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Editorial:
"Know Thyself"
Alwyn Thomson
Comment:
Illiberal Democracy
Alwyn Thomson
From
the Director: Good News People?
David W Porter
Balancing
on the Edge
Tony Davidson
Grateful
to God
David McMillan
Space
& Freedom
David Hewitt
Imaginative
Engagement
Keith Getty
No
longer at ease with this dispensation?
Mike Wardlow
Living
with our deepest differences
Os Guinness
Deep
Questions
Johnston
McMaster
Steady
presence
Cecelia Clegg
No
longer lonely
Joseph Liechty
Something
to give
Ingri Sakaria
Bible
study series: Faith in the future
David
W Porter
Review:
The Elusive Quest, Reconciliation in N I by Norman Porter
Bill
Brown
Review:
Journeying Towards Reconciliation, A Song for Ireland by Ruth Patterson
Lynda
Gould
Review:
Islam in Conflict:Past Present and Future by Peter G Riddell &
Peter Cotterell
Alwyn
Thomson
Review:
The R Option - Building Relationships as a Better Way of Life by
Michael Schluter & David John Lee
Anna
Rankin
Review:
Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman
Glenn
Jordan
Summer
School Poetry
Various
For
God and His Glory Alone:
Study 6: Truth
COMMENT: ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Tyrants
in Baghdad? Democracy is the answer. Terrorists
in Kabul? Democracy is the answer. Troubles in Belfast?
Democracy is the answer.
Or is it?
In a fascinating new book Fareed Zakaria has argued that democracy in itself can often cause more problems than it solves. What is needed is liberal democracy; what we often get is illiberal democracy. (Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad).
One of the varieties of illiberal democracy Zakaria identifies is that which reflects and embodies ethnic conflict. Does this sound familiar? Democracy in Northern Ireland is ethnic, tribal, illiberal.
The Belfast Agreement, of course, is premised on the recognition that illiberal democracy is a dangerous thing, and attempted to resolve the problem by setting up an Assembly that embodied and empowered all our tribes.
Sadly, the Assembly has only reinforced our tribalism rather than undermining it. And, in aiming for an institution that addressed the problem of ethnic difference, we failed to establish an institution for good governance.
In institutionalising illiberal democracy in Northern Ireland perhaps the Assembly has reinforced the democratic deficit in our community rather than overcoming it.
What should we do? Direct rule until we learn how to be good liberals? Hand over public policy to unelected elites?
Or do we need to renegotiate the Belfast Agreement to create a devolved structure that offers incentives to politicians and electorate alike to move beyond tribalism? Democratic Dialogue has made some creative suggestions along these lines in a recent report. ( A Route to Stability: The Review of the Belfast Agreement)
The Agreement is a means to an end, nothing more. If the end is not in sight, perhaps it is time to reconsider the means. The end is not simply the creation of local institutions that local people can vote for. The end should the creation of institutions that enable us to transcend our tribalism and find a way of doing real politics – in other words the end is the shaping of a liberal democracy.
Democracy that is nothing more than a reflection of our conflict is an illiberal democracy and is an unworthy project.
Alwyn Thomson
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