Does democratization lead to conflict?

The role of the elite and emerging nationalism.

Does democratization of a country make it more prone to indulge in nationalist conflict? Isn’t this contrary to what we have been told, that democratizing countries leads to less conflict? Using the Snyder model for supporting the view that improper democratization can lead to nationalist tendencies within the host country one can easily see why the past Bush doctrine (also continued to a degree by the Obama administration) in establishing democracies in unstable countries is a dubious prospect at best. Nationalism is “the doctrine that a people who see themselves as distinct in their culture, history, institutions, or principles should rule themselves in a political system that expresses and protects those distinctive characteristics. A nation is, therefore, a group of people who see themselves as distinct in these terms AND who aspire to self-rule” (Jack Snyder). It is the “doctrine that the political unit (the state) and the cultural unit (the nation) should be congruent” (Snyder)

Different variables/conditions can occur under democratization: What are the conditions which affect the elite’s decision to promote nationalism? Are these conditions also favorable in convincing the masses that the elites are right? What type of nationalism will occur?

Elites are those classes (industrial, military, sometime agrarian) within the hierarchy that fear that democracy will rob them of their status, power, or riches. Elites (especially those with interests that were threatened by democratization) use new freedoms provided by early democratization, such as free speech and press to hijack debate for illiberal ends around nationalist claims. Painful economic transitions brought about by early democratization allows these groups to claim that they can do better (see Russia and the seizure of economic industries by the Russian elites for a contemporary example).

Whether the elites use nationalism depends on motivation, how threatened they feel by democratization and how much the character of the democratizing state would allow for their existence and continued modus operandi.

There are two factors that govern whether elites will act or not: opportunity and motivation. If elites feel threatened by arrival of full democracy or if the current government/emerging democratic state is so weak that the elites need some way of mobilizing popular support. Nationalism is a nice solution because it solves the dual problem elites face: gathering and mobilizing popular support without having to allow for popular control of government. Elites can claim to rule “in the name of” the people without allowing rule “by” the people. How easy it will be to persuade the masses will determine their estimation of success concerning whether nationalism will work. Certain conditions must be prevalent in order to persuade the masses to follow the nationalist aims of the elite class:

1-A weak and ineffective media. This is brought about within the early stages of democratization. Early democratization strips the existing State from having a monopoly on information; this in turn places, by default, “legitimacy” on those sources of information outside of the existing State apparatus, thereby giving the sudden appearance of information from another class outside the State (i.e. the elites) as being within the paradigm of democratic reform. Adding incentive to mass consumption of new sources of information outside the State apparatus is that the indigenous population is distrustful of State provided news to begin with. The masses ability to notice and recognize the extent of distortion is diminished by their acceptance of sources of information outside the State controlled media as being legitimate. This is why we should not pressure authoritarian states to hold free elections or give press freedoms. 2-Elites can make better use of market segmentation. If only a portion of those sources of news/information within the host country are controlled by the elites then they can still get their message across for these sources might be the ones that target large populous sections of the country. Hitler came to power partly because a major nationalist supporter of his had a near-monopoly on the media in 50% of Germany, the same 50% that supported Hitler.

Once nationalist ideals are accepted then the mechanics are put into place for the transition to violent conflict. Certain factors occur with pneumatic regularity within this stage.
1-Those democratic reformers who try to exclude the emerging elite class give birth to enmity (they don’t like you if you claim that they are evil).
2-Other nations are portrayed as more threatening than they are, creating feelings of insecurity at home and simultaneously, they are portrayed as weaker than they are, making a military solution to this insecurity attractive. This allows crackdown on dissent in the name of protecting national interests.
3-Many narrow-interest nationalist groups make up the large class of elites and their individual their demands incur high societal costs in order to get their narrow self-interested benefits met. This will be examined later in the German “marriage between iron and rye.”
4- Nationalists may get into bidding wars, trying to one-up the others. Even liberals, the only countering force left, may be forced to prove that they are the strongest defenders of the nation, sinking further into the quagmire of nationalist policy.
Even the elites may be swallowed by unchecked nationalism. Even if an emerging democratic opposition movement was successful in removing the old elite they may find that the middle-class and working-class bases of support are too weak to sustain it. Thus, revolutionary or counterrevolutionary nationalism follows.

A good example of how elites promoted nationalism that lead to war is the case of late 19th century to early 20th century Germany. Germany’s late, rapid industrialization (in the late 1800s) quickly put the economic livelihoods of German aristocrats (large landholders producing grains) at risk. They needed the power of the state to protect their social and economic status, for industrialization was making agriculture far less profitable thereby weakening their place within the hierarchy as well.

Industrialization also created a distinct class of industrialists. However, democracy threatened to empower the working classes, and an emerging social democracy would threaten the industrialists’ economic interests by establishing measures to curtail the abuse perpetrated by the industrialists in achieving their goals..

Thus, there was a “marriage of iron and rye,” as the industrialists allied with the aristocrats against democracy and the working class (always the vanguard for democratic movements). Their only feasible solution in protecting their interests would be to win the middle classes over to their side (against the working classes). However, this would be difficult, since the middle classes wanted democratization. The solution was to promote nationalist myths: Stain the workers, socialists, Catholics, and Poles as enemies of the German people. These nationalist doctrines, combined with minimal democratization (elections and universal male suffrage, but loyal ministers selected by the Kaiser) removed the threat of democratic reform to the industrialists/aristocrats union; the result was militarization and a hostile domestic and foreign policy. The weak link in this elaborate infrastructure was the lack of a cohesive, unified policy among all the cartels that operated within the industrialist/agrarian sectors. Now that they seized power, each of these cartels sought to maximize their profit and standing.

The incomplete democratization of Germany in the late nineteenth century provides a good example of the influence and destructive power of these renegade cartels, without regard to the nascent democratic institutions present within the country. The result of this incomplete democratization was the “marriage of iron and rye.” This militaristic union of both the industrial and agrarian sectors put into motion a chain of events and actions that pushed Germany closer, and eventually into, World War I. As the central government grew weaker, it began to mollify and appease certain growing factions within Germany. The growing steel industry aligned itself with the navy, demanding increased revenue and a program to increase the size of the German fleet. This in turn angered Great Britain, sparking a naval arms race. The central government also offered increased protectionist policies towards its aristocratic rye growers and the growing union of small farmers, which in turn angered Russia, an exporter of grain. Additionally, the German armed forces, especially the Army, were appeased through large expenditures for equipment, forcing an arms race with France, as well as public adoption of the Schlieffen Plan, an offensive strategy designed to knock France out of the coming war within six weeks. This drove France into an alliance with England, who only two years before had been on harsh terms with France. Powerful interest groups and cartels within Germany fought one another for control, each group afraid of being pushed aside and losing ground. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the eve of World War I, when Vienna, Germany’s Austrian ally, expressed exasperation as to who was exactly in charge within Germany - the armed forces general Helmuth von Moltke, or Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg. During the Balkan crisis in the summer of 1914, Moltke was advocating immediate Austrian mobilization against Russia while Bethmann-Hollweg was advocating a much more conciliatory tone, leading the Austrian government to ask, “Who rules in Berlin?”