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【中文标题】民主如何死去
【原文标题】How Democracy Dies
【登载媒体】Newsweek
【来源地址】http://www.newsweek.com/id/234891/
【译者】AK22
【原文库】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-233060-1-1.html
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【译文】
A global decline in political freedom is partly the fault of the middle class.
一次全球政治自由的下降，要部分归咎于中产阶级。
By Joshua Kurlantzick | NEWSWEEK 约书亚.库兰兹克（效力于东南亚对外关系委员会）
Political freedom blossomed in the developing world in the 1990s and early part of this century. While authoritarians still ruled most of Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia in 1990, by 2005 democracies had emerged across these continents. The Soviet Union had morphed into Russia, a freewheeling society that seemed to bear little resemblance to its grim predecessor. With the fall of Saddam Hussein, the overthrow of the Taliban, the apparent end of military interventions in Turkey, and the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami in Iran, even the Middle East, long the laggard in democratic reform, appeared to be joining the trend. In 2005, Freedom House noted that only nine countries experienced rollbacks of democracy; in its report in 2009, it registered declines in "40 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union." Indeed, the organization found that the number of electoral democracies had fallen back to 116, its lowest number since 1995.
九十年代及本世纪前页，政治自由的理念在发展中国家蓬勃起来。当1990年，独裁专制仍然掌控了大部分非洲、东欧和亚洲地区，直到2005年，民主才在这些大陆上初露萌芽姿态。苏联演变为俄罗斯，一个民主自由的社会，看似与他的前身没有多大相似。随着萨达姆的倒台，塔利班的失势，在土耳其境内军事干预的明显终止和伊朗改革派领袖穆罕默德.哈塔米，甚至在民主长期荒芜的中东，也开始加入到这个趋势中来。在2005年，设于华盛顿的国际性非政府组织——自由之家在其09年报告中说道，只有九个国家发生了民主的倒退。该组织记录了“非洲、拉丁美洲、中东和前苏联的40个国家”的民主倒退现象。该组织确实发现采取选举民主的国家已经降到了116个，这是继1995年来的最低值。
The culprits in democracy's decline may come as a surprise. Many of the same middle-class men and women who once helped push dictators out of power are now seeing just how difficult it can be to establish democracy, and are pining for the days of autocracy. Why has this happened? In many cases because the early leaders of the young democracies that emerged in the 1990s failed to recognize that free societies require strong institutions, a loyal opposition to the ruling party, and a willingness to compromise. Instead, they saw democracy as just semiregular votes; after they won, they then used all tools of power to dominate their countries and to hand out benefits to their allies or tribe. This narrow interpretation of democracy not only distorted the true meaning of the word but also alienated the public in many countries, who became disgusted that these democrats seemed no more committed to the common good than their authoritarian predecessors.
民主衰退的恶因可能会令人大吃一惊。许多曾经帮助驱赶独裁者的中产阶级，现在发现民主进程是如此艰难，并又开始怀念以前的独裁政府。为什么会有如此的变化？许多情况是，90年代涌现的那些年轻稚嫩的民主领袖们还没有意识到一个自由的社会需要强健的制度、执政党内有力的支持，必要时还要有妥协的魄力。 他们只是把民主当作是竞选时的半张选票，获选后就开始利用政治工具来鱼肉百姓，中饱私囊。这种狭隘的民主不仅歪曲了民主的本意，还让那些民众由于他们与前任独裁者相比在公众利益方面不太争气的表现与他们渐行渐远。
Too often, Western nations, which after 9/11 refocused their attention from the democratization of the 1990s to the war on terror, said little as democracy went down the drain. Sometimes, the West simply no longer had the time to stand up for democrats abroad. Other times, as in the case of Malaysia and Pakistan, authoritarian rule suddenly benefited the West, since the U.S. could rely on autocrats to help detain terror suspects indefinitely. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's linkage of the war in Iraq to democracy promotion tainted democratization in the minds of many, particularly in the Middle East.
我们时常看到西方国家，在911后重新把他们的关注力从90年代的民主化转移到了反恐战争上，于是他们对民主化的萎靡不振言之甚少。有时候，西方只是没有时间去支持国外的民主。其他时候，像马来西亚和巴基斯坦，自从美国使出借独裁主义无限期扣押恐怖主义嫌犯这招后，独裁专制突然给西方带来了好处。与此同时，布什政府以民主推行为目的而挑起伊拉克战争在许多人，尤其中东人的心目中，为民主化抹上了阴影。
The global economic crisis has also damaged democracy's appeal. To many middle-class men and women in the developing world, the spread of democracy was linked to the spread of capitalism, since many of these countries opened their economies at the same time as they embraced political freedom. As the crisis cuts into people's incomes, many blame democracy, in part, for the economic downturn. Dominican President Leonel Fernández said as much. "Expectations over the prospects of democracy in the region [Latin America] have given way to disillusion as democracy failed to boost economic prosperity," he declared at a summit of Latin leaders in 2008.
全球经济危机已经令民主魅力大减。自从大开自由经济之门并且实行政治自由以来，对于许多发展中国家的中产阶级人来说，民主就等同于资本主义。当危机涉及到人们的收入时，许多人指责民主，有一部分是以经济低迷为理由。多米尼加总统，里奥内尔.费尔南德斯说，“那些地方（指拉丁美洲）对于民主前景的预期已经破灭，因为民主没有给予他们经济上的繁荣。”他在08年一次拉丁领导人峰会上表示。
The result is that on nearly every continent, democracy is sputtering out. In Iraq, the first post-Saddam leaders relied on the bluntest tools of intimidation to defeat their rivals and rise to the top of the political system, disillusioning the population. In the recent Iraq election, voter turnout dropped from the 2005 poll, despite extensive advertising prodding people to vote. In the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2006 used an emergency decree to, in effect, declare martial law, and her reign has coincided with an increasing number of abductions and killings of left-wing activists by the security forces. In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen and his party, though also elected, have used libel suits in compliant courts and, allegedly, beatings and killings of activists to gain total control of the political system. In Russia, starting in 2000, Vladimir Putin took advantage of widespread anger at the collapse of Russia's economy in the 1990s to push through changes that crushed any chance for real democracy, replacing elected regional governors with ones appointed by the Kremlin, taking over nearly every independent political party, and neutering most of the media. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez has for more than a decade used his oil wealth to maintain broad popularity with the poor, winning election after election even while turning virtually the entire political establishment into a sycophantic chorus by shutting down independent media outlets, packing prominent state companies with his cronies, and using a national referendum to wipe out his term limits. And in many African countries, so-called reformers, like current Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, came to power vowing to promote real political freedom but soon used their office simply to crush rivals and favor their own ethnic allies.
结果就是几乎世界各地的民主火种都在熄灭。在伊拉克，第一位后萨达姆时代的领导竟使用愚蠢的恐吓手段令竞选对手就范，从而登上政治权利宝座，民众毅然破灭了民主的幻想。在当前的伊拉克，尽管各种鼓励民众参与投票的刺激手段已被悉数用上，可民主投票的到场参与率仍跌至2005年大选时的低位。在菲律宾，总统阿罗约于06年颁布了一道法令，事实上是一道戒严令，当时她执政期间正逢一系列左翼分子被安保部队拐骗和杀害。在柬埔寨，即使是通过民主方式选举出来的首相洪森和他的党派，也利用诽谤诉讼，据称还有殴打和杀害等手段，以达到掌控实权的目的。在俄罗斯，从2000年起，普京，利用自90年代以来民众对俄国经济衰退的广泛怨忿，进行了对于实体民主推翻的大改革，由克里姆林宫直接委任的地区领导人替代了民主选举，几乎所有独立政党被接管，还有大多数的媒体都被“俄谐”。那边叫查韦斯的，不止十年地用他在石油上发的财来笼络广大穷人的心，终赢得竞选。可赢得精选后，通过堵住那些独立媒体的出声口，在几个关键的国有企业安插亲信和一场国家公选以扫清自己的连任限期，这场民主胜利却把政治格局完全演变为一场献媚的合唱。而在大多的非洲国家，那些所谓的改革者，如现任肯尼亚总统，姆外.七八七，誓言要搞真正的政治自由运动，可不久就用官方名义肃清了对手，把实惠留给了自己的同胞。
One of the starkest examples of this phenomenon has been Thailand, which was considered by many in the 1990s to be one of the most promising young democracies in the world. Since then it has suffered one of the greatest comedowns. In the 1990s, Thailand passed one of the most progressive constitutions in the developing world, built a vibrant NGO culture that rivaled any in the West, and midwifed an unrestrained media that dug into scandal after scandal. In 2001, riding a wave of popular discontent following the Asian financial crisis, which had decimated Thailand's economy, Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire telecommunications magnate, won national elections on a promise to right the economy and bring social welfare programs to the poor, who make up the majority of the country but historically had been treated with disdain by elite Thai politicians. Once in office, Thaksin delivered on some of his populist pledges: his government launched a universal health-care scheme and delivered loans to each village to kick-start economic growth. The prime minister made an elaborate show of listening to the poor, traveling from village to village to hear even the most minor complaints.
在众多赤裸裸的例子中，泰国当属一例，它还曾在90年代被公认为众多杰出的年轻民主国家之一。但至此后，它却一路搞衰至极点。泰国先是通过了发展中国家里最激进的宪法，建立了一个乐于与西方大打擂台的非政府组织文化，不过也顺带产生了一个放肆的媒体，终日以在丑闻堆里挖老鼠屎为乐。在2001年，一个叫他信的亿万富翁、电信巨头，在亚洲金融危机之际，掀起了一股民众的不满，他通过承诺改善经济、施惠福利政策于广大穷人，而赢得了大选。那些穷人是泰国民众的基础，但历史上一直被泰国的政界精英所鄙斥。一经当选后，他信就发表了他的平民主义宣言：他的政府要实行广泛的医保计划，并把贷款发放给乡村来启动经济增长。这位首相装出一副津津有味地听取穷苦大众的模样，还一个村子一个村子地串访听取哪怕是最不起眼的民怨。
But Thaksin wasn't the boon to Thailand's democracy that he seemed at first. Instead, even as he was extending social protections he set about undermining many of Thailand's young democratic institutions. He gutted the civil service and the judiciary, replacing independent thinkers with cronies, and silenced the media by allegedly having allies buy into media groups and then silence critical reporting. Declaring a "war on drugs," Thaksin was accused by international and domestic human-rights groups of condoning extrajudicial killings and disappearances by the security forces. Prominent human-rights activists like lawyer Somchai Neelapaichit have simply vanished. Overall, more than 2,500 people died mysteriously during the drug war. Michael Montesano, an expert on Thai politics at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, says that Thaksin more closely resembles a Latin American caudillo, such as Juan Perón, than a democratic politician.
但他信不是他起初看起来的那个泰国民主救世主形象。正相反，虽然他扩展了社会保障，但他对于那些年轻的民主机构却使出了釜底抽薪的毒招。他挖空了公务员和法官职位上的人选，让亲信坐上了这些原本该独立思考的位子，据称还让族人买下媒体机构来让他们息声，然后压制了他们的一些负面报道。他信被国际、国内的人权组织控告他宣布的“毒品战争”行动中纵容安保部队法外杀人和致人失踪的行为。一些著名人权人士，像律师松凯.尼尔拉贝吉塔，就莫名其妙地消失了。总共有多过2500人在这场毒品战争中离奇死亡。迈克尔.蒙特萨诺，一位新加坡东南亚研究所的泰国政治专家，说他信比起一位民主政治家更像是胡安.贝隆这样的拉美元首（政治、军事一把抓的独裁领袖）。
One of the unlikely effects of such power grabs has been that in many of the countries where democracy has recently been rolled back, the middle class that once promoted political freedom is now also resorting to extralegal, undemocratic tactics—supposedly to save democracy itself. Middle-class Thai urbanites, for instance, bitterly disappointed by Thaksin's abuses and worried he was empowering the poor at their expense, have rebelled. Rather than challenging Thaksin through the democratic process, such as by bolstering opposition parties or starting their own newspapers, they tore down democracy by shutting down institutions of government and calling for a military coup, even while claiming to support democracy. In order to push first Thaksin and then his allies out of office, mobs of protestors tried to paralyze Bangkok in 2006, 2007, and 2008, launching a siege of Parliament and, in 2008, taking over the main airport, a move that wreaked havoc on travel to the country. Many called for a military intervention or some other kind of benign despotism to restore the rule of law and fight corruption, which they claimed had worsened under Thaksin. "We had to save democracy, even if it meant [ignoring] elections," said one Thai diplomat sympathetic to the protesters. The Thai elites got what they hoped for: Thaksin is in exile, his opponents are in power, and Thailand's democracy is shattered.
这种权利一把抓所已经造成的影响中，有一种是不太可能，在许多最新民主倒退的国家中曾经支持过政治自由的中产阶级正开始采取不合法、不民主的策略——可能是为了挽救民主本身。举例来说，泰国中产阶级的普遍情绪已经开始逆反了，他们对他信的滥用职权表示失望，并且担心他信要让中产阶级为他的平民政策埋单。中产阶级没有采取支持反对党或新兴自己的报纸的做法，他们关闭了政府机构并要求军变来扯下民主的旗帜，即便他们还声称支持民主建设。为了迫使他信和他的余孽滚出公务员行列，抗议者组成的暴徒们在06、07和08年试图通过围攻国会来让整个曼谷瘫痪，而且在08年，他们还占领了主要机场，报复性地打击了这个国家的旅游业。许多宣称要使用军变或其它温和专制以回复法制体系和反腐败斗争的人，反倒只有把他信留下的摊子弄得更乱。“我们要挽救民主，即便这意味着我们要‘跳过’民主选举，”一位泰国外交官不无同情地说到抗议者。最终，泰国的精英们如愿以偿：他信进入流亡，反对党执政，泰国的民主进程完全被粉碎了。
A similar pattern has played out elsewhere. Middle-class demonstrators in the wealthier eastern part of Bolivia have launched an antigovernment campaign against President Evo Morales, a populist former union leader who has tried to redistribute wealth, nationalize businesses, and use a national referendum to dramatically increase his own powers. In the Philippines, where a previous generation of Filipinos had gathered to bring down the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, middle-class Manila residents came together again to force out Joseph Estrada, popularly elected and beloved by the poor but accused of massive graft. After Estrada left office, many of the same middle-class protestors turned out in attempts to force out Macapagal Arroyo, though she survived and remains in office.
一个相似的例子在别处已经出局了。中产阶级的示威者在更为富裕的东玻利维亚发起了一场反政府运动来反对总统莫拉莱斯。莫拉莱斯是一位平民主义前工会领袖，他重新分配了财富，国有化了企业，还采用全民公投来大幅提升他的权利。在菲律宾，上一代的菲律宾原籍居民聚集在一起推翻独裁者费迪南德.马科斯，马尼拉的中产阶级则再次聚集起来逼迫埃斯特拉达下台，埃斯特拉达被穷人阶级广为推崇并爱戴，但却深陷贪污受贿的指证中。埃斯特拉达被逼下台后，那些推翻过他的中产阶级中有很多人又转而企图推翻继任的阿罗约，虽然阿罗约最终还是续任成功。
Disappointed with these elected autocrats and frustrated with the graft of young democracies, many middle-class activists in developing nations are now even longing for the old days of authoritarian rule. In Africa, recent coups in Mauritania and Niger were welcomed by the urban middle class, while data from the Asian Barometer surveys, regular polls that examine Asian attitudes toward democracy, show that many respondents have become dissatisfied with their democratic systems. "Support [in Asia] for authoritarianism is growing rather than diminishing," argue Yu-tzung Chang, Yunhan Zhu, and Chong-min Pak in an article titled "Authoritarian Nostalgia in Asia." Such is the case in Russia as well, where Putin, even as he wipes out most of the democratic institutions, enjoys staggeringly high poll numbers from the middle class and other segments of the population. In one recent Angus Reid poll, some 80 percent of Russians said they approved of Putin's performance, ratings that Western leaders can only dream of. Even in China, where it is the poor in rural areas who now take the lead in protests, the urban middle class appears comfortable with the ruling regime. In a Pew study focused on urban areas, a large majority of Chinese reported that they were happy with national conditions.
在对那些推选出的独裁者和贪污腐化的新民主失望、沮丧之后，许多发展中国家的中产阶级现在甚至渴望旧时的专制统治能卷土重来。在非洲，近日来在毛里塔尼亚和尼日尔的政变受到了城市中产阶级的欢迎；而从一份检验亚洲人民对民主制度态度的常规投票“亚洲晴雨表”的数据显示，许多民众的反馈都对他们的民主制不满意。“专制主义的支持度在亚洲不降反升” 张佑宗，朱云汉，白重民在一篇名为“亚洲的专制情绪死灰复燃”中讲到。同样的情况在俄罗斯也有，即使普京扫清了大多数民主机构，在中产阶级和其他民众中获得了极高的民众支持率。在最新一次的安格斯里德民调中，80%的俄罗斯民众表示他们赞同普京的表现，这样的民众支持率是西方领导望尘莫及的。即使在中国，那里贫穷的农村反对呼声最大，但城市的中产阶级却对统治政权表现出无欲无求的姿态。在一份美国的皮尤研究所（The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. 皮尤研究中心是以华盛顿为本部的美国智库组织，它向美国政府提供重大问题、民意和动摇美国与世界走势的信息）的研究中强调，城市地区绝大部分中国人对国情表示乐观。
The middle class's push back against democracy, by way of coups and other antidemocratic means, has disenfranchised the poor, sparking still more protests. In Thailand, crowds of protesters, most of them poor, have launched their own violent demonstrations that target the middle classes who tried to push Thaksin out of office. Similarly in Bolivia, the middle-class anti-Morales protesters now have been met with angry pro-Morales protesters mostly drawn from the ranks of the poor. In the Philippines, poor men and women furious that their hero Estrada had been forced out by the middle class launched their own counter-protests. Now, with the nation heading to another election, Estrada, out of jail and running again, is picking up support from the poor for his presidential bid.
通过政变和其它反民主手段，中产阶级对于民主的反水其实是剥夺了穷人的公民权，激化更多的抗议。在泰国，抗议的聚众，大多是穷人，他们准备发起自己的武力游行以针对试图推翻他信的中产阶级。同样在玻利维亚，反莫拉莱斯的中产阶级抗议者现在已经会见了愤怒的莫拉莱斯支持者，后者大多数来自穷人阶级。在菲律宾，穷人们因他们的英雄埃斯特拉达被中产阶级扫地出门而愤怒地发起了他们自己的反对抗议。现在，整个国家都想重新再搞一次大选，如今埃斯特拉达出狱在外，为重拾穷人对他总统竞选的支持而奔波。
These counterprotests have led to class divides that could take generations to reconcile. After more than a decade of fragile democracy, many institutions created in the 1990s have been destroyed, and those in power have few remaining tools to resolve political tensions. In Russia, for instance, even if a leader came into office who wanted to restore more freedoms, he or she would have to fight the Putinesque system and bureaucracy, which have centralized all power in the Kremlin. In Thailand, even if current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva wanted to return the country to the freedom of the 1990s, he couldn't, because during Thaksin's rule and then after the coup, Thailand's rulers tore up its reformist constitution, ruined the courts, and so politicized the media that newspapers now slavishly back either the pro- or anti-Thaksin forces. It would take years, if not decades, for a new leader to rebuild the civil service, courts, and other institutions with the type of trained, impartial people who'd been developed before.
这些反对抗议已经导致了阶级间的分水岭，能让不同层次的人消除隔阂。在十多年脆弱的民主之后，许多在90年代产生的民主机构已经被摧毁，其中那些有影响力的几乎没几个还能有办法去缓解政治紧张了。在俄罗斯，举个例子，即使一位领导想在加入政坛后还保有更多自由，他或她将不得不去挑战普京的体制和官僚主义，他把权利都集中到了克里姆林宫。在泰国，即使现任首相阿披实想让国家回到90年代的自由状态，他也不能，因为在他信的统治与军变之后，泰国的统治者撕裂了改革的宪法，控制了法庭，并且政治化了媒体。报纸现在趋炎附势地支持或者反对他信势力。新的领导人可能要花数年，估计不用几十年，来重新建设公务员部队、法庭和其它政府机构。他们需要的是早就训练有素，且公正无私的人来充实这些部门。
Perhaps the greatest problems are in Iraq, where millions of voters headed to the polls last week for the second time since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Many had high expectations for life after the fall of Saddam, but support for democracy soon dropped off in part because middle-class Iraqis witnessed the turmoil and political infighting of a new political system. At the worst moments of Iraq's post-2003 chaos, when the idea of Iraq becoming a model democracy for the Middle East seemed insane, many middle-class Iraqis, particularly Sunnis, began longing for the return of an authoritarian ruler, even one as brutal as Saddam. In one 2007 ABC News survey, only 43 percent of Iraqis thought democracy would be the best political system for their country. The turnout for the most recent election suggests many Iraqis remain disillusioned. And even if their democracy develops, they can't let down their guard. The history of other young democracies reveals just how fragile this success can be.
也许，现在问题最大的就是伊拉克了。上周数百万伊拉克民众前去参加大选，这是自从萨达姆下台以来的第二次伊拉克大选。虽然大多数人对后萨达姆时代的新生活有很高的期待，但民主制度的支持者却开始分化，因为伊拉克中产阶级见证了新整体的混乱和政治内哄。在最糟糕的2003年的混乱局面之后，当让伊拉克成为中东的民主模范这个念头变成了一个疯狂的想法后，许多伊拉克中产阶级，尤其是逊尼派，开始寻求一个专制的领袖，哪怕他是个萨达姆一样冷酷的人。在一次07年ABC新闻调查中，准哦有43%的伊拉克民众认为民主制度是最适合这个国家的政治体制。最新一次选举的出席人数显示众多伊拉克人仍对民主不甚感冒。历史上其它年轻的民主国家显示这样的成功性是多么的脆弱。
Kurlantzick is fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. 库兰兹克是东南亚外交关系委员会的研究员
编译交流 见10#
"a vibrant NGO culture that rivaled any in the West"
你的翻译是“一个乐于与西方大打擂台的非政府组织文化”，但我觉得"that rivaled any in the West"的原意应该是“和西方社会相差不远”。
shimo1989 发表于 2010-4-9 04:23 
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狗仔卡
楼主
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2010-4-8 22:30
其实挺伤感的 民主其实是个挺好的名词
现在发现中学里学的政治还是挺有用的！生产力决定一切社会制度！
，也谢谢版主大人