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Thread: USIP: Constitutional Reform in Iraq: Improving Prospects, Political Decisions Needed

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    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot all limited the franchise extensively, while Hitler used the mechanisms and forms of democracy in 1932 to do the same.

    One of the things that bothers me a lot about the debates surrounding "democracy" is that there is very little discussion of the assumptions behind the franchise. It's a bit of a soapbox of mine left over from my time in politics.
    Idi Amin and Pol Pot never held elections. Stalin did not limit the franchise but rather banned all parties except the Communist Party, resulting often in single-candidate elections or elections where voters were given a choice of "yes/no" on the Party's selected candidate.

    These rulers ruled primarily through nondemocratic means, not through manipulation of democratic forms.

    I think better examples would be, for instance, Algeria under French rule, Rhodesia under the RF or South Africa under the National Party. In these cases, elections did matter as the winners did form governments that exercised power --- however these governments were not democratic as significant portions of the population were excluded through franchise limitation.
    Last edited by tequila; 09-05-2007 at 05:11 PM.

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