re liberating them from their oppressive government”
Most democracies are in general against war for practical reasons, wars are a drain away from stuff at home that's important for them as people. US citizens may be "less likely" to want that but only because recent history has saturated them with the justification that the war is against regimes with "different values". It's an easy sell for people who are never to keen on going beyond that. So it would mostly be a matter of repackaging the justification. Some democracies can afford both the wars and the "moral repackaging" for their citizens.
But people also misunderstand democracy and what it means. The fact that the interests of the majority are respected might also mean that the minority is suffering a great deal. How well are black people's interests represented in the US?
One the other hand in democracy you are allowed to give a tiny endorsement to a person or party for a leadership position in the hope that they will represent your interest while others are buying "priority" over you for this representation with far more than a vote. You're not seeing this as less of a democracy so people are not judging political systems based on their actual implementation but rather by picking and choosing on particular values.
Russia is ostensibly a democracy, albeit one where the leadership is somewhat predetermined a very small minority. USA is a democracy albeit one where the leadership is somewhat representing the interests of a very small minority. I'm sure a war between these two is not seen as such a remote possibility in terms of people's preference.
> How well are black people's interests represented in the US?
Reasonably well it would seem from the outside. 11% of congress is "black", which is roughly in line with population and there seem to be hundreds of laws and programs aimed at helping them. And there's also lots of media attention to their problems and struggles.
> Reasonably well it would seem from the outside. 11% of congress is "black", which is roughly in line with population
That picture turns to the opposite when looking at statistics of jail and prison inmates representation, or when looking at how the wealth in the country is racially divided and whole neighborhoods still racially and economically segregated.
In that context BLM is not really a new thing, it's just the most modern manifestation of a rather old and still very on-going issue [0].
I don't think that necessarily indicates that their interests aren't represented (which was the statement I objected to).
A group can have plenty of political representation and institutional and legal support and still struggle for other reasons (e.g. historic oppression or cultural problems depending on whether you lean left or right).
Though on second thought there still are a few laws with racist intent on the books aren't there? Though they're being undone at a decent clip.
> And there's also lots of media attention to their problems and struggles.
People treated well don't need lots of media attention to remind those treating them well that black lives matter, in 2021. I'd say that for a democracy that's a pretty bad track record that isn't improving fast enough. Democratic majority decisions sometimes leave the minority far behind.
> Russia is ostensibly a democracy, albeit one where the leadership is somewhat predetermined a very small minority. USA is a democracy albeit one where the leadership is somewhat representing the interests of a very small minority.
The US electoral system may have it’s flaws, but to compare it to Russia is absurd.
How many opposition leaders has the US government tried to murder recently?
The statement was clearly about the relationship each country has with democracy, comparing not to each other but to what democracy should be. There's value in evaluating things against what they should be, not against an arbitrarily worse thing. It's the only way to see the flaws and look to improve.
>I think there’s an effect where citizens of a democracy are less likely to be willing to go to war against another democracy.
It's difficult to disentangle that from the unpopularity of war. Since democratic regimes are harder to get to do things, because you have to convince more than one person, the null hypothesis would be that autocratic regimes have a higher propensity for belligerence, especially in societies predating the invention of propaganda.
From what I read about Nazi Germany, going into all-out war with other powers was very unpopular in 1939. Ordinary Germans supported Anschluss of Austria or Sudetenland, but did not want to risk another big war for Poland of all things.
But in a totalitarian regime, consent of the governed did not matter much. Expressions of pacifism would land you in a concentration camp really quick.
Democracies care a little more about what the average Joe thinks, even though they are far from perfect in this regard and consent can be sorta-kinda manufactured.
Democracies are less likely to fight because during diplomatic talks they can draw on their domestic values that are rules on ‘how to collaborate without giving up autonomy’. Autocratic cultures most fundamental rule is ‘who is charge’ and then establishing the hierarchy of where everyone else fits. So you are always more likely to end up in stalemate or conflict when an autocracy is one of the negotiating parties because of a higher likelihood they might want to force the issue that they are in charge.
And yet the US, the so called "oldest democracy", has been at war for all but a few dozen years.
The reality is that countries you call "democracies" are allies of the United States, while countries you call "dictatorships" are enemies. If a democracy is to be an enemy, the first course of action is to first make it stop being a democracy. Then if it goes your way there's nothing to be worried about, and if the chaos installs someone you don't like then you're not fighting a democracy.
The Chinese government has popular support. So were many others the US invaded or overthrew - some were even democracies. It doesn't matter, as we saw with the Iraq war any inconvenient facts will not make it into the narratives and any lies will be disseminated as needed.
Because if you criticise the Chinese government you disappear for a few months at best. If you’re unlucky you’re never seen again.
> countries you call "democracies" are allies of the United States, while countries you call "dictatorships"
That’s an extraordinarily bold claim and I think you should have to back it up with some evidence. Which of the countries that are called dictatorships do you think are unjustly labeled as such?
> Because if you criticise the Chinese government you disappear for a few months at best. If you’re unlucky you’re never seen again.
Wasn't too long ago that being considered too far on the left in the US was a professional and social death sentence.
Was neither too long ago that anybody who opposed illegal wars of aggression, torture, and state-sponsored assassinations, was deemed a "treacherous terrorist supporter" who might as well have flown the planes into the towers themselves, the earlier versions of that involved sending armed soldiers to violently break up peaceful student protesters ala Kent State.
Heck, "race riots" are a regular thing in the US to this day, yet somehow not considered political, nor the countless black activists that were jailed, left to live in exile, or straight up assassinated in the US [0], somehow none of that is considered "political" [1].
Add in the reality how the US has not just the biggest prison population, but also the highest incarceration rate on the planet, and it comes across as a bit tone-deaf to constantly evoke how in the "evil not US countries" people are allegedly getting vanished in droves, but never ever in the US [2].
If foreigners looked at us the way we describe them (insert X bogeyman) and the fact that we have the worlds largest concentration camp of black men ever known to mankind.... Now what would they call that.... And then we employ them as prison labor or putting out dangerous fires..... Now what we call that..... We have laws that severely criminalize things that blacks do (crack consumption in the 90s) and not really for whites (cocaine consumption)....and the list goes on and on.... we call lesser things in other countries ethnic genocide etc.... Our State Department loves wagging the finger at other countries for lesser things that we do systematically domestically like civil forfeiture on blacks... Our sanctimonious grandstanding op-eds call such things in other countries as autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorship, ethnic genocide, strongman leadership, fascism and so on.... Look forward to the downvotes for stating the obvious....
