The Challenge of an Asymmetrical World

Abdou Filali-Ansary

While Alexis de Tocqueville was observing democracy at work in the New World, he constantly had in mind the prospects for democracy in Europe. Inspired by what he witnessed in America, he was led to ponder the processes through which democracy was emerging in tradition-laden societies like his native France. Comparison, or rather asymmetry, is always present in his thought. Thus while democracy is part of the destiny of human societies, it does not arrive everywhere at the same time, nor is it born complete and in identical forms. Its basic principles are certainly the same, but the historical processes through which it comes into existence are different, as they are shaped by particular conditions and conjunctures.

This is one of the aspects of Tocqueville's thought that is most relevant to our present conditions. Asymmetry is still with us. In fact, nowadays it is the main feature of our situation, and it constitutes the greatest challenge to our understanding of human societies and the ways in which they change. Of course, the "actors" in this asymmetry are no longer the same, since today we consider "Western" countries, whether North American or European, to have already attained a working form of democracy, while the countries of the "South" are (hopefully) on the path leading to it. "West" and "South," it is true, are very broad and inaccurate categories, as is suggested by the asymmetry of the geographical positions to which they refer. This is but one aspect of the difficulty of intellectually grasping the character of the "great divide" between contemporary societies, which now has democracy as one of its basic criteria. [End Page 79]

How different is the present situation from the one described by Tocqueville? And to what extent can his intuitions help us to understand our own times?

Democracy in its modern incarnation (as opposed to the Athenian-style democracy of the ancient world) was born by chance, says Tocqueville. It is kept alive by a combination of natural or accidental conditions--for example, the open spaces and rich resources offered by newly discovered America--and systems consciously designed by human beings, such as the laws and regulations established by communities of settlers. The most important cause, however, of the success of American democracy is a constellation of specific attitudes, with religious beliefs, worldviews, philosophical understandings, and ethical principles interwoven in a such a way that they could play a determinant role.

We may refer to this threefold categorization of the causes that maintain democracy (I, ch. 17) as Tocqueville's "triad." Democracy can emerge (but does not necessarily do so) whenever three basic factors are present. The first factor is the conditions for economic and social prosperity. The second is a social order defined by some kind of positive law. The third is what we would call nowadays a complex of conceptions and attitudes, where culture and ethics define a pattern of expectations and behavior.

This third and most influential element of the triad is at the same time the most difficult to grasp and to act upon. How can we make people feel more confidence in their neighbors rather than being distrustful? How can we make them be more cooperative and more respectful of moral principles? We know that this third element is necessary for the success of democracy, but the question of how to achieve the required changes in people's attitudes and beliefs demands the most intense mobilization of human understanding.

Development and Democratization

As we proceed further, we have to stress that, beyond the formal and easy similarity between what Tocqueville described and the present situation (what we may call the two forms of asymmetry), there are very powerful and evident differences. First, the prospects of economic progress are far from equal on both sides of the "great divide." Affluence continues to grow at a faster pace in the West, creating new problems by its very progress. It is highly uncertain, however, whether the countries of the South will ever catch up, or even reach the point where they can provide what is nowadays considered a minimal level of basic needs for their people.

A few decades ago, theories built on the concept of "dependency" were flourishing, together with clear-cut doctrines of economic [End Page 80] development and strong expectations that these would succeed. The main explanation of what was labeled as "underdevelopment" referred to various forms that asymmetry had taken: exploitation, colonization, imperialism. According to these views, the development of Western societies had been made possible by the submission of those of the South. The latter had been abruptly removed from the traditional order that they had built. They had been accustomed to carrying on economic activities, maintaining ecological balance, and establishing social and political orders within conceptual and practical systems that had stabilized into a kind of equilibrium. With the advent of modernity, however, they were thrown into new conditions in which they could observe modern life but without being able to gain access to it for themselves. The only way they could attain modern modes of production and ways of life, and the prosperity and dignity that were acknowledged to come with them, was to overcome their status as colonized and "peripheral" societies. The way to do so was to follow the same sequence of changes that had occurred in the countries of the West a few decades or centuries earlier. This was the model offered by nationalism, which considered the building of national states as the only strategy that could supply the tools and means needed to change the social and political order. With almost no questioning, nationalism was accepted as the best path to follow to create the possibility of taking more rational approaches to economic problems and to pave the way for the autonomy of Third World societies.

We know now that these hopes were disappointed. Building national states did provide local elites with ways of acting upon their social environments to an unprecedented extent. In a way, these local elites intensified and pushed forward the very changes initiated by the colonial powers against whom they had previously fought. They crushed traditional systems and rules and attempted to replace them with new ones, designed in a more or less rational and voluntaristic fashion, in order to overcome what they regarded as underdevelopment or backwardness. They achieved substantial improvements over previous standards in many sectors, especially in public health and education. Yet their greatest achievement was probably to inculcate their peoples with the idea of progress and the belief that it was their basic right to expect rises in living standards and levels of political participation. There thus arose in these societies the modern attitude par excellence, which is to have "great expectations" in terms of economic progress and popular influence on policy making. Hence we can understand that their frustrations, when they failed to attain these goals, were and remain great. These frustrations, more than anything else, determine the prevailing attitudes among the people of the South.

The local elites now seem to be turning their attention to the second element of Tocqueville's triad. Economic development is no longer [End Page 81] taken to be the first and most basic strategic change. The new focus is on the laws and regulations that are supposed to create environments favorable not only to economic development (by encouraging private investment) but also to the emergence and strengthening of civil societies. The favor that democracy now enjoys in these circles reflects this shift in perspective. Democracy is no longer regarded as a goal to be achieved only after economic development (pursued through authoritarian policies). Instead, democracy is now supposed to be a precondition for social and political development, which in turn are expected to lead to economic takeoff.

Will we discover in a few decades that this approach has not worked either? Should we wait until we meet with disappointment in our efforts at democratization before turning to the third element of Tocqueville's triad? The task may then be much harder, since accumulating frustrations will only compound the problem. Moreover, this is the area where voluntary action would seem to be the most difficult. How can one really achieve basic shifts in the moral attitudes of individuals and entire societies?

The Need for a Global Approach

Yet it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the victorious spread of modern technology and capitalism (today called "globalization") has changed the general conditions of humanity to such an extent that traditional models are no longer valid. The modes through which modernization was implemented in its initial stages have ceased to be appropriate for its extension to the entire world. The traditional state system, along with its ability to define and sustain the international order, is probably the greatest victim of these changes. Even within Western countries, state agencies, while still necessary for maintaining public order and providing basic economic infrastructures, are no longer the main actors in public life. Business organizations and civil society have emerged as players that, either directly or indirectly, wield great influence in dealing with most issues. States must now operate within constraints imposed by the expectations of the business community and of civil society. In the countries of the South, the state's task is even harder, since the problems are greater (even if business communities and civil societies are not as assertive) and its means are much more limited.

It is evident that the essential challenges confronting us today are global in their nature and scope. Preserving the environment, managing migration flows, containing political violence, regulating trade and investment--these issues can no longer be dealt with by individual states or even by cooperation among states. Thus Tocqueville's triad has to be modified in a way that takes into account the much greater challenges [End Page 82] that we face today. The terms of the problem at hand are not those that Tocqueville knew. He described societies with similar or even identical cultural backgrounds that functioned in different natural settings (the American wilderness vs. old European lands) and different legal environments (newly established communities of Puritans vs. tradition-laden communities), with America ahead of Europe in the overall evolution toward "equality." Today we have societies of different cultural backgrounds coexisting in a common global context, though it is still segmented through an international order of nation-states. These societies share a common context because humanity, for the first time in history, is united in the same "material civilization." Modern science and technology and the organization of production to which they give rise are now extended to the whole planet and determine the economic bases of life everywhere, even though the conceptions and worldviews of different societies are still determined by local traditions. The conditions required for democratization can no longer be produced through separate actions by each national community alone. At the same time, democracy within each national community seems itself to be one condition for the new and long-awaited global order.

Must we then replace the triad with a circle? The basic conditions of the triad, as they were identified by Tocqueville, are still valid, but today it seems that they cannot be successfully implemented without a global approach. This approach has, to speak the language of economists, both a "macro" and a "micro" level. The macro level refers to actions that have to be undertaken by transnational bodies and by segments of civil society that cut across states. Their task is to prevent (or at least to attenuate) any marginalization of particular nations or cultures. The field of action of these transnational forces may be linked to the second element of Tocqueville's triad. Their main task is to define a legal framework that would not only guarantee the basic rights of individuals but also define and enforce the conditions of equality among communities and persons. The goal is not to unify humanity under one political authority modeled on the national state--in a word, it is not to create a "world state." It is rather to prevent the cultural separations between human communities from being transformed into irreducible barriers and points of confrontation--that is, to prevent cultural differences from being magnified through political and economic decisions in a way that could lead to the feared "clash of civilizations." While the project of integrating humanity into a single national entity is to be avoided, the partition of humanity along cultural and "civilizational" lines (as has recently been imposed within the former Yugoslavia) must be prevented at any price.

This would provide a framework in which democratization within separate communities can be achieved. International law would have to play a role comparable in some ways to the laws elaborated by the [End Page 83] new communities in America and later by the traditional states of Europe. Its role would be to prevent violations of the (now universal) principles of equality. Equilibrium would have to be sought between the protection of the rights of individuals and the ordering of relationships among collective agencies, especially national states. The latter must be considered as means designed to serve the fundamental principles and not as ends in themselves. Their autonomy should not be considered as a justification for allowing them to disregard the principles of international equality.

Religion and Human Design

The "micro" level referred to here links us with the third element of Tocqueville's triad. It raises the question of the cultural, and more precisely the religious, prerequisites for democratization. The new religious and ethical attitudes that favored democracy in America were the consequence of wider changes in the relationships of man to nature and to the social order that affected different societies at different moments and in varying ways. These changes, whose effects were witnessed by Tocqueville in America, first occurred within the Protestant communities of Northern Europe. ¹ They subsequently spread, under various guises, to other societies, such as Japan and the predominantly Catholic countries of Southern Europe. These changes, which fostered the spread of civic-oriented behavior, have been described in a wealth of ways and through different vocabularies.

These changes ultimately seem to be based on a profound shift in religious attitudes. They appear to require an attenuation of adhesion to dogmas and to the observance of rites, or at least a different understanding of dogmas and rites, which cease to be regarded as universal and ultimate truths and obligations that are valid in all times and places and incompatible with all other norms. This shift entails an abandonment of the type of fundamentalist attitude that regards religion as providing an ultimate "constitution" governing not only individual creeds and behavior but also the social and political order. It is not incompatible, however, with the view that religion provides ultimate truths and rules of conduct, so long as these are not conceived as a universally binding set of divine dogmas opposed to any human conceptions and norms. This latter form of religious belief (which may even include some forms of fundamentalism) can lead to the creation of closed communities that adhere to their own views and rules, but are willing to live together with other communities under the (liberal) laws prevailing in the place where they happen to settle. The first type of fundamentalist view, by contrast, opposes any set of "humanly" designed norms and views, either in the field of individual thought and action or in the public arena. [End Page 84]

The shift to "liberal" religious attitudes finds its greatest opposition from certain religious communities, among which communities of Muslims occupy a prominent position. Some Muslim individuals (including intellectuals and political activists), groups (parties, civil society organizations, armed militias), and even national states oppose, in the name of Islam, any change that would lead to the extension of international law to embrace, for example, human rights and gender relationships. They oppose changes not only in the second element of Tocqueville's triad, but even more so in its third element--namely, the development of attitudes based less on adhesion to dogmas than on attachment to ethical principles.

It should be noted that most Muslim communities have been drawn into modernization through historical processes characterized by intense confrontation with "the Other" (its traditional competitor, European-based Christianity). ² This has produced deep frustrations (economic, political, and cultural) with devastating and lasting effects. Sharp polarizations have come to dominate prevailing Muslim views: Islam vs. the West, tradition vs. modernity, and religion vs. secularism. Each of the terms within these pairs is seen as the complete negation of the other, and no accommodation, conciliation, or (to use Hegelian language) transcending of these oppositions is considered possible. This creates the gravest challenge to the democratization process, notwithstanding the fact that democracy, as an abstract ideal, currently enjoys a certain popularity among Muslims. How can democratic forces respond to this situation? In other words, is there a strategy that can help overcome these attitudes?

Here again we may turn to Tocqueville's remarks, whose pertinence to our purpose seems evident. The prospects for achieving economic progress and a legal framework based on equality are not encouraging for most societies of Muslims. The retreat of the development policies associated with dependency theory has not given birth to alternative doctrines and programs geared toward improving the lot of the masses. The legal system at the international level does not provide real protection for individuals, peoples, and states, all of whom suffer various forms of injustice from within (at the hands of local elites) and from outside (through incomplete integration into the world economic and political order).

Once more, then, we are led to ask: Are we in fact replacing the triad with a circle? It is true that we are indulging in a circular argument, whereby we reintroduce as conditions what we need to achieve as results. This apparent blockage is a striking feature of our contemporary situation. We seem doomed to repeat that we need prosperity in order to obtain democracy, and democracy in order to achieve prosperity. The circle does not seem to be easy to escape. It needs to be broken.

Democracy was born by chance, but now it has to be extended by [End Page 85] design. In its early stages, it was favored by many positive factors, both accidental and humanly designed. Today democracy has become a strong aspiration of all peoples--and its extension is a moral and practical imperative--yet many unfavorable factors hinder its further advance. Thus it seems that a clear and workable blueprint for legal, social, and political change is now humanity's greatest need.

Abdou Filali-Ansary is director of the King Abdul-Aziz al-Saoud Foundation for Islamic Studies and Human Sciences in Casablanca, Morocco, and editorial director of Prologues: revue maghrébine du livre, a French-Arabic journal of philosophy, literature, and the social sciences. His most recent book is L'Islam: Est-il hostile 'a la laïcité? (1997).

Notes

1. Marshall Hodgson, Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History, Edmund Burke III, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

2. Abdou Filali-Ansary, "Muslims and Democracy," Journal of Democracy 10 (July 1999): 18-31.

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