Democracy & the healthy society: The chicken and the egg.

Chad. High disease prevalence and not much democracy

Amartya Sen has powerfully made the case that democracy brings with it guarantees of social justice.

Summarising for speed, Sen has argued that democracies don’t have famines, that they provide regulatory minimum standards that ensure that earthquakes don’t result in huge death-tolls as poorly-built structures collapse, and so on.

In a democracy, we are very likely to have better, universal services compared to non-democracies.

It’s a familliar argument, but one that was recently subject to a fascinating twist. In a recent New Scientist [£] article, evolutionary biologist Randy Thornhill makes the case that democracy only emerges in societies in which there is a relative absense of infectious disease.

In summary, societies with a high prevalence of infectious diseases tend to an understandable level of xenophobia. Epidemics, after all, are often the consequence of population movements, therefore, outsiders are treated with a good deal more suspicion.In addition, class structures in such societies are likely to be more impermeable as people who are wealthy or powerful enough to be able to afford it, distance themselves from the wider population to protect themselves.

There’s a fair bit of tangential evidence cited here as well: For instance, a 2006 study by Carlos Navarette shows that – when prompted to think about disgusting objects such as spoiled food, people tend to express more nationalistic values. I also recall (from elsewhere – can’t find it now) that there was research showing more ethnocentrism among women at vulnerable stages in their pregnancies.

However, digging further into the article, there’s a lot to argue with in Thornhill’s conclusions. The New Scientist raises questions that this is less a function of disease than

it is of general instability and fear.

Also, there’s lots to argue with in his definition of ‘democratisation’ (apparently lots of referendums is one plus-point!).

There’s a spectrum that he uses that has collectivist societies on one end (people placing the overall good of society ahead of of the freedom of action of individuals within it). Such a society, according to Thornhill, tends to be more respectful of authority, more xenophobic and more conformist. On the other end of the scale, there’s individualist societies where there’s more emphasis on openness and individual freedom.

Again, I’d like to see more digging into this particular question (and I’m sure it’s out there somewhere) but how does this capture Scandinavian models of government? I’ve heard arguments that Scandinavian social democracy was largely made possible by the relative lack of racial outsiders and that the dramatic emergence of xenophobic parties in these countries has been more pronounced than in societies more accustomed to population movements.

Particularly, given the terrible calamity that befell Norway last week, this is a pressing and uncomfortable question. Norway is at once, both a very democratic country, and one in which an established General Will leads to a good deal of conformity.

This is a country where thousands of teenagers will attend an alcohol-free open-air summer camp organised by the dominant political party! Try that in the UK!

It’s also one of the countries that has faced a dramatic political jolt from emerging populist anti-immigation parties who often treat their social settlements as values that need to be protected from outsiders. How does this democratic ideal address the potential challenge to its values in an age of large-scale population movements?

So. Do democrats have a strategy for defending democratic advances in a time of social upheaval? I’d be interested in any thoughts that this posting provokes from readers?