7/28/2019 1 - 3 - 1.3 the Costs of Unaccountable Power [11 Min]

1/4

One of the reasons, why people mobilizeso passionately for democracy is thatthey realize that in the absence ofconstraints, constitutional constraintson the power of the rulers.The ruled are subject to any abuse and toany depredation by those who've managedto corner power.One only need visit a country likeZimbabwe where the ruling party, theZimbabwe African National Union, ZANU-PFhas been in power for three decades now.And where a once prosperous and beautifulcountry, rich and self-sufficient inagriculture, and with high levels ofeducation, and lots of opportunity andcommerce.Has been driven into the ground by apredatory regime that has increasinglybeen bent on simple domination andextraction of wealth for their personalbenefit.Leaving people to complain that the

ruling party is nothing more than athief, leaving them with no jobs, nomoney, no water, no infrastructure, andno hope.This is why the leader of the opposition,Morgan Tsvangirai, has rallied,successfully, so much of the countrybehind him, but at a very serious priceto his own safety and that who havejoined the political opposition.It is why organizations in civil societythat engage in human rights monitoringand in advocacy and legal defense, like

the famous Zimbabwean organization,ZimRights, had been very embattled andconstantly under threat of arrestintimidation or even physical violence.We face analytically the paradox ofChina, The People's Republic of China,one of the most successful developers ofthe past half century.No country has lifted more people out ofmore, out of poverty, more rapidly, atany time in the history of the world thanChina has done since its developmentmiracle took off in the late 1970s with

the reforms of the late Deng Xiaoping.But this remains a communist state in thepolitical sense at least tith a rulingparty that brooks now opposition.Allows little in the way of dissent andstill dominates the media and civicspace.And in which, if anyone were to unfurl abanner here in Tiananmen Square, outsidethe Forbidden City Calling for freedom,

7/28/2019 1 - 3 - 1.3 the Costs of Unaccountable Power [11 Min]

2/4

for democracy, for political pluralism,for a free press, for the rule of law.They would be very very quickly accostedand arrested before they could gatheranything like the crowds that gathered inTiananmen Square in 1989, demanding thesethings before they were brutallysuppressed in the crack down on June 4th.It's not only in China where developmentand democracy or aspirations for it arebeginning to collide.We see in Vietnam a similartransformation underway of rapid economicdevelopment beginning at a lower levelthan China has so far achieved, butcertainly visibly happening to transformthe society.To create a more pluralistic society asin China.The rise of the Internet, the rise of theblogosphere.The rise of the class of lawyers who havetraining, maybe it was meant to be incommercial law, but who know what the

rule of law is.people who've traveled the world and havenew ideas about political accountability,political equality popular sovereignty,and the rule of law.Now, we've seen in different historicaleras, as in elsewhere in east Asia andKorea and Taiwan.Successful circumstances of the gradualtransformation of power toward greaterdemocracy, the gradual growth of civilsociety.And then the crossing of a threshold when

a more pluralistic civil society, a moreempowered political opposition gain newself-confidence and demand for politicalrights with new resources, new ideas, neworganizationIn ways that authoritarian regimes mustaccommodate in some way and negotiatewith or be at their peril in terms ofsomething happening more suddenly interms of political mobilization.So we will be studying thesetransformations socially and what impactthey have politically.

A key question in this course may be thecentral one, overarching, is whendemocracy emerges, why it emerges.And how it can effectively, durablyemerge to constrain the power of a singleruler, or a single party, or a narrowelite?In other words, how does popularsovereignty emerge?This is something that I have become

7/28/2019 1 - 3 - 1.3 the Costs of Unaccountable Power [11 Min]

3/4

quite sensitive to.Having watched the transition unfold inits final stages in Taiwan and havingseen the Republic of China Taiwan emergefrom a quite authoritarian regime with asingle dominant party controlling.And even the absence, before 1987 oflegal opposition parties to a veryspirited electoral environment in whichdifferent parties could emerge andmobilize.And people could freely criticize thegovernment as they wished in which theruling Kuomintang, KMT could beunceremoniously tossed out of power.Just 4 years after the transition todemocracy was completed, with the firstfree and fair presidential election, thatthe KMT won in 1996, tossed out of powerin 2000, and then returned to power intwo elections later in 2008.With the election of the KMT candidateover the DPP President Ma Ying-jeou.We need to ask what is it that happens in

a country with perhaps very deep andhistoric political divisions, and seriousphilosophical, and interest dividesbetween parties that can lead a rulingparty like the democratic progressiveparty to humbly accept defeat in anelection as it did in 2008.Apologize for their failures andshortcomings, and then reorganize, andreturn to compete in another day, whichis the very core principle of democracy.We can look simply in East Asia or evenin Greater China and see the changes that

are going on .For example, in Hong Kong where apolitical leader who was once seen to bea conservative member of government andsomeone who had called for toughenactment of internal security laws.The now very popular and prominent memberof legislative council, Regina Ip hasbecome a prominent advocate of democraticchange in Hong Kong.it might interest you to know theLegislator Ip was a master student atStanford.

And before that came to StanfordUniversity for executive training in ourbusiness school and took a version ofthis course during her earlier time atStanford.so hopefully, many of you who are takingthis course might someday yourselves bepolitical leaders who will help to do thework of deepening democracy ofnegotiating for democracy, or of

7/28/2019 1 - 3 - 1.3 the Costs of Unaccountable Power [11 Min]

4/4

strategizing about how your own societycan move from whatever point its at to apoint that is more open, moreparticipatory, more accountable, moreresponsive to the popular will.