Imposing Democrazy: Iraq and Japan

Both, Iraq and Japan experienced an occupation by the United States. After the end of WWII, US occupied Japan, a country that allied with the Axis powers. With the help of the American occupation, Japan moved towards a democracy. US also occupied Iraq and tried to move it towards a democracy after the Iraq War. US was successful in democratizing Japan, however, not Iraq. In order to understand why the United States was able to achieve what it did in Japan and not so much in Iraq, we must look at the definition of democracy and the process of democratization from several levels including international, state, societal, and economic.

Democracy is the least worst form of government; therefore, it is the best candidate for a new political system. Note that democracy is an ideal. It is important to point out the definition of democracy since it will help with the understanding of the different levels of democratization that is necessary. Literally, democracy means “government by the people. ” Obviously, this definition is not sufficient. According to Schumpeter, “democracy means only that the people have the opportunity of accepting or refusing the men who are to rule them. ” He bases his definition of democracy on the theory that most citizens should not rule because on most issues, they do not have strong views and when they do, they are not informed views. It is a minimalist definition of democracy that does not convey much and it is still insufficient. Deliberative democracy is based on a theory that democracy should be based on discussion. Democracy should be based on upon reasons all citizens can accept. All of the democratic theories mentioned above are based on a representative democracy. Another theory of democracy, states that democracy should be more direct, where people can participate directly and not through their representatives. These types of democracies go directly back to the literal definition of democracy. However, these definitions are more elaborate. Political activity is important because the people can check the powerful elites and become educated about politics. People do not rule themselves until they themselves decide on the rules and policies of a democracy. Another important conception of democracy bases itself on political equality, which can be achieved with various institutions such as free and fare elections. However, even a more elaborate definition of democracy and the one that this essay will be based on is one based on Dahl’s idea of polyarchy. He stresses two important factors: “opposition (organized contestation through regular, free, and fare elections) and participation (the right of virtually all adults to vote and contest for office)… [as well as]…civil liberty.” Democracy must have other factors besides participation by the people, such as legitimization of the leaders, and deliberation of institutions. Some people might think that since Iraq had small grassroots movements and Japan had some political infrastructure they were both making efforts to become a democracy. However, looking at the true definition of democracy one can see that neither Iraq nor Japan was close to a true democracy, (although Japan was of course much closer). It is important to look at the maximalist definition because without this definition democratization process cannot take place. The more elaborate definition explains better the literal meaning of democracy.

Democratization is the process towards the ideal of democracy. The democratization process that took place in both Iraq and Japan was a process heavily influenced by outside forces since it happened through an occupation. Stepan names this sort of democratization “externally monitored installation.” Japan was lucky in that it was occupied in a bipolar era. In a bipolar era, in this case the era of the cold war, the country has a choice with which political system to side with. Japan could have turned communist if it did not like what the United States was doing and received support from Russia. America wanted to make sure that Japan does not become communist; therefore, democratization was extremely important to the US government. The occupying country has to be gentler to the occupied people. However, the Iraq War took place during a unipolar era; therefore, the people did not have a choice of a political system. Therefore, a country that was influenced by a unipolar system, Iraq, had less of a chance converting into a democracy than a country influenced by a bipolar system, Japan, because in a unipolar system it is not important how deep of a democracy the occupiers achieve since the people cannot oppose and side with Russia, for example, like Japan could have done. Therefore, to begin with, Iraq did not have a happy beginning. Either type of system can satisfy the democratization process; however, it is important to point out the difference between the two.

For the democratization