06-15-2013, 11:33 AM
(06-15-2013, 02:10 AM)kandrathe Wrote: In 1914, Portugal became the third democratic republic in Europe, after France and Switzerland. By the end of WWI, the principle of democratic republicanism seemed triumphant. Then, again with the end of World War II, and once more, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire in the late 1980s and early 1990s. You'd think that universal and global democracy has finally come into its own.
But, really, it's not so rosey. The Great Democracy Meltdown BY JOSHUA KURLANTZICK resonated with me.
History isn't over, and the trend towards democracy is just that - a trend. Countries that have democracy tend to stay that way, and the longer they do, the harder it is to dislodge. Countries that are only marginally or newly democratic are much more vulnerable. There was a large over-reaction to the democratization of the 1990s, with "end of history" optimists painting far too rosy a picture of what had taken place.
But the trend is positive, and I don't see it being reversed in the long run. History may prove that tragically wrong. Certainly, the world of Europe looked very civilized in 1913, just before thirty years of horror.
-Jester