Dr. Steven Forde is a Lecturer of Politics and Political Philosophy in North Texas University and he is a specialist on Philosophy and Political Ethics. Regarding to the effects of building the culture of democracy, we addressed few questions to Dr. Forde in an exclusive interview and he expressed his views to Gulan Magazine as the following:

“Building the culture of democracy is an extremely difficult matter, because it seems that the culture of democracy has many different parts, and you sort of have to have them all in place in order for the culture to work properly, people have to know how to participate politically, one of the big issues in the culture of democracy is that people have to accept the outcomes of the elections even if they are the looser of the elections. People have to trust that if the other side wins the elections they will not take under advantage their power. So; first of all you have to create some kind of trust among the people, you have to create a political system where the party in power does not exploit their position but treat all parties fairly. And only when have that kind of situation people will be willing to trust the political system, and I think that part of it is that you have to build the trust of the people among themselves. The elections have to be about peaceful transitions of power. If you develop the culture of the rule of law, before you have that culture it is difficult to know to develop it, except by small steps and building trust. I don’t think that democracy is entirely the answer in the sense that in a culture of democracy if the ordinary people don’t have democratic values, then letting them vote will makes things worst. First of all; the common people must develop the proper attitude, then the parties will develop the proper attitude, and then the ruler will do what the people say. But the people have to learn to respect the rule of law first. Democracy is good but only if you already have a good political culture in place. As I said, you can improve the chances for good democratic transition if you prevent anyone party from dominating, and actually give people the experience of two or three peaceful transitions from one party to the other and back again, then you can build and develop that trust, and I think that if you set up proper institutions, at least it makes it easier, and make it more difficult for one party to dominate and takeover completely, I guess that’s how you would have to go about building the institutions. Create a balance of power among the parties so that no party is ever completely in control.”


Transcription: Qane’ Kakeiy