Call it the democracy delusion. We believed democracy was spreading. It was not. Now we worry democracy is retreating. It is not — since it barely advanced to begin with. We expect democracy to win the war on terror. It will not. We know from profoundest experience what democracy is, yet the very power of our experience blinds us. So achingly do we pine for a fantasy world of peaceful, loving polities that we see democracy in every passing stranger. Almost any Third World country can have us at hello. Just flash an ink-stained finger and Americans (Europeans too) open up their hearts, pocket-books, arsenals, whatever — only to be left alone, crying, and feeling used. But the truth is, we do it to ourselves.

Maybe Kenya will finally break our pattern of dangerously naive infatuation with pretend democracies — Kenya, Pakistan, and, of course, Russia . . . let’s be honest and include the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon, as well. Need I mention Iraq? OK . . . deep-breath, slowly, say it with me now: “My name is the United States of America, and I am addicted to phony democracies.”

Kenya may be the watershed. Democratic “setbacks” in Russia notwithstanding (how can you set back what was never there to begin with?), most Americans have seen democracy’s recent troubles as chiefly a Middle-Eastern phenomenon. Yet, as professional democracy promoters have known for some time — and as the broader public is only now beginning to grasp — the democratization project is in a worldwide stall.

Kenya’s reputation as a bulwark of stability and prosperity on an otherwise fragile continent gives a last-straw feel to the political collapse there. Kenya was the regional lifeline — the secure hub from which multinational corporations and NGO’s could funnel goods and aid to the impoverished, war-torn, sometimes barely governed states of East and Central Africa. And Kenya has been the base from which America’s anti-terror campaign in the region is coordinated. Now, a “democratic” election has put all this at risk.

Pre-Election Optimism
To witness the democracy delusion in all its splendor, let us return to the days before Kenya’s election. In its December 19 edition, the Economist, unrivaled for the quality of its foreign coverage, managed to publish an article on the upcoming Kenyan elections without even mentioning tribalism. “Jobs and corruption are the issues in a close-fought contest,” said the headline, as if there actually were issues at stake, rather than a tribal power struggle, and as if one side might be less corrupt than the other (the magazine itself cast doubt on the latter proposition).

The Economist noted in passing that challenger Raila Odinga had visited Wales and was intrigued by its national assembly as a model of regional devolution. The article also mentioned that incumbent president Mwai Kibaki might have trouble achieving the mandatory 25 percent vote in five of the country’s eight provinces. The overall effect was to make Kenya sound like a haven of constitutionalism and advanced democratic experimentation. Unfortunately, the Economist neglected to mention the bitter tribal rivalries that lay beneath all that high-minded constitutional talk. Kibaki is so dependent on support from Kenya’s dominant Kikuyu tribe that he can barely draw votes in non-Kikuyu provinces. Meanwhile, the Luo tribesman Odinga’s alliance of minority tribes looks to devolution to escape Kikuyu domination. These were huge danger signs that tribal consciousness had trumped national integration. Yet by foregrounding the democracy angle, the Economist missed the real story — the decidedly undemocratic tribalism driving (and undermining) all that electoral-constitutional maneuvering.

Democracy Defined
Only in a very narrow sense can we call African nations democracies. Strictly speaking, if a country selects its leaders through elections, it is democratic. Scholars separate this technical definition of democracy, as electoral rule, from the broader notion of “liberal democracy,” meaning a country that not only holds elections but also features multi-party competition, rule of law, freedom of the press, of speech, of religion, and a vital, buzzing “civil society” composed of competing advocacy groups. Arguments over democratization often turn on whether elections in an illiberal environment bring positive changes in their train, or whether it’s best to delay voting until civil society and political liberty are already in place.

It’s an important debate. Yet in common parlance, we take the word “democracy” to mean the whole “liberal” ball-of-wax. We can’t help but see long lines of Third-World voters patiently waiting at the ballot box as proof of a thirst for democracy — for everything beyond mere elections that the magical d-word means to Americans. This is our delusion. Long lines at polling places do not make Kenyans into liberty-loving American democrats, any more than reams of kente cloth transform American multiculturalists into Ashanti royalty.

Understanding the difference between liberal and illiberal democracy is only a first step toward fully appreciating the global challenge to democracy promotion. That’s because the rule of law, civil society, and individual liberties themselves depend upon a still deeper layer of cultural underpinning. Societies built around nuclear families, and around religious and cultural traditions that stress the freedom, equality, and sacredness of individual human beings, have the basic ingredients out of which rule of law, civic associations, political freedoms, and the modern state develop. Societies in which individual freedom is subordinated to the honor and advantage of the kin-group (and where non-Western religious and cultural traditions reinforce these values) are far less likely to develop genuine liberal democracy, or even a vibrant modern economy and state.