In Why Nations Fail or related topics especially those of economic development or political science, we cannot see how to develop a country suppose you were a victim in a failed country. At least you are not the leader of a country [you would not read this piece of writing if you were!]. This book attempts to give guidelines, at least hope, for the victims, the suppressed, of dictatorship to topple dictatorship to set up a lasting democracy. Those who aspire to install democracy in their own country are the targeted audience of this book. Those who want to be a citizen of a country instead of a slave for other men are encouraged to read this book.
Personally, this book gives me hopes, a hope that democracy can be set up in any country and there is a way you can switch from dictatorship to democracy.
I read the 4th US edition, kindle version. Below are its sections:
1. Facing Dictatorships Realistically
In Cambodia, for instance, people around me always hope for the interventions of US, UN or EU to lift their country out of poverty and dictatorship. People need to know that they need democracy. Thus, it has to come from within. This is not to say that US interventions, for instance, are useless but it has to begin with that end it mine: teach them to democratize.
Violence does not end dictatorship. It removes one for another to come.
2. The Dangers of Negotiations
Negotiations can be used under certain situations. That is possible when there is a strong democratic opposition. In addition, political defiance is necessary.
3. Whence Comes the Power?
Where does political power, or any kind of power, come from? Why people do what other people tell them to do? The answer to these questions also tell what weaknesses dictatorships have.
4. Dictatorships Have Weaknesses
5. Exercising Power
Where should one start? Where is democratic opposition strongest? Military struggle? Of course not. That is where dictatorship is strongest. Tautology one may say. Political defiance is the answer.
6. The Need for Strategic Planning
One may see the spontaneity of popular uprisings against dictatorship in many countries such as in Arab Spring. Dictatorship does not last as it can't have another good dictator to continue its unpopular regime. Democracy would not last as well if democrats do not plan for its full installation. The latter sections deal with the need to plan, how to plan, how to apply the political appliance to disintegrate the dictatorship and lastly how to make democracy last.
7. Planning Strategy
8. Applying Political Defiance
9. Disintegrating the Dictatorship
10. Groundwork for Durable Democracy
Full title: From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
Publisher: Albert Einstein Institution, May 2010
Author: Gene Sharp
My rating: 5/5
