- Authors: Thomas R. Seitz, Ph.D.
- From: Global And Area Studies Program, University Of Wyoming, USA
Abstract:
How does one ‘teach’ democracy to a society that has long known only authoritarian rule? Too often, analysts of democratizing societies, scholars and practitioners alike, focus on the events and procedures of democracy rather than its underlying processes. Such analyses seem to assume that the democratizing society is like, for lack of a better example, an iPod plugging into a larger computer, that the transitioning society effectively ‘syncs up’ with the global body of democratic theory and practice, embodying the norms, expectations and other elements one associates with a democracy’s political culture. Often, one forgets just how gradually Western democracies democratized. For example, the United States has been expanding the breadth of its electorate over two centuries, most recently from twenty–?one to eighteen year–?olds in the 1971. Members of the U.S. Senate have been directly elected only since 1913, and the United States still does not directly elect its president, relying on the Electoral College. In contrast, Indonesia has democratized broadly and rapidly in less than two decades, developing the procedures and institutions of a functioning democracy with amazing speed. Yet, while analysts generally focus on changes to institutions at the top, far less attention has been devoted to democratization at the grassroots level. How do people develop the ethos, attitudes and expectations required for effective participation? Further, what inputs shape these political development processes? Finally, is the West’s experience with democracy an appropriate and useful framework for analyzing Indonesia’s democratic transition?
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