Are democracies imperialistic inherently and historically?

[mix]

Poll question: Are democracies imperialistic inherently and historically?

I would say yes...democracies, which are vulnerable to populism, are inherently imperialistic, though there are of course exceptions. If we as a nation claim the democratic legacy of the ancient Greeks, we should also admit that Athens was an empire to understand our own predicament.

[Warpy]

1. Athens didn't hang onto democracy very long

and restricted it to the male upper classes, anyway.

Upper classes love empire. It's especially fine if they can force the lower classes to conquer the territory and pay for the whole effort.

[mix]

2. All the major modern democracies have also been empires.

France, Great Britain, the United States. Smaller democracies like Austria, which is a post-imperial creation, for example are limited by their economic weakness, political obligations within the EU, geography...but the major modern democracies have all been empires...and for many of these postcolonial states "empire" constitutes the ongoing power relationship between the metropole and ex-colonies (see Great Britain in the Middle East or France in Africa or the Caribbean), even though the details of that relationship have changed.

In the United States, we speak less of our love of Empire, the way a British citizen might have in the late 19th century, than of our love of the "military" and the service of our men and women in uniform, who are of course stationed all over the world and fighting several wars for imperialistic objectives like political dominance and the acquisition of markets and resources.

I would like to hear people's reasons for voting no.

:hi:

[Warpy]

3. France became an empire under the kings Louis XIV-XVI

England is still a constitutional monarchy with a House of Lords for the aristocrats.

Ordinary working people don't want Empire and they're rarely consulted when an upper class takes over and wants to build one.

[mix]

5. There are two periods to French empire.

The mercantilist one you refer to and the one launched by the French Revolution, which was indeed supported by the lower classes and culminated in the Napoleonic Empire and France's expansion across Europe, the Levant, and the Caribbean (with varying degrees of success). The "second French colonial empire," meaning the one following the break after the French Revolution, was distinctly democratic, populist and capitalist and would begin in earnest with Algeria in 1830 and spread into Africa and Asia.

Regarding, Great Britain's enormous 19th century colonial empire, it entirely coincided with the expansion of the voting franchise.

Historically, what is striking about the major modern democracies like France, Great Britain and the United States is not the absence of popular support for empire--meaning across class lines--but the fact that empire either in its colonial or neoliberal forms is one of the few things that all classes, at least in American society today, seem to agree on.

[Demeter]

13. Those Empires that Turn to Democracy After the Empire Collapses, Last

Examples: Sweden, Poland, France, England

Those that start out as democracies turn into empires, or try to.

Examples: Athens, Rome, US.

[mix]

14. Two of modernity's greatest colonial empires, France & Great Britain,

were also leading democracies of their time...Great Britain expanded the voting franchise through the 19th century and France declared universal adult male suffrage in 1848...the United States began as 13 colonies and quickly embraced Manifest Destiny after independence. The US was born of empire and has continued to pursue imperial policies into the present.

Empire and democracy coincide in the cases of the France, Great Britain and the US, one does not follow the other.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Well, take for example the longest continuously standing parliament in the world.

Iceland's Althing, which has been meeting since about the year 1000. And think of all the places the bloody Icelanders have overrun.

Greenland. That's it.

[mix]

6. There are indigenous groups in Greenland.

So this would qualify as colonization...and what is the representative nature of that august body in Iceland? How are its members chosen? In an aristocratic or democratic fashion?

The heritage of people in Iceland is that of settlers, Scottish monks and Norsemen, btw, so they would not seem to be immune from the disease of empire despite their modest attempts at expansion.

[NoPasaran]

8. Greenland was a colony of Denmark, not Iceland

It's now an autonomous region under the Danish crown.

[mix]

9. Now it is,

but Icelanders were among the first settlers.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. It was settled by Icelanders, led by Erik the Red, in about 1000 a.d.

Read the Greenland Sagas for details.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. I didn't deny that they had conflicts with the "skraellings" (Innuit).

However, the era of Greenlandic occupation was from about 100-1400 a.d. They've had a relatively tame existence since then.

[Laelth]

7. Historically, yes. Inherently, I don't know.

I suppose Switzerland is the mostly-peaceful and self-contained exception.

:dem:

-Laelth

[mix]

12. At the very least, democracies can exist without empire,

so maybe there is hope for imperial democracies wanting to kick the habit.

[Motown_Johnny]

10. Yes, but so have every other system of government.

The question should be if they are more so than other systems

[mix]

11. Fair enough.

I think though that despite the crippled state of American democracy, coming to terms with our imperial history is an important first step in moving our country beyond empire and could be the only way to save it.

So if democracies are susceptible to imperial expansion, and I believe they are since the support for Empire tends to cut across class lines and be a point of political consensus, understanding this fact will begin the process of formulating an anti-imperialist foreign policy, one that would guarantee our national security, not endanger it.