BALI, Indonesia — There's no guarantee that an intellectual counter-revolution will last any longer than a major monsoon. But there is in the works in this region growing disenchantment with the views of what one might call democracy fundamentalists. These are the people who insist that the democratic form of government is universally applicable, morally necessary in all instances and must be applied as soon as possible.
As an American, I was born and raised as a democracy fundamentalist. The notion that a democracy could be dysfunctional and that another form of governance could provide far better for the needs of the people was not in my civic vocabulary. But travel can do wonders to attenuate intellectual provincialism.
Here in Southeast Asia, perhaps especially, quiet doubts about democracy's universal salience continue to grow.