In a recent Boston Globe op-ed piece HDS Greenway makes the argument that democracy might not be for everybody. Africa only gets peripheral mention in this particular version of a fairly common argument that is probably true as far as it goes. But the problem I always have with these sorts of contrarian exercises is: who gets left out?

Fine. Democracy is not for all nation states, I guess. But at what point do we make these decisions and based on what? It is all well and good to assert, as Greenway does, “In much of Africa democracy has provided a shell under which gangsters plunder and beggar their people.” But in these cases is the problem really democracy? Or that Africans are somehow incapable of supporting democratic institutions? Or is there something else — much else — at work here?

Embracing defeatism hardly seems like a workable approach. Nor does abandoning principles behind democracy. So, yes, democracy might not be for everybody, but surely democratization could be, given the right approach, with local concerns and ideas at the forefront, with an understanding that changes won’t happen overnight, and with the realization that democratization needs to go hand-in-hand with development. Greenway’s is surely a call for a more realistic perspective on what can and should be done in Afghanistan, but at the same time it can be seen as a determinist or even an essentialist argument against even making the effort. Realism, whatever that actually means, is fine. Fatalism is not.