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by The_Colonel 637 days ago
> in fact, democracy has been the undoing of my home country

Are you sure that it's the democracy which is the cause of your country's trouble?

If we consider the counterfactual scenario where your country was not democratic, instead ruled either by some autocrat, theocracy, military junta or something similar, how would that go? While you can find examples of dysfunctional democracies, it still appears to have a better success rate than non-democratic systems.

1 comments

don’t get me wrong, i strongly believe that when a people are fit for it, democracy is the best political organization. but they have to be fit for it. the west transitioned into democracy when they were fit for it but are gradually transitioning out and hiding real political power behind government agencies that are unaffected by the whims and caprices of the crowd (aka electorates). miniature monarchies/tyrannies/etc reign in the west now. in my opinion, this makes sense and is invariably better especially in the world we currently live in. eg the united states cannot allow a series of bad elections to lead to its annihilation.
Well, I get that democracy does not automatically mean rainbows and unicorns and can get dysfunctional.

My question is - what's the alternative which would work better for your country? Looking at your profile, you're from Africa, where the typical alternative is either a military junta or a theocracy. Why do you think that those would lead to better outcomes in your country?

monarchy. we have a lot more history with this organization. there still exists a strong allegiance to the tribe (original nation) over the independent, makeshift nation (ie contiguous pieces of land formerly ruled by a colonial master).
Would such a monarchy remain stable enough to survive? In the whole of Africa, there's only one absolute monarchy (Swaziland).

> there still exists a strong allegiance to the tribe (original nation) over the independent, makeshift nation

Perhaps too strong allegiance? In places where the centralized state becomes weak / collapses, clan violence tends to intensify (Somalia, South Sudan). These larger "makeshift" nations seem to have a somewhat calming effect on the ethnic conflicts.