My understanding of history says that usually letting militaries have such power, or initiating violent overthrow via any other means to launch an internal rebellion leads to bad results. Examples include the French, Russian, and English revolutions. Counterexamples possibly include the American Revolution, though notably I struggle to point to anything concrete that would have been different about the world had America had a peaceful break off like Canada later on did.
Do you know of counter-examples, maybe relating to poor developing nations which after the rebellion became rich developed nations?
Thanks @ DOTheMath for sharing your understanding of the history of revolutions and military coups. You mentioned “revolution” which is categorically different from ” military coups”. Since revolutions usually had the support of both the middle class and the lower class including some portions of the elites, definitely they produced systemic changes and improved governance. Remember, most of the revolutions you mentioned succeeded because they were no or little vested interested to thwart the outcome of such revolutions as we see with the subversive meddling of an international syndicates in African contexts. Burkina Faso under Sankara was on it way to development, but he was coldly assassinated because it would be a bad precedent and insult for pro-democrats in the West to have a military regime offer better alternative for development. In the history of coups in Africa, 60 % of them had been orchestrated by foreign powers ( France in Central African Republic, Chad, Togo, DRC , Gabon while the US seems to be discreet and diplomatic in its support for military takeover see the recent coup in Never Republic). The point about this failure is due to the fact that vested interests would start threatening to sanctions such regimes, thus not allowing them achieve their mission: offer viable alternative. Conclusion , military takeovers are not intrinsically bad as evidenced in the support their received in some cases where what is now called a palace coup is orchestrated to remove a democratically elected president by the support and approval of Western governments. What do you say of the ousting of Muhammad Morsi of Egypt?
Overall, the last time I checked, I saw no real democracy anywhere in the world. Let’s take the United States of America for instance. How many political parties exist there? How many of them determine the federal policies? How many democracies embrace multiparty system? Majorly, we are having weak coalitions hiding behind single party system draining democracy of its substance.
Finally, I would rather we have revolution in Africa, where African peoples rise up against bad governance and foreign interferences in the domestic affairs of various African countries. Recently, we saw how the United States institutions reacted to Russian meddling in their electoral process under Trump. This same scenario has not allowed development under military takeover or democratic governments in Africa. A question I would love to ask: do you objectively believe that democracy is a gateway to development, of course development is such a vague term with varying definitions? If yes, show me a developed and independent country practicing democracy in developing countries that attained such level as seen in the Global North.
My understanding of history says that usually letting militaries have such power, or initiating violent overthrow via any other means to launch an internal rebellion leads to bad results. Examples include the French, Russian, and English revolutions. Counterexamples possibly include the American Revolution, though notably I struggle to point to anything concrete that would have been different about the world had America had a peaceful break off like Canada later on did.
Do you know of counter-examples, maybe relating to poor developing nations which after the rebellion became rich developed nations?
Thanks @ DOTheMath for sharing your understanding of the history of revolutions and military coups. You mentioned “revolution” which is categorically different from ” military coups”. Since revolutions usually had the support of both the middle class and the lower class including some portions of the elites, definitely they produced systemic changes and improved governance. Remember, most of the revolutions you mentioned succeeded because they were no or little vested interested to thwart the outcome of such revolutions as we see with the subversive meddling of an international syndicates in African contexts. Burkina Faso under Sankara was on it way to development, but he was coldly assassinated because it would be a bad precedent and insult for pro-democrats in the West to have a military regime offer better alternative for development. In the history of coups in Africa, 60 % of them had been orchestrated by foreign powers ( France in Central African Republic, Chad, Togo, DRC , Gabon while the US seems to be discreet and diplomatic in its support for military takeover see the recent coup in Never Republic). The point about this failure is due to the fact that vested interests would start threatening to sanctions such regimes, thus not allowing them achieve their mission: offer viable alternative. Conclusion , military takeovers are not intrinsically bad as evidenced in the support their received in some cases where what is now called a palace coup is orchestrated to remove a democratically elected president by the support and approval of Western governments. What do you say of the ousting of Muhammad Morsi of Egypt? Overall, the last time I checked, I saw no real democracy anywhere in the world. Let’s take the United States of America for instance. How many political parties exist there? How many of them determine the federal policies? How many democracies embrace multiparty system? Majorly, we are having weak coalitions hiding behind single party system draining democracy of its substance.
Finally, I would rather we have revolution in Africa, where African peoples rise up against bad governance and foreign interferences in the domestic affairs of various African countries. Recently, we saw how the United States institutions reacted to Russian meddling in their electoral process under Trump. This same scenario has not allowed development under military takeover or democratic governments in Africa. A question I would love to ask: do you objectively believe that democracy is a gateway to development, of course development is such a vague term with varying definitions? If yes, show me a developed and independent country practicing democracy in developing countries that attained such level as seen in the Global North.