Can democratic states transplant the seeds of democracy into developing
countries?
What have political thinkers going back to the Greek city-states thought about their
capacity to promote democracy? How can democracy be established in divided societies? In
this timely volume a distinguished group of political scientists seeks answers to these
and other fundamental questions behind the concept known as "democracy
promotion." Following an illuminating concise discussion of what political
philosophers from Plato to Montesquieu thought about the issue, the authors explore the
structural preconditions (culture, divided societies, civil society) as well as the
institutions and processes of democracy building (constitutions, elections, security
sector reform, conflict, and trade). Along the way they share insights about what policies
have worked, which ones need to be improved or discarded, and, more generally, what
advanced democracies can do to further the cause of democratization in a globalizing
world. In other words, they seek answers to the question, Is democracy exportable?
Contents
Introduction: promoting democracy Marc F. Plattner; Part I. A Moral Imperative?: 1. The
morality of exporting democracy: an historical-philosophical perspective Thomas L. Pangle;
Part II. Structural Preconditions: 2. Re-integrating the study of civil society and the
state Sheri Berman; 3. Encountering culture M. Steven Fish; 4. Does democracy work in
deeply divided societies? Daniel Chirot; 5. Democracy, civil society, and the problem of
tolerance Adam Seligman; Part III. Institutions and Processes: 6. Electoral engineering in
new democracies: can preferred electoral outcomes be engineered? Robert G. Moser; 7. Does
it matter how a constitution is created? John Carey; 8. Building democratic armies Zoltan
Barany; 9. Democratization, conflict, and trade Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder; 10.
Exporting democracy: does it work? Mitchell Seligson, Steven Finkel, and Aníbal
Pérez-Linán; Conclusion Nancy Bermeo.
316 pages, Paperback