There are currently three forms of Democracies existing now, each with their specific flaws. The United States model stands out; yet, is all really as it seems? Here, then, is the first part of the “Searching for Democracy” series.

We are long taught in our schools, and in books, that America is the model system of democracy. We are educated that under it is a balance of the three functions of the king: the power to command (Executive), the power to make laws (Legislative), and the power of arbitration (Judicial). They, in theory, are equal to each other, and in supposed constant opposition. Many Americans spend their lives under the impression that their system of government—with all its intricacies—is the perfect system, channeling ultimate power to the people through the vote.

So why does everything keep going wrong in a supposedly democratic state? The ideal democratic states in Africa are transformed into warlord kingdoms that segregate tribes among each other, and cultivate tribal warfare. Democracies in Southeast Asia and Latin America have degenerated to military affairs or dynastic successions. They all copied the American model; where did they go wrong? What did they do wrong?

The American model of democracy seemed designed to fail. Because there is only a notion that the three functions separated into branches is co-equal. The key to discovering this imbalance is through the concept of the dictator.

What is a dictator? The first application of its office goes back to Ancient Rome, though democratic despots existed as far back as Greek times. The Roman Republic was largely ruled by a Senate, supposedly elected by the different tribes in the city; but in fact monopolized by the First Families, those who established themselves after the downfall of the Kings. Due primarily to the stigma of the rule of the last of the Roman Kings, the idea of the monarchy was shunned; throughout Rome’s time it would be used in the derogatory against its eventual autocrats. Sulla. Caesar. Even Cicero was insulted with this term, following his abrupt actions in the Catilinarian affair.

During times of emergency, however, the Roman Senate could not have time to issue orders. There might be an invasion at the gates of the City itself, or a rebellion within one of the districts. They might not be able to convene in time, or have the substantial quorum. Every order issued among the soldiers must be quick, and in rapid succession. They must assign a sort-of “commander-in-chief” that could prosecute a war or handle civil disturbances. However, Rome would expel the thought of a king; so, they gave limited, military powers on a man, who would be obliged to give the same office up when the emergency ends. His primary objective was the protection of the City. This was the Dictator, and in later times, would also be appointed a second in command, the Master of the Horse (this diarchy was a system in Rome that made sure that there would be a balance in power; as the senior consul to the junior consul).

In early Roman records, the first of these was Marcus Furius Camillus. He was appointed Dictator at an unprecedented five times, and tasked to defend Rome against the invasions of Gauls or wars with the other city-states around Rome. At the end of every emergency, he always surrendered his office, and retired to private life. He was the ideal Dictator (in fact, he was acclaimed as the Second Founder of Rome)—willing to assume military offices befitting a monarch, for the sole purpose of national defense. The dangers, however, of such vast powers, feared by Roman scholars and the people themselves, soon became apparent, with the rise of the professional army and its generals. The soldiers’ loyalty was only nominally Rome’s; but it was their generals who championed their allotment of land, and pay. From Marius, to Sulla, then to Caesar, the emergency office of Dictator was used to legitimize a Republican monarchy; later, when Octavian came to rule, he and the other “kings” sidestepped the technicality of a monarchy by inventing another title: “Caesar”, and “emperor”, the latter a derivative of “imperator”, a word used by soldiers to hail their generals during triumphant battles.

The usurpation of the Roman dictator was bad enough. The American colonies, however, did not even take the majority of ideas from them. The offices of President, Congress and Supreme Court, came from the English monarchy. In the Middle Ages, the king ruled the various states, and under them were the lords, and then the serfs (though there were the knights, who sometimes served these lords and were immediate superiors to the serfs). The Parliament began to evolve from the traditional lawmaking council that steadily grew in power through constant rivalry with the King, particularly in their victory over King John and his signing of the Magna Carta. Though, ideally, the King’s powers were substantially taken away, he remained King, with much of the powers of the monarch and a sense of superiority over Parliament. Though England was put in the throes of Civil War in the 17^th century over the question of primacy between the King and Parliament, by the 18^th century, when the United States was formed, the English King remained a monarch, albeit with limited powers.

When the Americans therefore adopted a system similar to that of their mother country, they had ingrained in them a sense of “constitutional monarchy”. They had Congress in place of Parliament, a Supreme Court was created in place of the High Court, and the new office of President acquired the offices of the King. There were laws, for sure, that limited autocratic powers. But the President had implied, potential monarchic powers. The final, though subtle tragedy of it, was that the Roman concept of Dictator was also adopted. In the Roman Republic, the Dictator did not have a real, sustained office—Caesar exercised his duties technically on borrowed time, and merely on the pretext of a war. The United States, first gave a real, sustained body, in the President, then, in times of emergency, merged this office with that of the Dictator. This implied a legitimated Democratic King, albeit carrying the same “emergency clause” limitation.

Though it is not a well-known fact (at least, outside America) that the President during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, himself divested the office of Dictator, the Americans themselves did not use the office as a monarchy, as the laws imply it to be. Their democracy is not only one of laws, but of tradition. They had a king in colonial times, and that is where they got the idea of the President. But they never experienced a monarchy in their history away from England. And also as important, in that early period, they also did not have a tradition of powerful military generals, so the idea of the Roman imperators would have been foreign to them. The United States began as a loose confederation of thirteen colonies; as a result, power rested primarily on the Legislature, and on the few that controlled the offices of Congress. They also carried a similar distaste of kings as the Romans did. Following the aberration of the long duration of Roosevelt’s Presidency, the Constitution was amended to limit it to two terms.

For the unfortunate countries who did have a tradition of some form of autocracy, or military generals, and who had little or no knowledge of the “federal system” (Federalism went hand-in-hand with American Democracy), this became a problem. It began in Latin America; from Mexico, across the South American states. They embraced the American democracy—and adopted the “monarchical powers” of the President. Soon, military heroes were elected to the Executive office, and found that the duties sort of “fit the bill” with their own role as general. Thus, began the tragic rise of the caudillo, and the series of military coups that would rock all of these states several times.

Then, following the end of the Second World War, the Asian colonies gained independence. They had ancient kings; they had war heroes; their dictators soon legitimized ancient (and new) autocracy. The Javans adopted a “sort-of” Federalism, which was actually a thinly veiled imperialism upon the outlying islands. And before Dutch or Portuguese colonization, they had ample culture of kingship—the Sri Vijaya and Majapahit were ancient empires of note. Finally, what do you know? Sukarno was a war hero. The Philippines sustained itself as a Republic for some time, as it never had a tradition of military leaders (Aguinaldo never had the chance; the US war overtook him), and its archipelagic character gave it a “Federalistic” nature. But again, it was not perfect: the Tagalogs had, for the most part, a control of the national government through Manila (thus making it a sort-of Tagalog Empire, though I doubt the Philippines has a military tradition to accept this), and, throughout the Spanish occupation, the Philippines was not completely pacified and therefore remained in Martial Law. This is why the central leadership in Manila was the governor-general; an office later adopted by the Americans during their occupation.

The African countries had it worst. They had the military tradition—the warring tribes and their respective chieftains. They had the experience of kings; they even had empires. Federalism was foreign to them, and in fact unthinkable, in the midst of ethnic hatred between the tribes. And they also had the experience of slave labor. These ingredients would be brewed to the horrifying experience of the modern-age African dictator.

The fatal flaw then, of the American-style democracy, is that it’s actually a constitutional monarchy, adopting the English style parliament. The United States is a Republic by tradition, though the powers of the President have evolved and gained implicitly more through the years. It remained a non-monarchy by sheer force of will by the people itself, regardless of the implications in the written law. The problems of this “monarchist democracy” are immediately apparent: a one-man rule can be sustained, in the style of the ancient Roman emperors—with the support of the ranks of the military; and the people’s mandate (the oft-bandied advantage of democracy), can be conveniently sidestepped, and for all intents and purposes the people are merely called to elect their monarch.

Ironically, though the United States trumpeted themselves as the champions of true democracy, it was their Soviet rival that came close to fulfilling the precepts of a Democratic state. To this, we now turn.