A Quote by Richard Holbrooke
We should not be surprised that democracy is imperfect even in Western countries.
Related Quotes
But the Western countries that link their partnership with the poorest countries with respect for democracy also have to consider that they have obligations towards these countries.
I think clearly the United States, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other countries to move in that direction.
I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than most western countries.
Exporting this Western model of democracy in countries that don't want it or are not ready creates disasters.
President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan's capacity to secure and govern itself.
Democracy is an internal subject of the developing society. There are fundamentals of democracy, and they should be understood universally in different countries.
It’s notable that the countries that most pride themselves on their commitment to equality, human rights, and democracy (like the United States and the western European countries) are precisely those that, in the late twentieth century, invented a new status (‘illegal’) in order to deprive some of their residents of access to equality, human rights, and democracy.I am honored to lend my name to PICUM’s campaign to end the use of the term ‘illegal’ and to challenge the whole concept of illegality as a status.
If the level and amount of consumption and waste of the western rich countries ever reaches the poor countries, it will mean the end of humanity. The big world corporations are busy doing it...The production, selling, consumption, accumulation, wastes' and advertisement explosions in the western rich countries and the continued population explosion in the poor countries will turn into major catastrophes.
Look, there is parliamentary democracy in most European countries, there is parliamentary democracy in Japan, there is parliamentary democracy in many countries, but in the United States, for some reason, the State is organized differently, there is quite a stringent presidential republic.
In countries where democracy is either non-existent or in development, on the other hand, citizens crave those freedoms. Maybe that is one lesson Western citizens can learn from those countries: treasure what you have. Use your rights and freedoms to effect the change you want.
The United States of America or the Western countries, they don't have a problem with Islamists as long as they are neoliberal capitalists and promoting the economic order. And the best example is the petro-monarchies. The petro-monarchies, they don't want democracy. They say there is no democracy in Islam. But they are within the economic system.
Some people say that the West has a cruel history. These people also may see the achievements of Western countries - in terms of the economy, education, health, and social achievements - as a result of exploitation of poorer countries, including Arab countries. Western nations get rich by using resources such as Arab oil. Meanwhile, the countries supplying them raw materials remain poor. Due to such injustices, jealousies are created.
Islamic laws this is something Americans should look into, maybe not in the near future, but I think people are definitely looking for alternatives to a capitalist democracy. The democracy that we find in the Western world is just not providing them solutions.
I gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2016 and warned of Trump. America has survived for almost 250 years with its imperfect democracy, but, you know, maybe it's a better democracy than elsewhere. And I am sure American democracy will survive.
Until the nineteen-seventies, Western countries paid little attention to corruption overseas, and bribery was seen as an unpleasant but necessary part of doing business there. In some European countries, businesses were even allowed to deduct bribes as an expense.
Public policy is a study in imperfection. It involves imperfect people, with imperfect information, facing deeply imperfect choices - so it's not surprising that they're getting imperfect results.
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