More like if they are lucky to have above subsistence living, and they (specifically the men) have sufficient time and are smart enough to organize and, eventually, over generations, create a culture of democracy and trust, AND a foreign power does not come in to meddle with progress or perhaps put in their own dictator, THEN “they” will have it.
I would even go so far as to say the process has to be started by consolidating power to one tribe, and then that tribe eventually adopts it. If you walk into a land with multiple competing tribes, and you enforce democracy on it, it will usually not work because there is insufficient trust/alliance amongst the people of the country.
Do you have some empirical basis for all of this? (I don't at my fingertips - it would be great if you do!)
Let's name the elephant in the room: It's trendy to talk down democracy these days, by the megalomaniacs who think they should rule the world and be unbound by others, by dictators, by the right wing in the US and other places which wants to impose its vision on everyone else.
IMHO it's children toying with matches while the house is about to be bulldozed. We'd better start standing up for democracy soon.
In particular:
> specifically the men
Why the men? At least one well-known theory is that the education and development of women is tightly correlated to overall development.
> If you walk into a land with multiple competing tribes, and you enforce democracy on it, it will usually not work because there is insufficient trust/alliance amongst the people of the country.
The problem is 'enforcing democracy' on anyone; they need to want it because they need to do it themselves. Outsiders can only do a small amount of the work.
Democracy is designed for and works better (than alternatives) for those situations: For example, the US at its founding was in many respects 13 separate countries; they sometimes had different currencies, fought battles against each other, etc.
A democratic mechanism allows them to resolve those differences by votes and laws instead of by violence. Another problem with 'enforced' democratic mechanisms, IMHO, is that they drop a default structure on the country rather than one created for their political situation. For example, Iraq used a parliamentary democracy, where perhaps, with the great division between Sunni, Kurd, and Shiite populations, something that structured power around three 'states' might have worked better.
It doesn't create a nirvana; it can't make people agree nor magically create a wealthy, developed nation, but it perhaps makes the best of what you have. It does create peace and freedom and rule of law.
I don’t mean to talk democracy down, it’s great in my opinion.
It’s just the initial conditions under which democracy can flourish may require being un-democratic first.
>Why the men? At least one well-known theory is that the education and development of women is tightly correlated to overall development.
Because they are physically more powerful. A tribe of men able and willing to dish out damage is usually only stopped by another similar tribe. So there has to be a critical mass of them (specifically the leaders) who are willing to forego violence and accept compromise.
We have an easy example before us. Israel and Palestine or Russian and Ukraine. Two or more tribes want the same land, and there is no sufficient middle for there to be middle ground.
So if you were to draw a line around the perimeter of both tribes and setup a democracy, it’s probably not going to work out.
> Why the men? At least one well-known theory is that the education and development of women is tightly correlated to overall development.
Absolutely. It’s a fool’s errand to try to develop the men without prioritizing the development of women (ie mothers of men). I’d even go as far as to say the underdevelopment of women directly results in the corruption of whole society; how many vandals, militants, and generally corrupt men are the result of absent or uneducated mothers?
More like if they are lucky to have above subsistence living, and they (specifically the men) have sufficient time and are smart enough to organize and, eventually, over generations, create a culture of democracy and trust, AND a foreign power does not come in to meddle with progress or perhaps put in their own dictator, THEN “they” will have it.
I would even go so far as to say the process has to be started by consolidating power to one tribe, and then that tribe eventually adopts it. If you walk into a land with multiple competing tribes, and you enforce democracy on it, it will usually not work because there is insufficient trust/alliance amongst the people of the country.