The Coming Anarchy is Kaplan’s most famous article, but an equally important article, which became the second chapter in the Coming Anarchy book, was a depressing thesis on the value of elections and democracy: “Was Democracy Just A Moment?” For those readers unfamiliar with this part of Kaplan’s work, I’d highly recommend you check it out. To give you a taste:

In the fourth century A.D. Christianity’s conquest of Europe and the Mediterranean world gave rise to the belief that a peaceful era in world politics was at hand, now that a consensus had formed around an ideology that stressed the sanctity of the individual. But Christianity was, of course, not static. It kept evolving, into rites, sects, and “heresies” that were in turn influenced by the geography and cultures of the places where it took root. Meanwhile, the church founded by Saint Peter became a ritualistic and hierarchical organization guilty of long periods of violence and bigotry. This is to say nothing of the evils perpetrated by the Orthodox churches in the East. Christianity made the world not more peaceful or, in practice, more moral but only more complex. Democracy, which is now overtaking the world as Christianity once did, may do the same.

In a nutshell, Kaplan argues that the world is complex—you can’t just dump a system of democratic government on the far reaches of the world and expect them to succeed without the basic institutions necessary for a stable democracy. He invokes plenty of history. Hitler and Mussolini came to power in elections. Plenty of countries have had elections and chosen tyranny over freedom—Algeria, Bosnia, and Sierra-Leone to name a few—while others face collapse partially because of elections—Venezuala, Russia, and Egypt. And many non-democratic nations would be far more reactionary if the people had the chance to elect their own leaders: China, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are the first countries that come to mind.

Kaplan argues that instead of trying to apply elections as a bandaid solution, let democracy emerge last. The successful democracies that emerged in the last 30 years were countries already blessed with a functioning civil society and a strong middle class: Chile, Spain, Greece, Taiwan, South Korea, and Portugal, to name a few. Without the foundation that made those countries successful, elections often do more harm than good.

The complete article can be read at the Atlantic Monthly web page, or at elsewhere on the web here. I’ve also mentioned the article in this previous post on democracies versus dictatorships.

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