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“Democracy” means that, whatever electoral manipulation actually takes [[place]], every [[political]] [[agent]] will unconditionally respect the results. In this [[sense]], the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 were effectively “democratic.” Despite obvious and patent electoral manipulations in Florida, the Democratic candidate accepted his defeat. In the weeks of uncertainty after the elections, Bill [[Clinton]] made an appropriately acerbic comment: “The American people have spoken. We just don’t [[know]] what they said.” This comment should have been taken more seriously than it was meant, for it revealed how the [[present]] machinery of democracy can be problematic, to say the least. ‘’’Why should the [[left]] always and unconditionally respect the formal “rules of the game”? Why should it not, in some circumstances, put in question the legitimacy of the outcome of a formal democratic procedure?’’’
Alternatively, there is at least one [[case]] in which formal [[democrats]] themselves (or, at least, a substantial portion of [[them]]) would tolerate the suspension of democracy: What if formally free elections are won by an anti-[[Democratic Party|democratic party ]] whose platform promises the abolition of formal democracy? (This did happen, among [[other]] places, in [[Algeria]] a few years ago.) In such a case, many a democrat would concede that the people were not yet “mature” enough to be allowed democracy, and that some kind of enlightened despotism whose aim is to educate the majority to become proper democrats is preferable.
Following this rhetorical line of attack, the gradual limitation of democracy is clearly perceptible in attempts to “rethink” the present [[situation]] in the aftermath of the [[Iraq]] war. One is, of course, for democracy and [[human rights]], but one should “rethink” them. A series of [[recent]] interventions in the [[public]] debate give a clear sense of the direction of this “rethinking.” In <i>The [[Future]] of [[Freedom]]</i>, [[Fareed Zakaria]], Bush’s favored columnist, locates the [[threat]] to freedom in “overdoing democracy,” i.e., in the rise of “illiberal democracy at home and abroad.” He draws the lesson that democracy can only “catch on” in economically developed countries: If developing countries are “prematurely democratized,” the result is a [[populism]] which ends in [[economic]] catastrophe and political despotism.
