Sunday, January 02, 2005

Eric J. Hobsbawm: Spreading Democracy

Spreading Democracy: The World's Most Dangerous Idea
Eric J. Hobsbawm
Foreign Policy

We are at present engaged in what purports to be a planned reordering of the world by the powerful states. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are but one part of a supposedly universal effort to create world order by “spreading democracy.” This idea is not merely quixotic—it is dangerous. The rhetoric surrounding this crusade implies that the system is applicable in a standardized (Western) form, that it can succeed everywhere, that it can remedy today’s transnational dilemmas, and that it can bring peace, rather than sow disorder. It cannot.


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