1848 and 2011: Europe and the Middle East

[Peter1469]

Here is an interesting geopolitical piece comparing the failed democracy movements in 1848 Europe with the Arab Spring of 2011.

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/1848-historys-shadow-over-middle-east

Note: the author is using the terms conservative and liberal in their conventional sense, conservatives are those that support the status quo while liberals support change, sometimes radical change. The article is not using the modern American political meaning of those terms.

[Mister D]

I think he's using the tern "liberal" in its original European sense. I have a medal Freidrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia awarded for crushing the revolutionaries in Berlin.



http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/military_photos/imperial-germany-austro-hungary/217511d1312797826t-1848-order-dsc08074.jpg

Mine is in better shape.


Anyway, interesting article.

[Mister D]

I think the author makes a valid point when he compares the ethnic distrust and antagonism in the Hapsburg lands of 1848 with the Mid East today. He definitely has a greater respect for liberalism than I do but I enjoyed the article.

[Peter1469]

It certainly was interesting.

[Chris]

Yes, interesting article.

He seems to reject the analogy. While democracy flourished in the end after 1848, the differences seem to indicate it won't after the Arab Spring.

At least that what I get after a first read.

Reading it I draw some parallels to 1848 Germany and Plato's Athens resistance to democracy. Plato's political philosophy was repeated by Hegel who dies before but certainly influenced the era.

[Mister D]

Yes, interesting article.

He seems to reject the analogy. While democracy flourished in the end after 1848, the differences seem to indicate it won't after the Arab Spring.

At least that what I get after a first read.

Reading it I draw some parallels to 1848 Germany and Plato's Athens resistance to democracy. Plato's political philosophy was repeated by Hegel who dies before but certainly influenced the era.

The failure of the 1848 revolutions solidified monarchical rule in the German states and the Hapsburg lands. He says democracy flourished after the end of WW1 and I think he is referring to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian monarchies after the war.

The analogy between the ethnic tensions of 1848 and the contemporary Mid East is a poignant one, IMO.

[Peter1469]

Yes, interesting article.

He seems to reject the analogy. While democracy flourished in the end after 1848, the differences seem to indicate it won't after the Arab Spring.

At least that what I get after a first read.

Reading it I draw some parallels to 1848 Germany and Plato's Athens resistance to democracy. Plato's political philosophy was repeated by Hegel who dies before but certainly influenced the era.

Read it again; the democracy movements of 1848 failed. Communism and fascism rose.

[Chris]

They were successful for a time:

"Indeed, democratic uprisings in 1848 did not secure democracy, they merely served notice that society had become too restive and too complex for the existent monarchical regimes to insure both order and progress....


"1848 had tragic repercussions: While democracy in Europe flowered briefly following World War I, it was snuffed out by fascism and then communism."

[Chris]

While collecting those quotes, I noticed: "In Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington wrote that the more complex a society becomes, the greater the number of institutions that are required to govern it."

This contrasts with a piece by Stossel today, Complex Societies Need Simple Laws (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/03/14/complex_societies_need_simple_laws_113470.html).