Tocquevillian Lessons on the Failure of Democratic State-Building

Alexis de Tocqueville argues that democracy is inevitable for all nations. However, for a successful democracy to emerge, it must be compatible with the people’s existing social state, history, and mores. Thus, a democracy established by external forces will not stabilize until met by an internal social state compatible with democracy. Democratic state-building is not inherently problematic – rather, it is the imposition of democracy in places where existing laws, habits, and traditions do not align with democratic governance. Utilizing Tocqueville’s theories and an examination of case studies, this article will show that when democracy is imposed on a nation whose unique experiences have not already prepared them to develop democracy independently, democratic state-building efforts are unlikely to succeed. U.S. policymakers should consider a foreign policy combining cosmopolitanism and confidence in self-determination, which would allow for the independent development of democracy in a way that best suits local conditions.

1. Democratic State-Building as Foreign Policy

Over the last century, the United States government has, along with international organizations, repeatedly attempted to impose democratic governments in places with little to no democratic history, backing it with the resources of the largest military in the world. French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America may explain why these modern democratic state-building efforts have failed. Through his monolithic tome, Tocqueville infers why American democracy is distinctly unique to the country where it was developed and cannot be replicated, fabricated, or exported abroad. His analysis of American democracy indicates why a democratic government cannot be imposed on a previously non-democratic society and the consequences of doing so. Tocqueville writes that democracy is formed over time by a particular people who share similar political opinions, mores, and experiences in a geographical locality that supports democracy. Each new democracy requires specific environmental conditions to thrive – conditions that cannot be manufactured by any external force. In turn, exportation of democratic systems and institutions fails because democratic ideals cannot be sustainably forced onto a people unwilling or unready to support them. Any imposed political order that is opposed to a people’s traditional or historical forms of government, or their preferences, will be unstable and highly unlikely to take root. External efforts to establish a democratic government without the necessary internal conditions are likely to result in backsliding and chaos.

In Section 2, this article explains key terms that will be utilized throughout the text in reference to Tocqueville’s theories. In Section 3, it will examine the development of American democracy through Tocqueville’s lens to show why the American democratic formula is unique and demonstrate the challenges that come with developing a new democracy. This will provide context as to why each democracy functions uniquely in the state within which it was developed. Then, in Section 4, this article will analyze Tocqueville’s theory on the inevitability of democracy and offer key exceptions to his prediction. Sections 5 and 6 will discuss why democracy cannot be exported and an imposed democratic system is unlikely to succeed through the contemporary examples of democratic state-building failures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Focusing on key issues, including the consideration of existing social and governmental structures and the importance of allowing democracy to develop over time, will demonstrate how local conditions and the inflexibility of the social state can render democratic state-building ineffective. Finally, in Sections 7 and 8, this article will examine nations that are commonly listed as examples of democratic state-building success but actually represent democratic reconstruction and suggest a new path forward for the United States in its efforts to support democracy around the world.

2. Tocqueville’s Social State, Equality of Conditions, and the Mores of the People

First published in 1835, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America explains why the American form of democracy has remained successful for so long. During his stay in the United States (1831-1832), Tocqueville observed ‘the American’ as a political entity and sought to understand how democracy functioned in a space as large and unique as North America.

To understand Tocqueville’s observations, a discussion of terms is necessary. First, and most important, is the ‘social state.’ According to Tocqueville, the social state is the “material and intellectual condition in which a people finds itself in a given period” (Tocqueville 2000, 74). For Tocqueville, this social state is commonly a result of fact or law, but it is usually a product of both. He adds: “Once [the social state] exists, it can itself be considered the first cause of most of the laws, customs and ideas that regulate the conduct of nations; what it does not produce, it modifies” (Tocqueville 2000, 74). The democratic social state means that there is no longer a noble class or landed, titled aristocrats who inherit their social positions and wealth as a result of their family’s long historical standing. Under democratic conditions, everyone is an individual who must work for what they have. This universal need to work for the material and societal advantages one possesses is referred to as ‘the equality of conditions.’ Tocqueville also makes frequent use of the term ‘mores’ which he defines as “the whole moral and intellectual state of a people … the diverse opinions that are current among them … the whole range of ideas that shape habits of mind” (Tocqueville 2000, 331). The mores of the American people incline them to prefer democratic self-government. Each of these terms – the social state, equality of conditions, and mores – has a direct impact on the ability of a democracy to flourish and develop over a long period. These terms serve as the basis of Tocqueville’s explanation of the key tenets of American democracy and can explain the failure and success of democratic systems in Afghanistan, Iraq, Japan, and Germany.

3. Development and Growth of American Democracy

When Tocqueville began his examination of American democracy, he noted several important historical conditions that facilitated the natural birth of the democratic system in the United States. One of the key conditions that he explained was the equality of conditions. Although early emigrants to the New World were from the wealthier part of society, they all faced the same struggles upon their arrival. Wealth was no longer of great significance and suddenly each individual had to fend for themselves and work to survive.^[1]  As a result, early settlers found themselves subject to the same material necessities and experienced little social stratification. According to Tocqueville, “Their gathering on American soil presented, from the origin, the singular phenomenon of a society in which there were neither great lords nor a people, and, so to speak, neither poor nor rich” (Tocqueville 2000, 32). Thus, when towns and villages began to develop, there was no noble class established to lead them. The people needed to find a way to govern themselves. And so, America built its democratic system from the ground up. Tocqueville compares the development of the United States to that of other nations, stating:

In most European nations, political existence began in the higher regions of society and was communicated little by little and always in an incomplete manner to the various parts of the social body. In America, on the contrary, one can say that the township has been organized before the county, the county before the state, the state before the Union. (Tocqueville 2000, 40)

This lengthy development allowed Americans to slowly learn how each part of the government ought to function and established a system which would permit local self-government even under a larger state and within a federal system. This is important, especially to the discussion of state-building, as when democracy is imposed, people do not have the opportunity to gradually establish their government, nor reorder their society in a way that best suits them and their new political system.

Yet another quality unique to American democracy during its development was the separation of church and state, as well as the benefits that such a system had for the Americans. While Christianity dominated political life in Europe, in America, there was no state religion: religion was primarily a private affair.^[2] Instead, because the emigrants to America belonged to persecuted religions, they learned that it was crucial to protect the free exercise of rights for everyone, to ensure the free exercise of their own (Tocqueville 2000, 276). Americans learned to allow politics and religion to develop side by side, without one invading the sphere of the other. Within Anglo-American civilization as a whole, Tocqueville argues that “it is the product (and this point of departure ought constantly to be present in one’s thinking) of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America, they have succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom” (Tocqueville 2000, 43). In keeping that unique balance between the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom, the church and the state each recognized that they should not interfere in the affairs of the other.

At the time of his visit to America, Tocqueville observed that priests refrained from involving themselves in politics, lest the dislike of their political views undermine the place of religion (Tocqueville 2000, 284). Yet, religion crossed into politics unofficially, leading Tocqueville to write that, “Religion … should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not give them a taste for freedom, it singularly facilitates their use of it” (Tocqueville 2000, 280). In other words, what law does not prohibit, religion prevents.^[3] In America, religious figures stayed out of politics, politics protected religion from persecution, and religion ensured that people would abide by the laws of democracy through its morals and tenets. While the ideal combination of religion and politics may differ for each country or peoples, this form was found suitable to the American political order.^[4] Through this secular political system, religion and civil freedom came to support each other while remaining separate entities. Tocqueville includes this argument in his ‘Point of Departure’ which underscores how unique the American experience is. It is important to note that Tocqueville focuses on the religion of Christianity as an example for the state of the Americans, but this does not deny the possibility of other religions developing their own system of relations between church and state in the course of their own democracy.

Without the rule of an aristocracy or direct religious influence in the government, the Americans relied on intellectual influences to guide their political decisions.^[5] In Tocqueville’s assessment, because all people shared an equality of conditions, each had the same general window of time during which they received an education or were interested in receiving one rather than going to work. Therefore, a level of common knowledge emerged amongst the general American population (Tocqueville 2000, 51). When a large group of people share the same level of knowledge and are influenced only by the thoughts and ideas of those inside the group, they tend to create a system of shared beliefs. Consequently, “One therefore encounters an immense multitude of individuals who have nearly the same number of notions in matters of religion, of history, of science, of political economy, of legislation, of government” (Tocqueville 2000, 51). For Tocqueville, this seemed to mean that Americans were “more equally strong than they are in any country in the world and than they have been in any century of which history keeps a memory” (Tocqueville 2000, 52). If equality was generally met in terms of education and wealth, then it follows that the same equality should be met by politics.

As a result of the length of time during which major aspects of American society (socio-economic status, level of education, social rank, and religious values) remained relatively unchanged, American democracy was able to develop over an extended period of time, in a way that was most beneficial for the majority of the people.^[6] However, this does not mean that the American system, or even democracy, will work for everyone. Recreating the conditions for American democracy is impossible because they are unique to a particular people at a particular time, in a particular country. And yet, Tocqueville believes that the entire world will eventually turn democratic.^[7] Therefore, Tocqueville must acknowledge the plausibility of other forms of democracy and different pathways to reach democracy.

4. Tocqueville’s Inevitability Thesis: Reservations

As Tocqueville reads the history of western Europe, every action and every movement furthers the emergence of democracy (Tocqueville 2000, 3-4). He perceives a global revolution which will turn the world toward a general equality of conditions and, inevitably, democracy. Tocqueville writes:

Everywhere the various incidents in the lives of peoples are seen to turn to the profit of democracy; all men have aided it by their efforts: those who had in view cooperating for its success and those who did not dream of serving it; those who fought for it and even those who declared themselves its enemies; all have been driven pell-mell on the same track, and all have worked in common, some despite themselves, others without knowing it, as blind instruments in the hands of God. The gradual development of equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it has the principal characteristics of one: it is universal, it is enduring, each day it escapes human power; all events, like all men, serve its development. (Tocqueville 2000, 6)

Tocqueville, in effect, posits his ‘inevitability thesis’ which states that all nations will eventually achieve an equality of conditions and identifies democracy as the final form of government.^[8] However, while Tocqueville is confident in the inevitability of democracy, he does not identify any single path by which an equality of conditions or democracy will be achieved – nor is Tocqueville certain on the exact form each new democracy will take.

While Tocqueville praises American democracy, he cautions that what has occurred in the United States does not delineate what is possible or not possible for other countries.^[9] Tocqueville was, after all, “very far from believing that [Americans] have found the only form of government that democracy can give itself” (Tocqueville 2000, 12). Of course, if other nations were to develop or impose the same social state, laws, and mores of the United States, there is no reason their democratic development should fail. However, such a feat would require a very specific formula across great lengths of time that is not replicable. Instead of telling his audience that every country should imitate the American democratic form, Tocqueville explains:

My goal has been to show, by example of America, that laws and above all mores can permit a democratic people to remain free. I am, for the rest, very far from believing that we ought to follow the example that American democracy has given and to imitate the means it has used to attain that goal by its efforts. (Tocqueville 2000, 302)

In other words, achieving democracy does not require that another nation duplicate American political forms or its process of democratization. Tocqueville’s inevitability thesis is therefore compatible with the possibility of alternative forms of democracy (Tocqueville 2000, 12). This qualification raises questions as to the veracity of the inevitability thesis in which, although an equality of conditions is an eventuality, there could be multiple democratic forms – or no democracy at all. Tocqueville goes so far as to admit that the equality of conditions could be compatible with democratic liberty or equality under despotism.^[10]  Therefore, the so-called inevitability thesis not only points to varieties of democracy, but to the emergence of tyranny.^[11] This is why Tocqueville’s concept of the social state is crucial. The social states of different peoples in different places support a variety of democratic forms, but it does not rule out the possibility that some people may come to democracy much later or possibly never at all.^[12]

5. The Social State and Limits of Democratic State-Building

For the United States to effectively assist nations in their political development, it is important to understand the limitations of democratic state-building.^[13] As Tocqueville explains, the American form of democracy is appropriate for Americans, but it may not be suitable for other peoples. Therefore, American democracy cannot be exported as a blueprint for state-building in nations with different backgrounds, cultural traditions, history, and mores. However, the ‘American form’ is not what is failing in these new democracies.

While the United States spreads democratic policies and institutions throughout the world, it does not seem to impose duplicates of American political institutions. And yet, American-established democracies continue to fail to reach their goal of political stability. It is not just the American form of democracy that cannot be exported, but the idea of democracy itself.

Democracy requires a symbiotic relationship with the people it supports: the people drive the democracy so that the democracy can best support the people. If the people are not able or inclined to participate, democracy may not be suitable. If a nation and its people are not at least somewhat prepared, either by previous democratic experiences or a strong, united, willingness to settle communal questions and disputes democratically, an imposed democracy is far more likely to fail than to succeed. Wherever a democracy is established, it must be supported by compatible mores, habits, and conditions, which form the basis of a democratic social state.

Moreover, if a nation does not introduce democratic institutions at a pace which permits the people to gradually adapt to the new political forms, a majority tutored in democratic principles may not emerge. Any imposed democracy has little time to establish roots politically, socially, or culturally and is ripe to be twisted into an authoritarian regime because there are few opportunities for the people to develop the necessary democratic mores. New voters may struggle to understand their power or have absolutely no faith in it, leading to low voter participation and a government which operates according to the will of the few rather than the many.

Writing one month before the departure of the United States from Afghanistan, Middle East Institute researcher Anna Larson notes that relatively high voter participation, a history of public participation in the selection of representatives, and a somewhat free media are perhaps indicators that “democracy is the right system for Afghanistan, but Afghan democracy needs to develop on its own terms without heavy-handed international intervention” (Larson 2021, 15). Certainly, the involvement of the United States in the Afghan political process left citizens feeling little connection to their new government. Larson explains:

This is not least because the supposedly simple, negotiated political compact between the Afghan people and their government has been complicated by the influence of the United States, which has had a strong impact on the outcome of elections. This influence has not only been felt in the general terms of the ongoing military occupation, but has also taken more specific forms, such as pressuring Karzai to run for president in 2004, having US ambassadors visit opposition candidates ahead of the presidential election in 2009 in an effort to dissuade Karzai from running, brokering the negotiations that led to the National Unity Government in 2014, and downplaying the significance of the 2019 elections because of simultaneous peace talks with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan administration. (Larson 2021, 14)

A lack of connection with their own elections, representatives, and institutions and little support from Kabul likely left those in the outer reaches of the country dissatisfied, disaffected, and disenfranchised by their new government. As a result, the Afghan social state, which is characterized by loyalty to ethnic and tribal groups, patriarchal family structures, and the predominance of Sharia law, endured despite the democratic change.

In Iraq, where an American-established democracy remains the recognized government, citizens face a more obvious disconnect with their representatives, and the parliament struggles to maintain the integrity of its borders. In 2003, American efforts to ensure equality among the many different Iraqi groups led to the creation of the Muhasasa system, which set a precedent that seats in parliament must be evenly distributed among ethnic, religious, and sectarian groups in Iraq based on demographic weight. Commenting on the impacts of this system, Wilson Center Middle East Fellow, Marina Ottaway, writes:

The election-based political process the United States imposed on Iraq after the occupation has not resulted in democracy. It has not resulted in governments that reflect the choices made by voters. It has not led to the formation of governments capable of even beginning to tackle the problems the country faces. I am not talking about the truly daunting, perhaps intractable problem of building some sense of common identity and purpose in the deeply divided country. I am talking of something much more banal, like restoring reliable electricity in a country rich in energy sources and with rapidly growing revenue from its oil exports. The system is too bogged down in the politics of balancing the factions to address policies that would improve the lives of Iraqis. (Ottaway 2023)

The disconnect between the decisions of voters and the Iraqi government was made clear after the 2021 election when, “Negotiations among the parties stretched for almost a year until October 2022, and the parliament that finally voted for the prime minister was not the one elected a year earlier” (Ottaway 2023).^[14] Part of what made negotiations so tedious and complicated is the deep ethnic and sectarian divisions within the Republic of Iraq. However, American influence in the construction of the parliamentary system played a large part in drawing out the electoral process.

Ottaway further suggests that people should “question the wisdom of imposing the system on countries where political conditions appear totally unsuitable. The experience of Iraq suggests that efforts to promote democracy can badly misfire, intensify divisions, and make countries practically ungovernable” (Ottaway 2023).^[15] Straight out of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime, it is unlikely that the people of Iraq would have been prepared to embrace the drastic democratic change the United States sought.

In Tocquevillian terms, the people were not given the time or opportunity to develop the social state, traditions, and mores which Tocqueville perceives to be conducive to democracy. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq currently possesses a government that can be considered a participatory democracy.^[16] Despite the efforts of external forces and a degree of internal cooperation, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq’s social state was prepared to support the democratic system that the United States intended to found.

6. Afghanistan: Centralized Democracy Over an Ingrained System

As much as the United States had hoped it would be, the democratic government of Afghanistan was not self-sustaining. Despite American efforts to train the Afghan military in preparation for their eventual departure, the Afghan government had grown dependent on the support of the U.S. military to remain in power. Left without that support and the appropriate gradual preparation for an independent centralized democracy, Afghanistan quickly re-oriented itself toward the way it was before the establishment of the 2001 interim administration.^[17] In Tocqueville’s terms, Afghanistan returned to its underlying social state. This is due in part to the tendency of nations to adopt the style of government most favored by their history, experience, and culture. A nation with a strong relationship to a particular political structure will continue to return to that system until, in Tocqueville’s words, the social state changes and justifies a different political system.

In Afghanistan, local councils of tribal elders served as a “critical foundation for public participation in governance” for their communities and composed an essential layer of the Afghan social state (Larson 2021, 17). In the same way that local leaders in the United States encourage people to participate in government and provide representation for their constituents, in Afghanistan, “Having one’s community, subtribe, or wider family represented by locally accountable, recognizable leaders is a familiar means through which both to resolve disputes when the presence of the state is minimal (or its intervention is undesired) and to communicate needs and concerns to the government” (Larson 2021, 17). The existence of this structure at the local level is suggestive of the potential for a larger democratic system.^[18] And yet, the central government of Afghanistan made few attempts to set any roots within local communities that are arguably the most important support system a successful democracy can have. Ignoring the significance of a crucial government structure, especially when trying to implement a system that uses the same structure, is not only counterintuitive, but it separates loyalties between local and central systems. Larson notes the tension between the new government and traditional structures:

Any attempt to secure more robust representation at the local level would also likely increase the intensity of opposition to the central government and increase pressure to devolve some of the powers of the presidency. Thus, Afghan presidents have, unsurprisingly, shown little interest in pursuing a path to strengthening local representation. (Larson 2021, 17)

Lack of interaction with the new central government, especially in more remote areas of Afghanistan, meant that loyalties naturally returned to the local level. Rather than encouraging the transformation to a centralized, democratic social state, attempts to monopolize power at the top levels of government actively pushed citizens to continue in their traditional social state and eventually contributed to the Afghan army’s failure to defend Kabul.^[19]

If the central government had made efforts to include the local tribal councils or adapt them to the new government, Afghanistan may have been more successful in bridging the gap between the existing social state and the emerging democracy. However, as co-director of the Centre on Armed Groups, Florian Weigand explains:

With the state focusing on protecting itself and so physically distancing itself from the people, it increasingly removed itself from the lives of most people. Research in rural areas of Afghanistan in 2014/15 found a commonly held view to be that the state was just a distant phenomenon, a project for largely corrupt elites and foreigners, something located somewhere in the district or provincial capital. Instead of engaging with the state, people relied on community authorities for issues such as conflict resolution as well as, increasingly over the years, the Taliban. (Weigand 2022)

The central government allowed a divide to grow between Kabul and the Afghan people, leading citizens outside the capital to become disaffected.^[20] As a result, many tribes turned to the Taliban for the support they should have found in the central government. The drastic change in the government of Afghanistan without a corresponding change in the Afghan social state created a situation in which people felt no connection to their leadership and believed the system was illegitimate while the government made little attempt to include the local population in the decision-making process. As a result, the democratic government faltered and returned to the previous political order.

The collapse of Afghanistan’s unitary presidential republic indicates that the centralized democratic structure implemented by the United States did not match the social state or other realities of Afghanistan. As a result, the government was forcefully returned to its previous social state. According to Tocqueville, the social state is a critical element in the formation of a democracy. Tocqueville recognizes that a variety of conditions affect the social state, but he does not discuss the inflexibility of the social state. A social state corresponds to a particular form of government and seems to resist external pressure to change. Transformation of the social state and therefore, the government, appears to depend on internal changes. This insight would serve as a moderating influence on Tocqueville’s own inevitability thesis and U.S. foreign policy. The imposition of democracy on an undemocratic social state leads to the return of an appropriate form of government that better matches the true social state of the people. However, such a dramatic shift may lead to the destabilization of any pre-existing political institutions and the nation as a whole.

7. Examples of State-Building Success

Proponents of democratic state-building often cite the success of the United States’ rebuilding of Germany and Japan and the Marshall Plan to support its effectiveness. These claims overlook that those countries were arguably ‘ready’ for democracy. In Tocqueville’s terms, they had social states amenable to democratic governance, a history of centralized government, and established political parties dedicated to democratic liberalism. Shlomo Ben-Ami, co-founder of the Toledo International Center for Peace, argues these state-building efforts were “undertaken in countries with histories of state capacity, functioning market economies and traditions of national cohesion” (Ben-Ami 2021). When the United States implemented the Marshall Plan after World War II, its major role was the reconstruction of the countries destroyed by the war (to varying degrees). Countries such as Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom had already achieved democratic governance on their own terms, which made it far easier for a stable democratic government to be revived. Therefore, the United States was not engaged in exporting democracy, as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, they were rebuilding on democratic foundations that were already present through economic and security-oriented support (Ben-Ami 2021). Jonathan Monten, professor at University College London writes:

The United States has been more successful when preserving existing state capacity than when attempting to build state strength where it did not previously exist. In Japan, the US occupation preserved the strength of Japanese national institutions, and channeled this capacity toward supporting a series of liberalizing reforms. In Iraq, by contrast, the United States made decisions that substantially undermined the scope and strength of the Iraqi state, and struggled to fill the ensuing vacuum of political authority. (Monten 2014, 175)

However, the success of American state-building and the places they chose to attempt it changed drastically after the Cold War and generally failed. Since the Cold War, as Ben-Ami points out: “In a range of countries–including, in Africa alone, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and South Sudan– [the United States] launched protracted and expensive state-building initiatives that utterly ignored historical legacies and sociopolitical contexts. Today, these states remain highly fragile” (Ben-Ami 2021).  It goes without saying that Be-Ami makes a Tocquevillian conclusion about a continent that Tocqueville himself never considered.

According to the 2024 Fragile States Index, Somalia remains the most fragile state in the world, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo closely behind in fifth place. Afghanistan follows in seventh place and Iraq in the thirty-first. Countries that did not achieve a stable democracy shared three common elements: they were not on track to reach democracy on their own, they were pushed into democracy, and their historical and traditional styles of governance were ignored. Europe’s success concealed from American policymakers the limits of state-building.

8. Considerations for the Future

Despite numerous attempts, the repeated failure of democratic systems established by the United States suggests that policies of external democratic state-building concerning states with recent histories of non-democratic governance histories will have limited success. While Democracy in America was written almost 200 years ago, Tocqueville’s assessments remain accurate and significant, and his insights can be seen in modern examples such as Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to preserve the possibility of a natural transition to democracy, foreign nations should refrain from attempting to establish democratic systems in countries that are not historically or socially prepared for such a transition. In Tocqueville’s assessment, every nation has the potential to become a democracy. International intervention, however, seems to have only hindered this process. It is unfortunate that in attempting to speed up democratic progress around the world, interference in the historic political structures of other nations has caused, in some cases, significant setbacks.

The U.S. continues to try to force countries to accept democratic policies through international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and direct interference in governments. However, as Tocqueville explains, democracy must come about through the will of the people and with the support of a number of other local factors, such as history, culture, and even geography in order for it to succeed.^[21] Perhaps if Tocqueville’s definition of the American democratic process and the perfect conditions required for its development were better understood, the United States would not try so hard to force a democratic transformation and unintentionally make the situation worse. Lawmakers, strategists, and politicians must understand that democracy cannot be imposed onto a nation against the will of its people and that there are many conditions that all worked together in America’s case to make democracy viable.

In Tocqueville’s words, there is a government that corresponds to every country’s social state, which is composed of laws, traditions, mores, habits, geography, and religion, and allows it to flourish. For each nation in which democracy has failed, there is another government that will succeed. Eventually, each nation will establish a government that best suits its social state, even if it is not a democracy. The United States and democratic governments around the world must recognize that democracy may not be the solution for all and that the choice to establish a democracy is essential for its long-term stability and success.

What is needed is a more cosmopolitan view of politics where any democratic prejudice can be put aside in favor of an openness to other political possibilities. Going forward, U.S. policymakers should remain open to the possibility that conditions may not support democratic governance and that different systems of government might work for different people with different social states, mores, and histories. A foreign policy combining cosmopolitanism and confidence in self-determination would leave enough space for people around the world to eventually develop democracy on their own, should their social state and local conditions support the transition.

References

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Larson, A. (2021). Democracy in Afghanistan: Amid and Beyond Conflict. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-Y3_P31-PURL-gpo158811/pdf/GOVPUB-Y3_P31-PURL-gpo158811.pdf.

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Tocqueville, A. de. (2000). Democracy in America, translated and edited by H. C. Mansfield and D. Winthrop. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Weigand, F. (2022). Why Did the Taliban Win (Again) in Afghanistan? LSE Public Policy Review, 2(3), 5.