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> Same story everywhere - nothing much changed after the Arab spring protests, for example. Except in Tunisia, which is the one success story from that time pe
by autarch 7y ago
> Same story everywhere - nothing much changed after the Arab spring protests, for example.
Except in Tunisia, which is the one success story from that time period. It's now a functioning democracy. Of course the real test is how it does over the long term, but at least so far it's an example of real change in the region.
- BurningFrog 7y agoRevolutions don't produce democracies.
- LevGoldstein 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
- riffraff 7y agoalso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Revolution there have been quite a few "successful" revolutions.
- BurningFrog 7y agoFirst sentence: "The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 29 December 1989. When I say that "Revolutions don't produce democracies", I'm talking about violent revolutions. A "non violent revolution" is a contradiction on terms to me.
- icebraining 7y agoI disagree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
- gdhbcc 7y agoThat was an utter and complete failure in every sense of the word. And in any case the reasons behind it had nothing to do with a desire for democracy
- 24gttghh 7y agoSo, Portugal is not a functioning democracy now? That's news to me.
- icebraining 7y ago> That was an utter and complete failure in every sense of the word. No, if it was a failure the previous system and people would have remained in power. Though some did, there was an irrefutable change - whatever qualms one might have with the new regime. > And in any case the reasons behind it had nothing to do with a desire for democracy Each person has their reasons. The Group of Nine would certainly disagree with your claim.
- lacker 7y agoOne counterexample is the American Revolution.
- billfruit 7y agoI doubt if the early United States was very much democratic in the modern sense.
- wolco 7y agoIt was probably more so then now rather than less.
- wolf550e 7y agoWhen only white land owning men could vote?
- SllX 7y agoThe status quo. You’re condemning men for maintaining the status quo in order to agree on something going forward on a handful of issues when every other word was essentially revolutionary. This is prior to the Article I branch of government, Congress, abdicating much of its power and creating this myth of coequal branches of government, and when House districts were a lot smaller, and you and your neighbors has to decide between yourselves who was in charge of certain functions of keeping society going. You know, who was going to be the local Sheriff, who was going to run the local court, who was going to deliver the mail and so on. Many of these jobs were boring and without glory, but someone had to do them. Had Madison’s Virginia Plan been implemented in full and the Connecticut Compromise wasn’t implemented, it would likely have been more democratic still. Structurally, the United States constitution is overwhelmingly democratic, and especially for the time it was written and ratified. If it has grown less democratic at all, it is due to factors the signers and ratifiers of the Constitution could never have predicted that occurred in the 230 years since. No one could have foreseen Congress would abdicate much of it’s power and responsibilities in the 20th Century, or that the Industrial Revolution would lead to the single greatest explosion of the human population in history, or that we would choose to let in so many foreigners. Nobody thought each House member would be representing a district in the hundreds of thousands at a time when they thought one House member per 50K might be too few. Is it democratic? Oh yes. It is the most democratic document of its time, and few legal documents written since then could plausibly claim to be more so.
- lightedman 7y agoAmerican Revolution. French Revolution. The entirety of the European Revolutions in the 1850s. The Carnation Revolution. In more modern times, revolutions have pretty much resulted in more democracies than at any other time period.
- amyjess 7y agoI don't know if the French Revolution is a good example. It certainly didn't produce a stable democracy. The First Republic quickly turned into an empire, and they didn't get a long-lasting democracy until the Third Republic in 1870, about 80 years after the Revolution.
- BurningFrog 7y agoWell, when a society is ready for democracy, removing the old regime can produce democracy. If it's a domestic dictatorship, it will usually evolve into a democracy on its own. If it's a foreign power oppressing an inherently democratic nation, a revolution might have good results. This is one way to think of the American Revolution, as well as the Eastern European liberation. You should read up on the French Revolution. It led to phenomenal amounts of tyranny and war. The small flickers of democracy were soon extinguished.
- Kalium 7y agoIt is difficult to portray the French Revolution as a successful democratic revolution with a straight face. The result was chaos, terror, death, and then Napoleon. Napoleon was, to put it somewhat mildly, not much of a democrat.
- yellowapple 7y agoDon't forget Mexico, Brazil, and a bunch of other Latin American nations.
- munk-a 7y agoThen what does produce democracies? There are a bunch of those about at the moment and, while some of them are faux democracies installed by freedom-loving-america there are several legitimate democracies - were they all voluntary transitions initiated by the former monarchs?
- Kalium 7y agoDemocracies come about more often from gradualist reforms than from revolutions. Revolutions have a distinct tendency - though obviously this is not a hard rule - to produce strongman governments whose primary claim to legitimacy is that they ended the chaos of the revolution.
- BurningFrog 7y ago> Then what does produce democracies? European history is not a secret. It was mostly gradual reforms over decades, ending in women's vote around 1920. On another level, you can think of it as a rising middle class demanding and getting political influence proportional to their economical power.
- coryfklein 7y agoCanada is one example of a country that did not need a revolution to gain its independence.
- arcticbull 7y agoWell we just stood around until the UK imploded, and they told us we were off on our own haha. Canada rode the wave of deconialization that, it could be argued, began when the UK lost Hong Kong to Japan in WWII. Losing HK to Japan showed the empire could no longer defend its colonies and the bubble popped. It’ll be a while before we find out if such a strategy is effective in the PRC. I mean, we still celebrate July 1st as Canada Day. I like to joke that it’s “Dependence Day” since it celebrates the signing of the British North America Act, which, and I’m paraphrasing here, says “this whole Queen thing is working for us let’s keep it going.” As compared to the Declaration of Independence, which, well, you know the rest.
- 0max 7y agobut is it a bloodless revolution or is bloodshed involved? that matters a lot
- jakeogh 7y agoThey do however produce Constutional Republics.
- tlynchpin 7y agoThere was a street seller who was so distressed by the economic conditions and especially the petty corruption that he publicly set himself on fire. Almost a decade later, possibly the cops on the beat shakedown situation has improved but general man on the street economic conditions are not improved in Tunisia. It is not apparently (yet) a success story.