Turkey's Presidential Takeover?

[Valmy]

I do not think liberalism is necessary to being a Democracy.  A country can be democratic and still be illiberal.  Singapore is an example of this.  The earliest Greek Democracies were not liberal, and early American Democracy would be seem as rather oppressive by our standards.

Do you have a better example than Singapore?

[Razgovory]

I do not think liberalism is necessary to being a Democracy.  A country can be democratic and still be illiberal.  Singapore is an example of this.  The earliest Greek Democracies were not liberal, and early American Democracy would be seem as rather oppressive by our standards.

Do you have a better example than Singapore?

Post Soviet Russia.  The US South from 1870's to 1960's.  South Africa.

[Malthus]

The issue isn't "liberalism" is some wider sense, but something very specific - "liberalism" meaning some system or attitude that guarantees that the winners of elections will exercise restraint in dealing with the losers, so that it makes sense for the losers to give their loyalty to the system rather than rebelling against it.

The examples of South Africa and the US South are useful: South Africa's democracy rather expressly relies for its existence on a guarantee that the majority will not take revenge on the White minority for Apartheid; the US South relied, for years, on a systematic repression of the Black minority - which ended when it became clear that ongoing revolts against the system were a serious possibility, if some measure of liberalism were not imposed.

In short, a "winner takes all" democracy lacking any such notion of liberalism (in the narrow sense) would be difficult to keep stable: the losing minority would have no reason to accept the legitimacy of the system.

[Valmy]

I do not think liberalism is necessary to being a Democracy.  A country can be democratic and still be illiberal.  Singapore is an example of this.  The earliest Greek Democracies were not liberal, and early American Democracy would be seem as rather oppressive by our standards.

Do you have a better example than Singapore?

Post Soviet Russia.  The US South from 1870's to 1960's.  South Africa.

Post-Soviet Russia almost immediately fall into totalitarianism.  Those other two states did have liberal values, it is just that having second class citizens based on race is not necessarily inconsistent with that.  Granted there were issues like that coup in Wilmington North Carolina which, as far as I know, is the only time an elected US government was overthrown by force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898

But beyond that...

[Razgovory]

Er, no.  Putin is not Totalitarian.  North Korea is Totalitarian.

[Valmy]

Er, no.  Putin is not Totalitarian.  North Korea is Totalitarian.

Ok then what is he?

[Martinus]

Funny stuff: people taking Raz's trolling seriously.

[dps]

Er, no.  Putin is not Totalitarian.  North Korea is Totalitarian.

Ok then what is he?

Authoritarian.

[DGuller]

Talking about Putin when you talk about the death of Russian democracy is misleading.  Russian democracy barely started and very quickly ended with Yeltsin.  Yeltsin was never going to lose the 1996 election, regardless of how Russian people voted.

[grumbler]

Funny stuff: people taking Raz's trolling seriously.

Given that he thinks that drug dealing = "libertarianism," I am surprised anyone gives his postings a second thought.

[Ed Anger]

Er, no.  Putin is not Totalitarian.  North Korea is Totalitarian.

Ok then what is he?

Short.

[Razgovory]

Funny stuff: people taking Raz's trolling seriously.

Given that he thinks that drug dealing = "libertarianism," I am surprised anyone gives his postings a second thought.

I'm glad you read that one.  The guy who set it up was a self described libertarian and in his legal defense he described it as a "market experiment".

[Razgovory]

Talking about Putin when you talk about the death of Russian democracy is misleading.  Russian democracy barely started and very quickly ended with Yeltsin.  Yeltsin was never going to lose the 1996 election, regardless of how Russian people voted.

Note, I did not say "Post Yeltsin Russia".

[Jacob]

Er, no.  Putin is not Totalitarian.  North Korea is Totalitarian.

Ok then what is he?

Garden variety corrupt pseudo-democrat, possibly transitioning to straight up dictatorship.

But yeah, Putin wishes he was totalitarian, but he doesn't have that level of control I don't think.

[Tonitrus]

I think the Russian government is basically run like SPECTRE.  But with less cat stroking.