Elective surgery: democracy and freedom don't necessarily go hand in hand.

• Author: Hart, Gary
• Position: Book Review

THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria, W.W. Norton & Co., $24.95

THERE IS NO MORE CHERISHED political assumption in the United States than that democracy is good and every other form of government is either bad or inferior. In a book expanding on a thesis published in Foreign Affairs two years ago, Fareed Zakaria challenges that assumption and posits a superior alternative, one he calls constitutional liberalism.

Zakaria summarizes his argument as such: "Modern democracies will face difficult new challenges--fighting terrorism, adjusting to globalization, adapting to an aging society--and they will have to make their system work much better than it currently does. That means making democratic decision-making effective, reintegrating constitutional liberalism into the practice of democracy, rebuilding broken political institutions and civic associations."

Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, has written at least two-and-a-half books here, each different in its own way. The half-book is an historical survey of democracy's course from Roman Republic to the world of the mid-20th century, with emphasis on the merging and diverging of democracy and liberty. And an interesting survey it is, with provocative observations, such as that the Emperor Constantine left the bishop of Rome to produce a form of pre-democratic liberty. Zakaria's argument that the Roman Catholic Church brought democracy to the West by its promotion of liberty ("... liberty came to the West centuries before democracy") will surely provoke debate. The role of the Greek city-state is diminished as providing only the liberty (for land-owning males) to participate in government but not to be free of its arbitrariness.

The first full book is a treatment of the fate of democracy in nations and regions around the world in modern times, and liberty is often its counterpart not its handmaiden. Here the spotlight sweeps from post-war Europe through selected nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Zakaria draws a direct correlation between economic development and democracy. The higher the per capita income, the stronger the democracy--but only if the income is earned, not produced by the bounties of nature, as in Saudi Arabia. In so many words, he says countries with per-capita incomes between $1,500 and $3,000 have a chance to transition from autocratic or oligarchic rule, but that those below $1,500 are doomed to failure.

The author...