THE SWISS MODEL

        The confederation form of democracy has already been successfully employed for more than a century in Switzerland, a clear example of a country with religious and language differences that would make the Anglo/American model almost intolerable.
        Many of the Swiss states, or cantons, are the oldest democracies still in operation in the world. Originally they were small independent identities, some of which had been making democracy work at the local level for centuries, with long traditions of religious and political toleration, allowing them to be havens for controversial figures like Voltaire, Rousseau, Zwingli, Calvin, and others (including Lenin and his followers). Three of these cantons formed their first alliance in 1291. The alliance grew, and after a period of French occupation following 1798, they gained their independence again in 1815. In 1848 they drew up their first federal constitution.
        The founders of this confederation were faced with problems similar to those of many of the present new democracies. The population was divided into three language groups: German, French, and Italian (and even a fourth, lesser-known language: Romansh). If they had adopted the Anglo/American system--with national parties, nationwide elections, a national legislature, and a powerful chief executive--then one language group, almost certainly the Germans, would have won the majority in Parliament, elected the chief executive, and wielded power that would have been intolerable to the other communities.
        Instead they developed the federal cantonal system, with many functions reserved for the cantons and with the powers of the central executive limited to certain essentials like foreign affairs, security, international trade and finance, and so forth.
        There are twenty-two cantons, each with its own constitution. The cantons elect representatives to a bicameral national legislature every four years. The legislature then elects the cabinet (Bundesrat) of only seven members for four-year terms. These officials head the seven administrative departments of the federal government. Each year the legislature elects one member of the cabinet to be president for a one-year term only. He has little more power than other members of the cabinet and cannot be reelected until he has been out of office at least a year.
        The result of this structure has been that the four language communities have lived in peace and prosperity for more than a century, with one of the most stable societies (and currencies) in the world.

'DEMOCRACY' IN AFRICA

        Africa is another example where the many states created after World War II have in almost every case descended into economic decline or violent chaos. Here again the European statesmen set boundaries on the map with straight lines drawn with a ruler with little regard for the local tribes. And in all cases they also installed the Anglo/American political model.
        Thus, after independence in almost every country the tribes have had to adjust to the problems of nationwide political parties and a system in which the victor in the presidential and parliamentary elections has dominant power over all other minority groups. In such countries as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Zaire the result has been frequent violence and occasional bloody wars.
        Zimbabwe is a typical case. After Robert Mugabe, the leader of the largest tribe, took power in an election under the British-imposed constitutional model, his regime immediately began to harass the members of the next largest tribe and their leader, Nkomo, who had earlier cooperated with Mugabe in opposing white rule. Thousands of the minority tribe were slaughtered, and Nkomo had to flee for his life into exile outside the country.
        A similar problem faces the newly independent nation of Namibia. SWAPO, the majority party that took power after the UN-sponsored election, in fact represents only the majority tribe, the Ngandjera. SWAPO has already shown signs of harassing the minority tribes, and the whites fear that it will install a socialist one-party regime, a program it has advocated since it was founded with Soviet backing.
        South Africa is another striking example, but in fact in that country there was some attempt to install the Swiss model in at least one state. The white minority in South Africa did not stubbornly resist a one-man one-vote system simply because of bigoted racial intolerance or fear of losing economic advantages. Instead they had great anxiety that such a system would result in a completely black-run central government that would descend into tyranny and anarchy like almost all the black republics of the rest of Africa.
        A federal system similar to that in Switzerland was developed in one of the South African states, Natal, in 1986. There the white community working with the largest black group, the Zulus, under their leader, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, developed a proposed structure known as Indaba. Under this, each of the four major racial communities would elect leaders to a state assembly, which would govern the state but with no one racial group able to take complete power. The racial groups include blacks, whites, "colored" (i.e., mixed), and Asians. This would not be based on geographic regions as in Switzerland, but on these racial groupings.
        The central South African government at that time would not allow Natal to implement this constitution, fearing it would be an entering wedge for further democratization of all South Africa. But a similar model might certainly now be reconsidered for the entire country as part of the new efforts at compromise by the more moderate Mandela government. if it is not too late. It may be that developments are too far along toward efforts to hold nationwide elections on the Anglo/American model. Buthelezi's Inkatha party is resisting this, as are other tribal groups and various conservative white parties, as well as parties representing the "colored" and Asian populations. All fear the consequences of domination by the African National Congress, whose followers are mainly of the Xhosa tribe, longtime rivals of the Zulus, and include also many cadres of the Communist Party.

SOUTH ASIA

        India is made up of sixteen states and several more subdivisions, many of which were independent princedoms before the British took over. Many have their own languages, alphabets, and great centuries-old literature. There are a total of about fourteen languages and more than seven hundred dialects.
        India also has a serious minority problem with large numbers of Muslims and the militant Sikh sect, which feel oppressed by the Hindu majority. There is also still the serious caste problem, which leads to great injustices in some states despite the earlier efforts of Gandhi and his followers to eliminate it.
        Nevertheless, India is trying to operate with a system of nationwide political parties and nationwide elections for a chief executive and a legislature. When the Congress Party won large majorities in nationwide elections, it wielded almost total power.
        The result has been a postindependence history of political controversy and violence and tension between the various racial, religious, and caste groups, which seems to be getting worse now that the Gandhi/Nehru legacy, which had provided one rallying point for stability, has declined in influence.
        Sri Lanka, where the Tamils and Ceylonese have been waging a bloody war, is another example. South Vietnam is an additional case history of how the Anglo/American model was urged upon the local politicians, with fatal results. After the departure of the French and the fall of the emperor, Bao Dai, the South Vietnamese installed a constitution similar to the French or American, with nationwide elections for a national legislature and a chief executive wielding broad national power.
        But South Vietnam was made up of a number of groups with rival aims and traditions. The largest religion is Buddhism, but unlike most Asian countries, which have only one of the two major Buddhist sects on their soil, South Vietnam had large numbers of both major sects, the Mahayana and Theravada, plus several subsects. There was also a large Roman Catholic population, including many who had fled from the North. Then there were the large Cao Dai and Hoa Hao sects, each with more than a million followers, which even had their own private armies for several years until disarmed during the Diem regime.
        The result was a chaotic political scene in which the country had difficulty mounting a successful defense against the North. In some of the national elections more than twenty-three parties took part. The last president with any significant time in office, Nguyen Van Thieu, was elected with only 32 percent of the popular vote, against a large number of minority party opponents. This worried not only Thieu himself but many of his fellow citizens, because the Vietnamese, like many Buddhists and other Orientals, believe that a good ruler should rule with "the Mandate of Heaven," and 32 percent was not that.
        With the defeat of the South Vietnamese in 1975 and the takeover of the country by the North Vietnamese communists, this subject might appear to be moot, but it is a good example of how the Anglo/American model is unsatisfactory for many emerging democracies.

THE USSR

        The Soviet Union had even greater problems with racial and religious differences. During the 1970s and '80s, as the dissident movement in the Soviet Union began to grow and gain increasing support from ŽmigrŽs and sympathizers abroad, many ŽmigrŽs as well as forward-thinkers within the Soviet Union began examining the issue of what form a future democracy should take in their vast country.
        The Ukrainians, of course, speak a different language. Ukrainian resistance movements have been active for more than a century in efforts to throw off the yoke of foreign oppressors. They must have set some sort of world record for the number of foreign rulers they have fought during the past seventy years, including the Germans, Poles, and Communist Russians.
        Then there are the southern republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) and the Muslim states (the Kazakh, Kirghiz, Turkmen, Tajik, and Uzbek republics). These also have their own languages, as well as strong religious and nationalistic elements and literatures.
        Among the most notable ŽmigrŽs studying this problem is Vladimir Bukovsky, a brilliant writer who was one of the earliest dissidents in the Soviet Union to make a major impression both within the country and in the outside world. After his imprisonment his case was so dramatic and well publicized that there was a large international movement to secure his release. He was finally allowed to leave the Soviet Union in exchange for one of the top Soviet spies.
        Bukovsky then became active in Western anticommunist circles and was one of the founding leaders of Resistance International, an organization promoting the democratic movements in seventeen communist-controlled countries including Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Angola, as well as the Soviet republics.
        Another man working on this issue was Vladimir Maksimov, an editor of the influential Russian-language ŽmigrŽ magazine Kontinent and a friend of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's. The writings of these people and their associates, and certain commentaries broadcast on Radio Liberty outlining their views, led to a number of accusations that they were "against democracy" or even in favor of fascism or a return to czarism. Solzhenitsyn himself subscribed to many of these views and was also accused of being against democracy or in favor of a return to a nationalistic authoritarian state.
        The attacks on these people and their views reached a peak in the 1983--86 period, when there was an organized campaign against U.S. international broadcasting efforts to communist countries. The management and many of the writers and commentators at Radio Liberty and the Russian Service of the Voice of America were accused of "anti-Semitism" and criticism of American democracy and of advocating an authoritarian regime for the Soviet Union.
        Boris Paramonov, a writer at Radio Liberty, answered this criticism in a letter to the editor appearing in the Washington Post on November 11, 1983. He said that he, Maksimov, and others had been working on a project to produce a model constitution for a future noncommunist Russia. This, he said, was not a "manifestation of anti-democratic opinions." Rather, he said,
        "a democratic alternative for Russia is not direct borrowing of political mechanisms already existing in the West but instead turning to the Western--and even the Russian!--experience of a federal organization of society. ... [T]hese same ideas form the foundation of Europe's oldest democracy, Switzerland."
        By 1989, unfortunately, the distortions and opposition to the ideas of this ŽmigrŽ group by their radical critics prevented this model from being considered when the dissolution of the Soviet Union began to proceed so rapidly in the following years. There is a possibility that if their ideas for a confederation of the former Soviet states had been implemented, we might see a much more stable situation in that vast area today. Certainly the tragedy in Chechnya would have been averted.
        Even among the separate "independent republics" that have emerged from the wreck of the Soviet Union, there are several that might still consider this Swiss model for their own constitutions. Despite efforts to set up republics based on national characteristics, many of these still contain large minority populations. In addition, in many of them there are problems with allowing one national party to take total power, especially when this turns out to be the remnants of the former Communist Party, which has managed to gain power in "free elections" in several of the present republics. A Swiss model for such republics might also be a valuable alternative to allow at least a few decades of experience with democracy before they are allowed to be ruled by one nationwide majority party.

TESTIMONY FROM A THIRD WORLD CITIZEN

        Many other nations have similar problems with racial, language, and religious rivalries, which cause great difficulties if the Anglo/American model is adopted. A dramatic description of such problems was given in October 1982 at one of the U.S. State Department conferences on "Democratization in Communist Countries." The State Department sponsored several such meetings as part of the Reagan administration's efforts to promote democracy, in line with the president's speech before the British Parliament in June of that year.
        This particular conference was addressed by several American and foreign experts on political science from academia, the government, and private think tanks. After an opening address by George Shultz, the talks ranged over the possibilities and methods for promoting democracy in communist-dominated and other authoritarian countries. But one representative of a Third World nation, who insisted on remaining anonymous in the published transcripts, said that none of the speakers up until then had mentioned the problem that the American system of national parties and one all-powerful chief executive might be disastrous for his and many other Third World nations. He said it could be literally a "matter of life or death" for him and many other leaders. If one party in his country were allowed to take total power, he and some of his associates might be executed. He added that in countries with bitter tribal or language differences, some form of federal system was absolutely essential.
        The Swiss confederation model, of course, is not a miracle cure for all Third World problems. Even its proponents grant that it is not an ideal form of government, or the most effective in promoting quick and decisive action on all governmental problems. But it is undoubtedly preferable to the Anglo/American model for nations with mixed populations.
        Some of Switzerland's success is due to the fact that it has been able to preserve its neutrality within its Alpine strongholds while much of the rest of the world has been torn by wars and revolutions. The system was undoubtedly the preferable one for Switzerland and other nations with similar racial or religious differences.
        As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is a very poor form of government. The problem is that all the other forms are so much worse." A confederation is not an ideal structure for ensuring an efficient administration, as our Founding Fathers discovered before drawing up our Constitution. But the problem is that all the other forms, including the Anglo/American model, are so much worse for many countries.
        Churchill himself eloquently described how the British model was inappropriate for a variegated country like the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In his dramatic history of the Eastern Front in World War I, The Unknown War, he says this about prewar developments in the Hapsburg Empire:
        "Disruptive forces were actively and increasingly at work within the Empire. ... There was not in the declining Empire any force equal to that which has imposed throughout all innumerable national schools of the United States one single language and one universal secularism. Each race in the Dual Monarchy indulged its separatist tendencies to the full, and reviving ancient, even long-forgotten tongues, used these as weapons in ever-extending hostilities."
        "Vain to assemble such contrary elements in an Empire Parliament house. Vain to suppose that the processes and amenities of English House of Commons procedure would afford expression to such bitter divergences. Parliaments can only flourish when fundamentals are agreed [to] or at least accepted by the great majority of all parties. In the Parliaments of the Hapsburgs bands of excited deputies sat and howled at each other by the hour in rival languages, accompanying their choruses with the ceaseless slamming of desks, which eventually by a sudden crescendo swelled into a cannonade. All gave rein to hatred; and all have paid for its indulgence with blood and tears."
         Emerging democracies that have such diverse elements within their borders must decide whether they want to remain united or face the problem and agree to separate. In countries like South Africa, where the divisions within each area are not so much geographic as racial, the separation option is not available and they must struggle to attain some form of confederation based on different elements within the legislature elected by the various groups in the population, similar to the Indaba model in Natal.
        In many countries in Africa, where the major tribes inhabit well-defined areas of each country, a federal system based on traditional geographic areas would be more feasible.
        Many things need to be done before democracy becomes more widely accepted. As is well known, there are vast areas in Asia and on other continents where the people have never experienced democracy or even the concept of voting. The process of education will be long and difficult. In China, for example, except for a minority of the best educated or traveled, people have no concept of voting or political parties. When democracy was first tried after Sun Yat-sen's revolution in 1911, there was wholesale buying and selling of votes, and people did not understand why this was wrong. In the first election, workers for some candidates would bring to the voting booths large bundles of ballots that they had openly purchased. In the 1912 election the prices for votes for leading candidates were actually listed in the newspapers of Shanghai and Canton, fluctuating from day to day like stock market quotations. People did not understand why, if it was all right for a capitalist to pay you to work, a politician could not pay you to vote.
        In 1994, the United Lao Movement for Democracy, a U.S.-based group of prodemocracy ŽmigrŽs from Laos, produced a film including an intercept of an official TV broadcast from Vientiane, the capital of that communist country, demonstrating what that government considers an "election." It shows a table at which a Laotian government official hands ballots but no pen or pencil to a line of peasants. Each peasant then walks solemnly across and deposits the blank ballot in the ballot box. This, says the announcer, is an election, showing that they have now installed "democracy."
        As stated earlier, the promotion of democracy has become an increasingly important element of U.S. foreign policy. The Clinton administration and Congress after lengthy controversy will continue the U.S. Information Agency, Voice of America, and for a few more years Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty with somewhat reduced budgets. This will include a new Radio Free Asia (now called the Asian Pacific Network) to cover the communist countries of Asia, similar to RFE/RL.
        The statement by then Secretary of Defense Les Aspin quoted earlier, releasing the administration's defense budget and declaring that "the Clinton administration will act vigorously to promote democratic reforms," included one item of no less than $50 million simply "to support efforts to institutionalize and expand military-to-military contacts with other states, which will expose foreign military officers to democratic traditions."
        There are also many private efforts now going on to "teach the techniques of democracy" to the emerging nations. People are being recruited by foundations to travel to eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to teach the fundamentals of democracy, business and marketing management techniques, and a free-market system.

CONCLUSIONS