Democracy in Interwar Europe Giovanni

¶ … Democracy in Interwar Europe

Giovanni Capoccia's journal article "Defending democracy: Reactions to political extremism in inter-war Europe" provides readers with historic data demonstrating that a democracy does not function merely as a result of a series of factors favoring the ideology. The article shows that democracy is capable of operating in spite of lacking such factors and "Spain after Franco: The Making of a Competitive Party System" generates information regarding how it can collapse in the face of having access to important advantages. These four articles speak about the factors that lead to the breakdown of a democracy and the ones that precede it.

The case of Czechoslovakia, according to Capoccia, is essential in having people understand why a country is able to maintain a democracy in critical times. The fact that the country's leaders were involved in promoting education and influenced people in becoming literate played a very important role in having them understand more about morality and about why it was beneficial for them to adopt a certain attitude in regard to themselves and to society as a whole. In order to successfully combat anti-democratic thinking, nations produce and install experimental political stratagems, "whether inclusive or repressive in nature, which are explicitly aimed at reacting against those political forces that exploit the rights and guarantees of democracy in order to undermine its fundamental bases" (Capoccia, 2).

Countries like Finland, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia experienced increasing tension in the 1930s as extremist forces grew in power and threatened democratic beliefs. The fact that these extremist powers were represented by political parties made matters even worse, considering the lawful character of the situation. High development levels however made it difficult for anti-democratic convictions to evolve and assisted democratic nations as they struggled to avoid being influenced by authoritarian principles. Capoccia underlines the fact that alienated communities did not hesitate to get involved in extremist parties in democratic countries, but that the circumstances in the three countries provided the perfect setting for democracy to dominate other ideologies. This was, however, harmful for groups favoring democracy because they came to be targeted by Nazi forces and by minorities. Being part of an intellectual community supporting democracy in a period when the Third Reich was concentrating on Germanizing occupied countries was particularly detrimental for the majority of individuals in Belgium, Finland, and Czechoslovakia. To a certain degree, Finland's collaboration with Germany was beneficial because it provided Finns with the opportunity to maintain a somewhat democratic form of government.

Czechs were especially affected during the Second World War as a result of the fact that their government was unwilling to cooperate with Nazi forces. The Slovak population in the country contributed to the collapse of democracy in the state, as Slovaks started to express an increasing appreciation of nationalist principles because they acknowledged that this would assist them in allying the Nazis. Their political orientation started to destabilize the country in the late 1930s and eventually led to the breakdown of democracy. Capoccia's belief that it was actually democracy that made it possible for the Czechoslovak state to be dissolved is likely to be correct, considering that the government's reluctance to ban the Sudetendeutsche Heimafront, a small party meant to promote the German minority in the country contributed to its political system being seriously weakend.

Spanish nationalism was crucial in influencing people in Spain to accept the Franquist regime, as they felt that it would provide them with the opportunity to have a better control over their country's resources. "Spain after Franco: The Making of a Competitive Party System" addresses this issue in particular and highlights the connection between this type of philosophy and people's interest in developing a cultural identity. Supremacist ideals apparently made it possible for people to ignore existential theories in wanting to adopt discriminatory attitudes against those who were considered to be part of a minority. Franco instructed people concerning the damage that the Spanish civilization was undergoing as a consequence of hosting a great deal of individuals who respected and even promoted ideals that challenged the stability of Spanish cultural values. The Franquist regime basically influenced people in thinking that democracy was bad for them because it destroyed everything that they stood for and because it would eventually bring the Spanish society to an end. The writers of this article are inclined to focus more on Franco than on the country's population. The fact that the Spanish were willing to support an unjust regime simply because it assisted their culture played a significant role in destroying Spain's chances of having a democratic future for several decades.

Similar to how conditions were in Spain during the early 1930s, a series of other European countries that were likely to become democrat during the decade employed nationalist principles because people in these states were either inspired by developing extremist states like Germany and Italy or simply considered that minorities were vulnerable and thus had to be blamed for most negative experiences they underwent. Bermeo perfectly exemplifies this by revealing a country's anti-democratization process step-by-step. Citizens are disappointed with the fact that their leaders are inefficient and turn to developing extremist thinking in an attempt to help their country recover. The scholar is wrong in categorizing ordinary citizens as innocent individuals who fall victim to the poor conditions that they live in. These people were capable to distinguish between right and wrong and were most likely aware of the fact that they were unethical in deciding to favor extremism. However, they continued to support immoral ideologies because they believed that this would provide them with better lives. The fact that individuals who were actually innocent suffered in the process was a mere obstacle for them. Minorities were in most cases victims of majorities in countries that abandoned democracy in favor of extremist ideologies. The masses were generally inclined to do anything in their power in order to install a system that favored them, even if this meant that they had to perform criminal acts against groups that were not necessarily corrupt.